Day 1 at sea:

As at 12.15pm we had sailed 240 miles, with the sea at a depth of 3,500 metres.

My goodness, we actually slept till 8.10am!  Primo!  Usual tea routine, then up to the buffet in the main dining room at 9.45am for a Brunch Buffet Extravaganza.  They open the buffet for 15 mins for photos, then everyone out till 10.15am when they open for dining (see foodie blog for photos).  The ship is very busy today as it’s an at-sea day, and the queue was huge to get into the dining room, but as we had already taken photos we were pretty much at the front.  We sat with this hideous American couple – the guy had retired after working for Delta Airlines, and his wife still worked for them (she definitely was not air crew).  If you work for them minimum of 10 years and still with them by age 52, when you retire you get free travel for the rest of your life.  He retired 3.5 years ago and has been to 187 countries (and he was ground crew).  When we said we were living in Australia, he said, “oh, you poor things”.  Yep, that kind of ugly attitude.  However when we said we were Kiwis he said, “oh I love New Zealand – it’s just so beautiful”.  Turned out he’d only been to Auckland for a couple of days.  He figured he’d seen the whole country.  Couldn’t wait to finish our brunch and get away from them.  We blobbed the rest of the afternoon – read our books – didn’t do much else really cause we were so full from brunch and quite happy to have a day off.  Got ready for dinner then went and watched On Point again – they really are hard case as they get the giggles in the middle of a song and have to try and hold it together.  They totally failed tonight and had to stop, recover, then start the song from the second verse.  Good fun.  These sets usually go for 20 mins.  Went to the theatre to see Carl Andrews, a magician and sleight of hand expert.  He was very good.  R was sure he was going to catch him out, and see him passing cards up his sleeve or wherever.  Nope.  He even took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves so he couldn’t do that.  All the card tricks were projected live on the big screens so you could see close up.  The theatre shows start at 7pm for an hour, then we have 30 mins before dinner.  So, creatures of habit, we went to see On Point again who had another set at 8pm.  Then off to dinner, and the other couple from our table joined us last night, so there were six of us.  They will not start a conversation, but will answer questions – kinda like trying to get blood out of a stone.  Hope we don’t see them tomorrow night – ooh, how uncharitable!