Our visit to New Zealand may have been over, but we still had another two days at sea on which to enjoy the Celebrity Edge and all that she had to offer. Also, as we headed further north the weather should warm up a bit, so we looked forward to spending more time out on deck. 🙂
We had to be sure we spent all of our on-board credit before we left the ship in Sydney, so I decided to book a wash and blow dry in the salon. Tonight was ‘evening chic’ night as well, which is the closest Celebrity comes to formal night.
Therefore, after breakfast, I went up to the spa and booked an appointment for four o’clock, then we looked at the programme to see what we fancied doing today.
There was a presentation on at 9.00am called “Hollywood Goes To Australia” in which the speaker told us all about the different films that had been made ‘down under’ such as Mad Max and Babe. He also spoke of the famous Australian move stars such as Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman and Geoffrey Rush. It was an interesting and lively talk.
Afterwards, we found a better seat down near the front as Giuseppe Moschella, the ebullient cruise director, was doing a talk called “Living on a Cruise Ship” in which he outlined his career at sea, showing us photos of ships he had worked on and people he had met. As expected, it was an amusing and informative presentation and it was clear that Giuseppe enjoyed his job a lot! 🙂
It was 11 o’clock when we left the theatre, and we decided to go up on deck to see what the weather was like. It was warmer than it had been, but as the Edge was sailing along at a fair rate of knots, the sea breeze made it seem cooler than it actually was. It was still quite cloudy, with sunny intervals, and we didn’t see many people in the outdoor pool or the hot tubs.
I decided I’d while away the time until lunch by taking my laptop into the Grand Plaza and doing some of this blog whilst enjoying a pre-luncheon tipple or two. We found a couple of chairs with a table on the upper tier of the plaza, where we could look down at the resident musicians as well as look out of the window; we had found that, due to the layout of the ship, there were not many public rooms that offered good views of the ocean outside. Like many of the larger cruise lines these days (and Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean) it seems the ship itself is the destination, and the ocean and joy of the journey are just incidental.
We then spent the time relaxing and wandering around the ship before returning to the Theatre once again for the afternoon gameshow “Love and Marriage” hosted by Giuseppe again and based on the popular television programme Mr and Mrs. Dom, one of the entertainment hosts, was coming around asking couples if they wanted to paricipate, and putting the names into a hat to draw four couples out at the start of the game. Trevor and I spent some time ‘rehearsing’ some possible questions, but in the end we weren’t chosen anyway.
As ever, the game was hilarious. Not many couples actually had matching answers so it was difficult to determine a winner, but every participating couple received a bottle of wine and a goody bag of Celebrity Cruises merchandise. 🙂
At four o’clock I had to go to the salon for my hair wash and blow-dry. While I was waiting my turn, one of the masseuses gave me a complimentary five-minute neck and shoulder massage, while another one applied some collagen eye treatment. Of course, it was only a sales ploy to try to get you to buy the over-priced products, but I said I had enough of them at home.
The little Filipino guy then washed and blow-dried my hair, chattering all the time and, again, trying to sell me their Kerastase products. I wished he would stop talking; I had come along to have a nice relaxing wash, condition and blow-dry, not to be subjected to their non-stop hard sell. I shut him up by telling him I already used Olaplex products on my fine and damaged hair and could probably buy the Kerastase stuff cheaper on line anyway. He did an OK job on my hair, but I knew it would be back to its limp and lifeless state again tomorrow – not his fault.
As it was “evening chic” dress code tonight, we decided to eat at our designated table, #213, in the Tuscan Restaurant. Trevor wore smart grey trousers with a matching waistcoat, and a crisp white shirt with a red cravat and matching cufflinks. I donned a long black velour evening dress with a short sequinned jacket. As few people had actually bothered to dress up, our attire received many comments and compliments.
Our waitress Queenie greeted us in her usual exuberant fashion, asking where we had been all week. We noticed grilled lobster was on the menu so we ordered that; it was good to see lobster making an appearance. Lobster on the menu used to be one of the certainties of formal evenings, but the ever-present cost-cutting means it rarely makes an appearance on cruises any more, unless you are prepared to pay a supplement. We enjoyed it very much, washed down with chilled rosé wine.
After dinner, we decided to go to The Club for tonight’s game show, called “This or That”. It was similar to the True/False game we had played earlier on in the cruise; the host asked a question and there were two possible answers, either this one or that one. Participants were eliminated one by one until only one winner remained.
Tonight’s main entertainment in the theatre featured a double bill; Chantelle the singer did the first stint, followed by Jessica the magician and illusionist. They really are very talented ladies and we enjoyed their performances a great deal.
Afterwards, we finished the evening off in The Club where there was an Abba singalong party followed by the usual disco – this time it was 70s music. We would get an extra hour in bed tonight as the clocks had to go back, making us 12 hours ahead of Britain.
It was therefore after midnight before we returned to 3142, trying not to think about the fact that tomorrow would be the last day of our cruise. 🙁