March 16, 2012—At Sea
After the late night, I slept in till after 7:00am. My parents said they didn’t hear me come in,
so at least I didn’t disturb them when I came back to the cabin last night (or
early this morning).
I had coffee and breakfast in the buffet. The rest of the day we didn’t do a whole lot—just
relaxed around the ship. In the
afternoon, my parents and I went to the casino where I lost all the free play
the casino had given me. Then it was
back to the cabin to get ready for formal night.
We had an early dinner at 5:30pm when the dining room first
opened so we wouldn’t miss the Captain’s Champagne Waterfall Reception. My Dad had a voucher for a “free” bottle of
wine from his travel agent so I used it to get a bottle of white wine even
though I hadn’t finished my red. I say
“free” since the voucher was only for $20 and the wine started at $24 and up
and I ordered a $28 bottle. (You would
think that a travel agent would at least cover the entire amount of the wine.) But at least we only paid $8 for the bottle
that I ordered. Surprisingly, my mother
has been having some wine at dinner with me, and she doesn’t usually drink! She had the red wine the previous night and
had some of the white tonight. Jerry,
our waiter, teased her last night about having to drive the ship after drinking,
saying that since she was drinking wine, he would sleep with his life jacket on. Tonight, he said “Captain (although he
pronounced it “Kap-ee-tan”) you did a good job driving the ship last
night.” The rest of the evening, he
called her captain (“cap-ee-tan”). My
Dad said he would now be able to say that he sat at the “Captain’s Table” every
night of the cruise. Jerry, not to be
outdone, then said he would be able to say that he was privileged to serve the
Captain every night. We were really
enjoying having Jerry as our waiter.
Dinner was, of course, excellent. My mother and I both had the crab quiche with
roasted red pepper salsa for an appetizer—it was wonderful. It was so good that after having his usual
double shrimp cocktail, my Dad ordered the crab quiche too! The shrimp I had for a main course was also
very good. I had my usual cappuccino
after dinner, then headed for the Captain’s Champagne Waterfall Reception.
The Cruise Director, Kelvin Joy, introduced the master of
the Diamond Princess, Captain Bob Oliver.
Captain Oliver then introduced his key officers. After the introductions, the Champagne Waterfall
began. Champagne glasses are stacked
fairly high in a pyramid. The Maitre d
helped passengers pour Champagne into the top glass; when that top glass was
full, it spilled to the next level and so on (hence the “waterfall”). Any passenger who wanted to do this could
line up. My parents had seen this before
on their previous cruises, but had never actually participated—this time they
did. While they were in doing this,
Paolo found me. Then my parents came
over and I introduced them. We talked
for a couple of minutes, and Paolo told us he would let us know when he could
do a bridge tour for us. He also
mentioned that it might be possible to have dinner one night and if so, he
would let us know that as well. He then
left to go back to his duties.
My parents went back to the cabin and I headed for the
lounge. I didn’t stay long since I knew
I’d have to get up early the next morning for our excursion in Bangkok, and was
back in the cabin and asleep by 10:30pm.
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