Day 27: Lost at sea

How is it we can do nothing and not have time to scratch ourselves? We seem to have less free time on sea days than we do when we go on shore.

Some of it is dull stuff like doing the laundry. I help Emma drag it up to Deck 9, then I head off to Spanish class, and catch up with her after this for lunch.

Jim Brochu talked about Lucille Ball. He was quite good friends with her, and teared up more than once talking about her.

The first time he met her was a near-disaster: he had dropped a play off for her to read, which she liked. The next day he came around to discuss it, and when he went to sit down he broke a chair: “I broke your chair.”

“Get another one,” was Lucy’s response.

So he did. That one broke too.

He picked up a third chair. “This one seems solid.”

“So did the other two” she replied.

This one didn’t break.

After this they played backgammon and talked about the play – more the former than the latter, so Lucy said he’d have to come back the next day. That was Jim’s birthday, so he jokingly told her “it’s my birthday, so you need to buy me a present.”

“How about a chair?”

She actually did buy him a present. A watch, with a note that read “I’ll always have time for you”, which he still wears today.

In the afternoon was the Mozart Chocolate Tea in Palm Court. That’s “Chocolate Tea” as in “chocolate and tea served separately”, which was nice, as opposed to “chocolate and tea served in the one cup”, which would be horrible.

In Emma’s words, “too much food and a Mozart’s outfit”. The staff dressed up in 18^th century clothing, while we pigged out on chocolate in 21^st century style.

At 4.30 we did the galley tour. The logistics of planning, stocking and preparing food for 980 guests and 560 crew is challenging, especially when the ship misses a port it’s meant to stock up in. In that case the Executive Chef hits the shore and goes shopping. I can’t imagine what it would be like on one of the huge 4,000 guest ships. The logistics would be nightmarish.

We were the last group through, so we were lead by the Executive Chef himself, Manfred Schaller.

One of the guests asked what his worst disaster story was.

On this cruise it was running out of escargot on French night. Bad, but not disastrous.

But the very worst was his first cruise with Crystal in 1999, when the crew hadn’t told the kitchen staff to expect rough weather that night. In true Pacific Ocean style the ship hit huge swells, and the kitchen showed up the next morning to the food prep from the night before all over the floors. The serving plates hadn’t been secured either, so the galley and serving areas were covered with broken plates and crockery. To make things worse, all the other breakfast serving areas were shut down due to the rough conditions, so the demand on the main restaurant was higher than normal.

Now that’s disastrous.

Then was has a sunset that was so awesome it deserves two photos, even if they suffer from being taken from our stateroom:

After dinner with Arnold and Joy we caught the Liar’s Club show in the Starlite Lounge. Jim Brochu, Ken Rees, Ronn Lucas, and comedian Jon Courtenay were given four words. One of them had to give the real definition, the other three had to make up some bit of nonsense, and the audience tried to pick who was telling the truth.

I have a reasonable vocabulary, but I have never heard of any of these words, and didn’t have the slightest clue what they meant. “Eruption” and “Biggin” we can remember. The other two were something like “chrematophobia” and “threpedophilia” or something near-impossible to remember like that.

The answers they gave were hysterical, and rather more adult than usual. I guess all the kiddies were in bed, and since it was coming to the end of the cruise none of the performers worried about being thrown off the cruise.

Whatever. It was hysterical.

Then, since there was a strong rumour that our exile at sea was coming to end, we went to bed. Just in case.