This cruise started with lots of sea days, as we crossed the vast Pacific Ocean and we were so looking forward to seeing ports. However, after 8 very busy port days, I am really enjoying getting back to the quiet sea day routine. Today is our 2nd of 3 sea days, as we pound across the Tasman Sea towards Hobart, Tasmania.

Temperature: 13C/65F – rather chilly, considering we were in the tropics 10 days ago

Wind/Weather: Overcast & rain showers, rather windy

Sunrise/Sunset: 06:09/20:50

Clox: Back 1 hr (Z+12)

Navigation

We have continued pounding our way in a Westerly direction across the Tasman Sea, Unable to hear the “Old Man’s” Noon announcement today, so don’t know distance steamed or speed.

Weather

The wind is reasonably consistent at W’ly from 25 to 30 kts, which on its own shouldn’t cause a rough passage. However, we are also dealing with a significant swell, which is causing a fair bit of rocking & rolling. Based on reports from others, we clobbered a pretty good sea about 03:00, which caused a fair bit of shuddering throughout the ship. We slept through it.

Same weather as yesterday

Meals

Today’s special meals:

• Pool Stage (11:30 to 14:00) – Dim Sum and Fried Rice

The Dim Sum was well done, with 3 options plus the fried rice. I had a small scoop of fried rice and one of each, which were all well done. The special lunch was in conjunction with a meet and greet with the ship’s senior officers.

For dinner we were back at table 151, sharing it with the couple from NE Pennsylvania that we dined with a few nights ago, and another couple from Florida. After our waiter Andrian’s menu briefing, I had a serious dilemma – 3 main courses of interest:

• Prawn Curry (I always like curry) – not recommended by Andrian
• Sweet & Sour Pork – highly recommended by Andrian
• Braised Beef – also highly recommended

While I planned to go with the curry, I went with Andrian’s suggestions, having a smaller portion of S&S Pork as an appy, then the Braised Beef for main course.

Braised Beef Dinner

Andrian reported the beef was so tender, as Chef stated it was cooked slowly for 7 days, thinking it might be 7 hrs, but regardless it was so tender, no knife required. The sauce was delicious, so very happy I went with the waiter’s recommendation.

Sounds like we have drank the ship out of IPA again, this must be a record, as it only took 1 week. Our other waiter Spike sent the wine steward to fetch a local Pale Ale, but in the interim brought me a Porter, but he had already poured me a glass of wine. Must have been a shock for the others, as they arrived at the table, with me sitting with a glass of wine, porter and IPA.

Andrian also provided a head’s up on tomorrow’s extravaganzas from the Galley:

• Pool Stage (lunch) – burgers and lobster
• Pool Stage (dinner) – Tomahawk Steak night

During the T-Bone (20 ozs) special, I took one for the team and enjoyed a full steak, but a 30 to 40 oz steak is definitely not on the agenda. Don’t even think we can finish one between us, so have arranged to meet Ron & Alison at 17:30, so we can share one between the 4 of us.

Activities

My regular nurse continues to ban walking and stairs, so no early start and fresh air for me, yet again. Since I was about 3 days behind, I fired up the laptop about 05:00 and got started. After a full day of hunting & pecking on the keyboard and tweaking photos, I completed the posts about 17:50, which gave me 10 mins to change for dinner.

After breakfast we headed down to the Living Room on Dk 1, which being the lowest deck and about midships, is the best place for Judi to escape the motion. I worked furiously on photos and then started crafting the daily posts. Believe I completed 4 days today.

Daily trivia was an early kick-off at 11:00, so our team reported for duty with the pressure to remain champions increasing. With 3 in a row, could we make it 4. Sadly, we choked, changing a correct answer to a wrong one, just as we handed the paper over. While we would have scored 10 without making the change, we ended up with only 9, which was 1 short of the 3 teams scoring 10. One of our team also got the tie-breaker question correct. Oh, well we will return tomorrow.

Returning to the cabin after lunch, we received a message from the tour desk thanking us for the Akaroa tour feedback and apologising for the changes and experience. They have completely refunded the entire tour cost, which is way above what I expected. To recap – I mentioned that the 6.5 hr tour we purchased had been curtailed to 5 hrs and at no time did I request a refund. At best I expected a partial refund for the shorter tour. Yet again, Viking Customer Service is exceptional.

Elle Adda

The evening show starred a young lady, who sang the songs of Edith Piaf. Wasn’t my type of music and it was mostly in French, so for me it wasn’t that enjoyable. However, we all have different tastes and many others seemed to have enjoyed the show immensely.

As another day closes, we bid you farewell, till tomorrow and hope for fair skies and following seas.