At Sea (2 Days)

            Sunday, 11 March 2018 – We barely made it to breakfast in the Terrace Café before the 10:00 AM closing time. When we were almost done, Helma stopped by our table, and then later, Rich joined us.  We talked until 12:00 PM!  Later, we were back at the Terrace Café for lunch, of course just before their 2:00 PM closing time.

We had been discussing the possibility of making a deposit, while still cruising, for a future Oceania cruise.  The deposit is fully refundable if not used within a two-year period.  Also, they give you a $100.00 shipboard credit on your current cruise, plus a best price guarantee up until the day of sailing for the future cruise.  Anyway, we’ve enjoyed this cruise so much that we decided to make a deposit for a future Oceania cruise, which we plan to apply on a portion of the World Cruise that starts in January 2020.  Rich and Helma have booked 162 days of the Word Cruise and will be sailing round trip from San Francisco. That’s a little too long for us!

Jesse's Birthday Dinner with Rich & Helma

We swam for 30 minutes before meeting Rich and Helma in the Grand Dining Room at 7:00 PM for dinner, taking with us the bottle of champagne that we had won for dancing.  Since we would be leaving the ship prior to Jesse’s 17 March birthday, Helma had told the Maitre D that today was Jesse’s birthday, so the staff sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesse and gave us a birthday cake and ice cream to share!  As usual, after dinner in one of the dining rooms, we finished too late for dancing tonight.  Before retiring, we sat our clocks ahead another 30 minutes.

Jesse's Birthday Cake

Monday, 12 Mar 2018 – The ship’s original itinerary had included a stop at Penang, Malaysia for today.  However, since our departure from Yangon, Myanmar, had been delayed on 10 Mar 2018, there was not adequate time in our schedule to accommodate the stop at Penang.  So instead, we were awarded another relaxing at-sea day!  (So sad – not!)

Again, this morning we barely made it to the Terrace Café for breakfast; however, since Jesse woke Sally too late from her afternoon nap for us to make it there at all for lunch, we ate lunch outside at the Waves Grill.  There, we had salads, ice tea, and shared a milkshake for lunch.  This was our first milkshake on the ship.  It was made only with milk and ice cream, so it didn’t compare to the delicious milkshakes we enjoy at home!   (Sally liked it a lot.  She thought it tasted homemade.)

After dinner we danced again.  Christina and Spiro had one of the other passengers take a photo of the dancers.

Dancers (R to L):  Jesse, Sally, Spiro, Christina, Bob, Lois, Gloria, Lloyd, Marni, & Harry,