At Sea

At Sea (Nov 30 - Dec 1, 2016)

Nov 30 (Wed) - at sea

            Today was a day at sea. We had to change our watches forward one hour. We attended a presentation on the artist Thomas Kincaid. It was very interesting and we learned a lot of things about his paintings. We learned that he puts Norman Rockwell in many of his paintings, places his wife's initials (N) and his daughter's names in the scenes, and includes a lot of symbolism.

Thomas Kinkade paintings

When we are in port we usually have all-day excursions, which means we don't eat lunch on the ship. When we have "at sea" days we go to the lunch buffet.

All-you-can-eat lunch

Another advantage of "at sea" days is that you can soak in one of the several hot tubs on the ship.

Two of the pools and four of the hot tubs available

Dec 1 (Thu) - at sea

            We had to set our clocks ahead by another hour today. There is a two-hour time difference between Australia and New Zealand. They spread it over two days so there isn't as large a time difference. After breakfast we went to the library and looked at the books they had. They don't have a large selection, but it is a fun area on the ship. 

The library

Diane went to a presentation about opals since it is her birthstone. Opals are precious gems that can't be synthesized because they don't know how they are formed. She tried on a necklace ($2,000) and a  bracelet with three opals surrounded with diamonds ($17,000). Needless to say, we didn't buy anything.  After lunch we watched the art auction for a while. It was interesting. The auctioneer talked very fast. 

We then went out in the afternoon to take pictures of some of the areas of the ship.  Too bad Diane didn't have time to relax in all of these places. (Actually it is cool enough on the ship that most of the resting is done in our room).

Diane on lounge chair

Even better lounging

Outdoor bar (closed for us)

Wooden bench

The ship is nicely decorated for Christmas. It's not quite like home, however, it's summer here.

Diane is ready for Christmas

We attended an afternoon show called "Chiko: One Man Show". It was really good. The evening show called "Amade" used acrobats and dancers.

To be continued: