Sailing towards Halong Bay, Vietnam

Friday April 10

After another lovely night's sleep, gently rocked by the motion of the moderate seas and cruising slowly at about 8 knots, we decided to have breakfast in the dining room. Today is another day at sea so there's no need to leave the ship and run around on shore. Instead we can please ourselves and there is plenty on the activity schedule to keep us entertained.

We always like to attend the talks on the upcoming port, so we did this again to find out some background to our visit to Halong Bay tomorrow. Following that was a presentation on the art of fruit and vegetable carving and decorating, and the chefs presenting this made it look very doable, so we'll give it a try at home. As the chef said, if we mess it up we can always make a soup from the bits!

Nikki the Culinary host, and arrangements - it's hard to believe they are vegetables!

 

It was a bit cooler today and overcast so the roof over the mid-ships pool was closed making it pleasant to sit around the pool while enjoying another delicious noodle soup lunch. We chatted to Claire, one of the main dancers, as it's always nice to know the "real person" behind the performer we see on stage. There was a special performance this afternoon by various musicians on the ship and they did a show with a Mexican/Spanish flavour that was excellent - even Carlos, our cruise director, sang a song and his voice was very good (shades of Julio Iglases) and he added a bit of fancy footwork to some of the numbers as well. We really enjoyed the whole show. There are some really talented people on board.

Tonight was our third formal night, and the last one in this segment of the cruise which finishes in Hong Kong (but we continue on for another 2 weeks). On Formal nights Surf & Turf is on the menu and we finished off with a lovely Grand Marnier soufflé - delicious. Then it was off to the show, which was the best one to date. Afterwards we couldn't go past Piano Man Tom as he was playing songs from the Beatles and they are always great for a singalong.

We returned to our cabin and found one of our favourite visitors in our room. The cabin stewards make a different animal every night when they come to turn down our bed and it's a nice surprise each night to see what they have made. You can even buy the book on how to make them!

 

 

 

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