Monday, June 4th …..

Maybe I was wrong in my estimation of the number of Australians on board as the place seems to be crawling with them today. I saw a couple who reminded me of Robyn and her friend, Pam, who are booked on a cruise to New Zealand on the Sun Princess. What made them stand out from the crowd was that they each carried a green Woolworths bag. I hope Robyn reads this and leaves her Woolies bag at home when she goes on her cruise – very embarrassing. Marilyn tells me not to worry: apparently, Robyn carries her Harrods bag wherever she goes and Harrods, of course, is where all the best people shop.
It’s interesting sailing with people from Asia. I know we tend to lump them all together and expect that they will all behave in the same way but, of course, each nationality has different traits and within each group are individuals. One thing that does stand out is that they don’t tend to become involved in the things which are popular with European or American passengers. Today, Bingo was almost deserted, the cup cake decorating class had no takers and the art auction was a washout.
Constantine, the auctioneer tried his hardest but hardly raised a flicker of enthusiasm. He started by trying to identify who was in the ‘crowd’ of about twenty people. He must have expected the Chinese passengers to turn up because he brought an interpreter with him but he only had one, there were no Koreans, no Poms, about three Japanese and the rest were Australians. When he asked whether there were any other nationalities one clown at the bag said, ‘Tasmania’.
I know there were two Americans there because they sat beside me, but they had only come for the free champagne. I noticed that they drank the first one quite quickly and the woman hopped up to get fresh ones. Fair enough, except they disappeared too and the man, this time, went up to get the next lot. I nudged Marilyn and we watched closely, three drinks gone and the woman is heading off to get more. She came back with a sad face so the bloke heaved himself to his feet and went off to bully the poor waitress who was handing them out. It took him a while but back he came with their fourth glass each. He must have softened up the waitress because his wife (and drinking partner) had no trouble in getting their fifth which they managed to finish before the auction actually began, so they didn’t have to sit through that. Ah, life on the ocean wave.
We woke up this morning to fog which didn’t clear until about 3 o’clock. The sound of the foghorn was one thing but the band was playing the theme from Titanic. All we needed was an iceberg to make the trifecta. It’s just after 6.30pm and the fog has come in again so we’re in for a mournful night.
It’s formal night tonight and we’re booked in for dinner at 8pm and we’ll probably try and stay up for the show at 10. It’s called Absolutely Fabulous and is based on the music of the 60s and 70s which swept America. We’ve seen a similar show on the Diamond Princess and if this is half as good I’ll be delighted.