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Round and Round We Go

Posted on May 23, 2019March 27, 2022 by bollingerbabe

For some reason I didn’t sleep well – the night seemed endless.  Maybe our circadian rhythms were still awry after all the time zones we’d passed through, but I kept waking up and either going to the bathroom, or standing at the balcony doors looking out to sea, where I could see the faint white outlines of the cresting waves and hear the wind whistling.

Eventually I got myself a glass of water and turned on my Kindle to read some of the latest Peter James book, Dead At First Sight.  Finally, about 6.00am, I drifted off to sleep and slept until after 9.00am.

The Pacific Ocean was still pretty lively and we noticed that the doors leading out to the open decks were roped off with signs saying “Caution: High Winds”.  Any activities today would be confined below decks.

At 10 o’clock we attended another lecture by historian/geologist Charles Richardson, this one entitled “Alaska: From Dinosaurs to the Iditarod”.  We had no idea what an ‘iditarod’ was, but found out it is an epic dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome which takes place every year in March.  We learn something new every day on these cruises!  As ever, the talk was very interesting, but it was marred slightly by a woman sitting behind us who spent most of the talk asleep with her mouth open snoring loudly, much to my annoyance.  I couldn’t understand why her husband didn’t wake her up!

Afterwards we went along to The Den and  I enjoyed a pre-luncheon Aperol spritz, then we returned to our stateroom in time for the noon navigational information.  Looking at the live map of the Quest’s progress, we could see we hadn’t really gone all that far from Dutch Harbor, just going round and round in circles.  The wind seemed to have calmed by now and we couldn’t feel the ship’s motion so much, so hopefully better weather was ahead of us.

We ate lunch in the Windows Café as usual, passing pleasantries with other passengers as well as one of the waiters, a guy called Jonanthan who hailed from Mauritius.  The staff on board the Azamara Quest are fantastic; no sooner have you cleared your plate and put your knife and fork together when the plate is whisked away and you are asked if there’s anything else you’d like – nothing was ever too much trouble.

As today we should have been visiting Kodiak and the entertainments programme had to be put together in a hurry, they had done a sterling job.  The cabaret was taking place at two o’clock today, as there was no featured entertainment tonight. This was because they were putting on the famous Azamara “White Night Party”; apparently this is a feature of every cruise and is a grand deck party where everyone has to wear something white, and all the tables are decorated with crisp white tablecloths and napkins.  Tonight, however, due to the inclement weather, the White Night Party was taking place at 9.00pm in the Living Room.

At two o’clock we therefore bagged ourselves a seat in the Cabaret Lounge to watch “Azamara Presents… Broadway Cabaret”. This featured all of the singers and dancers, accompanied by the talented Igor and his band, performing a selection of the Broadway greats.  It was the usual high standard we’d come to expect.

We then spent some time pottering around before the quizzes at four o’clock where we were joined by Dale and Susie.  The first quiz was flags of the world and we expected to do quite well, as we’ve been to 89 countries.  However, some of the flags were very obscure and some were very similar which made them confusing (for example, Australia and New Zealand) – we noticed that a lot of the flags from countries in the southern hemisphere featured the Southern Cross constellation.  Anyway, we only scored 18/30 which was appalling considering we were all well-travelled!

The next quiz had questions all based around Walt Disney films and we had high hopes for Dale, who is a former film producer.  Trevor and I hardly contributed anything at all, leaving Dale and Susie to answer the questions, but we still didn’t score enough to win.  It didn’t really matter, however, because we enjoyed the company and the conversation as well as one or two cocktails.  🙂

We then went our separate ways, back to 6009 to start getting ready for the White Night.  I wore a blue and green lace top with a pair of white jeans, and I was aghast at how much tighter they were when I put them on!  There is an old joke about cruising, that strange phenomenon everyone notices where the salt air causes all your clothes to shrink!  🙂

Trevor wore black trousers with a crisp white cotton shirt, and thus attired we proceeded to the Windows Café, where they were holding a sumptuous international buffet.  My tight jeans were a constant reminder for me not to eat too much!

We then made our way up to the Living Room, where the party was going to be held.  Waiters were putting out more seats around the room; it was obvious that a lot of people were expected.  Trevor and I bagged ourselves a bar stool and watched as the room quickly filled up.  It looked really good, everyone wearing something white, in fact some people had dressed entirely in white from head to feet.  From our vantage point on our bar stools (which we’d turned around in order to observe the action) we could see the vast expanse of Pacific through the big wrap-around windows overlooking the bow, as well as the Riviera Sounds and, indeed, the ship’s orchestra, who had been relocated here for the evening.

Once the music struck up the dance floor filled rapidly and the spare chairs around the room quickly became occupied; in fact we’d never seen the Living Room this full and we were pleased that we’d come along early.  We didn’t join the packed dance floor but we enjoyed people-watching, as well as plenty of the deliciously-cold cocktails. We tried to put out of our mind that our cruise was fast approaching its end and tomorrow would be our last night on board.  🙁

After 11 o’clock the room emptied out a bit, and the staff came round and removed the extra chairs.  Then the disco started and the die-hard dancers remained on the dance floor.  It was around midnight when we returned to 6009, and we settled down for the evening in excited anticipation of our arrival in Homer tomorrow morning.

 

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