Day 66

at Sea

We have one day to travel to our next stop. Dalian, China. It is nice to have a day to recover. Port days can be stressful when you are your own. HAL tours are like being on the ship. The only thing missing are staff holding trays of muffins at each stop. The independent travelers are much more prepared, knowledgeable, and concerned at each port. There aren’t many of these travelers on this cruise.

The ship feels empty. Over half of the passengers went on the HAL overland tour to see the Terra Cotta warriors. We considered the tour during our planning stages last year. It just didn’t interest us. This tour left Shanghai and will return to the ship when we port in Tianjin. This is a 5 day tour and we need to be highly motivated join this kind of tour. We aren’t.

There was a putting challenge today. 5 holes. One was down a set of stairs. We had fun. Terri and I took the first two places again.

We are still trying to book excursions on the new stops made after the change in the itinerary. There was a tour offered by HAL that had 4 spaces open. We were highly motivated to book this excursion. It left at our stop in Maputo and rejoined the ship in Cape Town. A few nights were to be spent on a train that has been made into a hotel. The train is parked on a bridge that overlooks a national park.

We knew that this excursion would book fast. Booking the tour was to begin at 2 pm. At 1:30 pm, we each had our phone, laptop, and ipad connected to the booking site. We continually refreshed our devices and waited for “book now” to appear. At 2 pm, we saw 4 spaces left drop to 2. The site then crashed and by the time it was back up, all spots were gone. We went and spoke with the excursion director on the ship, Niran. We are number one on the waitlist if anymore space opens up. It doesn’t look hopeful.

We played group trivia. It was a lightning round. Which commonly known tone is a combination of a 350 mhz and 440 mhz tone. Did you get dialtone? Who went on to a successful musical career after writing music for McDonalds and State Farm? tell me you said Barry Manilow. Which name did the British ecological party adopt in 1985? Green Party. How many wives does Islamic law limit a man to have? We said 40 but the answer is 4. I actually thought there was no limit. Which continent are black swans found in? Australia. Which French Polynesian Island did James Michener christen to be the “most beautiful”. Correct if you said Bora, Bora. Which company gave women the pantsuit in 1969? Ives Saint Lauren. We didn’t win but did rather well. There is always a team that gets close to 100%.

Evening entertainment was the return of the Four Stations. We didn’t they were very good on their first set and skipped them to play some cards.