Brisbane - Day 16 - At Sea
Just what the doctor ordered after a full day - a nice relaxing down day. It started with rain, but that cleared to calm seas and blue skies. Much of the morning was spent reading and just lazing about the cabin.
We did drag ourselves up to the Provincial dining room for wine tasting. It was mostly aimed at the Australian crowd, featuring three Aussie brands, two French and an Italian. I wasn’t delighted with any of them. One white smelt of burning rubber which the person running the tasting tried to convince us was leather. I don’t think so… Still we sat with two other couples and they were a hoot. We ended up talking about British murder mysteries and how none of us would like to live around Midsomer. :D Surprisingly, one couple hadn’t even heard of Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, despite it being films in Melbourne. They gave us some suggestions, but we didn’t wrote them down. Sigh… We did chat with a couple who had flown 27 hours from London to SF to Sydney to Brisbane for this cruise. They were staying in Brisbane for a week and then taking another cruise, this time to Fiji on the Enchanted Princess.
After that, we came back to the ship to get gussied up for the Captain Circle party. It’s nice, you get to meet the senior members of the staff and get some free drinks. The Captain is quite the hoot and made the whole thing very lighthearted and fun. He unveiled Princess’s latest ship - the Sun Princess. When all is said and done, it will hold 7,000 passengers and crew. I can’t believe that, although I have been surprised with this ship. It has 2,000 passengers and it’s never felt like that, except for a couple of times at the buffet. Mostly, it feels uncrowded and open, even the pools.
Dinner was lovely. Franco, the dining room captain, had picked out a wine for me and it was really good. Really scary good. It tasted, well, it tasted of home with the fruitiness we’ve come to expect from California wines. Finally an Australian wine I like… except *surprise* it’s from Monterey County just down the coast from us in California. Seriously, I couldn’t have been more surprised. We shared it with Franco and one of our waiters (he’s learning wines) and a nearby table who had been listening. I have always felt that wine is meant to be shared.. So much so, that the contents of the bottle evaporated. :DD I ordered another one for our last night on board.
We started chatting with a very nice couple beside us. They are from Brisbane. James was a financial analyst, just retired, and the other, Nick, develops software. They travel extensively and gave us some heads up about the Singapore airport and other stuff. They suggested we check with IBIS hotel at the airport to see if they have day rooms as we get off the ship at 9:15 and our flight doesn’t leave until 11:30 p.m. (it did and we have a room until we leave - I need to buy them a drink!).
Dinner was, again, delicious. I started with smoked salmon, then a double beef broth and followed it with Fettuccini Alfredo. Glorious! TBG had a prawn cocktail, a salad, then king prawns. He was too stuffed for dessert, but did manage to handle some petit fours. :D Another glorious night!
We did drag ourselves up to the Provincial dining room for wine tasting. It was mostly aimed at the Australian crowd, featuring three Aussie brands, two French and an Italian. I wasn’t delighted with any of them. One white smelt of burning rubber which the person running the tasting tried to convince us was leather. I don’t think so… Still we sat with two other couples and they were a hoot. We ended up talking about British murder mysteries and how none of us would like to live around Midsomer. :D Surprisingly, one couple hadn’t even heard of Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries, despite it being films in Melbourne. They gave us some suggestions, but we didn’t wrote them down. Sigh… We did chat with a couple who had flown 27 hours from London to SF to Sydney to Brisbane for this cruise. They were staying in Brisbane for a week and then taking another cruise, this time to Fiji on the Enchanted Princess.
After that, we came back to the ship to get gussied up for the Captain Circle party. It’s nice, you get to meet the senior members of the staff and get some free drinks. The Captain is quite the hoot and made the whole thing very lighthearted and fun. He unveiled Princess’s latest ship - the Sun Princess. When all is said and done, it will hold 7,000 passengers and crew. I can’t believe that, although I have been surprised with this ship. It has 2,000 passengers and it’s never felt like that, except for a couple of times at the buffet. Mostly, it feels uncrowded and open, even the pools.
Dinner was lovely. Franco, the dining room captain, had picked out a wine for me and it was really good. Really scary good. It tasted, well, it tasted of home with the fruitiness we’ve come to expect from California wines. Finally an Australian wine I like… except *surprise* it’s from Monterey County just down the coast from us in California. Seriously, I couldn’t have been more surprised. We shared it with Franco and one of our waiters (he’s learning wines) and a nearby table who had been listening. I have always felt that wine is meant to be shared.. So much so, that the contents of the bottle evaporated. :DD I ordered another one for our last night on board.
We started chatting with a very nice couple beside us. They are from Brisbane. James was a financial analyst, just retired, and the other, Nick, develops software. They travel extensively and gave us some heads up about the Singapore airport and other stuff. They suggested we check with IBIS hotel at the airport to see if they have day rooms as we get off the ship at 9:15 and our flight doesn’t leave until 11:30 p.m. (it did and we have a room until we leave - I need to buy them a drink!).
Dinner was, again, delicious. I started with smoked salmon, then a double beef broth and followed it with Fettuccini Alfredo. Glorious! TBG had a prawn cocktail, a salad, then king prawns. He was too stuffed for dessert, but did manage to handle some petit fours. :D Another glorious night!