Tuesday, March 17

The mystery of the dodgy entertainment has been solved.  Cruise ships don't carry their full complement of entertainers from the beginning of the cruise.  They fly in and out from various ports as required.  As we have been floating around unable to dock, we haven't picked up the gang who were scheduled for the second half of the voyage.  Once Fiji was deleted, Port Vila was the likely place for them to fly to, but Pam got there first.

Anyway, they've done the best they could.  Last night's Ballroom Fever was great.  Strangely, half of the songs were in Spanish, I imagine designed for an Hispanic audience sailing out of the US.  Royal Caribbean really doesn't make many allowances for their Australian passengers: US currency, drinks, attitudes, entertainment, and so on.  It amazes me that in the region where the world's best white wines are made, you can't get a decent Sav Blanc.  Even the cereals are American.  How ludicrous is it to ship in container loads of little boxes of Granola and Raisin Bran from the US.  I'm sure the same goes for most of the packaged or frozen food on board.  Nobody in Australia benefits from the large quantities used.  

In Mare today and most people are getting off.  It's warm but there are some pretty heavy, grey clouds so we could be in for a bit of rain.  I suspect the captain will be happy to be heading back to Australia tomorrow.  It can't have been the easiest of cruises.