Day 8 March 14 – At Sea

Day 8 Saturday March 14th was a slow photo day. Sadly, our port of Kona was cancelled due to the terrible weather hitting the Hawaiian Islands. Below are a couple of text messages my sister Stacy sent me showing the amount of rain and wind over the last 48 hours in Hawaii. Jackie showed me photos of Maui and the terrible pictures of flooding of homes, streets and businesses.

The daily Currents for Saturday

We slept in this morning and finally got out of the cabin around 11am to grab some lunch at The Waves Grill. Jackie had a ham sandwich (sometimes you just have to take a step back)

I hit the special grill meal again today — beef kabobs and a potato stuffed with cheese and sort of like taco beef.

After lunch I met David Chen in the Cigar Lounge before going to the 3pm Speaker Series presentation by James Grant-Peterkin on Operation Mincemeat. I am addicted to this guy’s daily (at sea) presentations. This talk was about a spy story that happened in WWII that possibly played a big part in the success of the Normandy landings.

David and I “met” through the World Cruise Facebook page. Unfortunately for David, his credit card had been compromised while the cruise was going around South America. So, we worked it out that his new credit card would be sent to me in Cut Off and then I would bring it to him in San Diego. Now, I have to laugh because when I gave him my home address, he tells me that he didn’t want to ask me, but he thought I had misspelled the name Cut Off.

We made plans to meet in our cabin at 5pm as David had bought tequila down in South America and had some limes so he was going to make margaritas for us and a couple John and Joan who live in Slidell, Louisiana. We called the butler to arrange for some snacks, and he called us back as Joan had ordered some to be delivered to our cabin. It would have been quite a feast as it was more than enough with Joan’s order. So, we met at 5pm with David and Marta along with John and Joan and tested out David’s bartender skills which were superb. It was a great time talking about their cruise thus far and the rest of the world cruise. We decided to all eat in The Terrace Cafe for dinner. It was great fun and we appreciate the four of them including us in their group. When the night was over, I realized that I had not taken any photos, but we still have 112 days to get a group photo.

Our original cabin steward has left the ship to return home and we have a new steward. Her name is Ivana. You know I have to give her a hard time her first night. I told her hey the other cabin steward gave me a present every night and Ivana’s first night I didn’t get a present. So, last night when we got back to the cabin we had these two items waiting for us. We each received a cap, but under Jackie’s cap was a blue tote bag. I didn’t get one so that is good to give me something to give her grief about…laughing. Also, we received pins for achieving new levels in Oceania’s Captain Club. I think there is a party on March 16th and we are supposed to wear our new pins. At this rate, we will need a new suitcase to carry our haul back home in July.

Photo of the digital map on the pool deck showing the ship’s located last night