Weather - Fine to partly cloudy top of 21C
Our final sea day & time to think about the packing process as we will be on a tour (Hobbiton Movie Set) tomorrow all day & need to leave our packed suitcases outside our door before 9pm Thursday. Of course we will need to ensure we leave clothes & necessities out to wear off Friday morning.
Awoke to another beautiful fine day. Seas calm once again. We only had one night of rough (their words) seas and we slept like logs. I think the vibrations and gentle rocking actually help us sleep better than at home. Of course it could also be our ritual of a late night drink, we are not brave enough to stop the drink just in case ;). We learned yesterday from other passengers, that during the night on Christmas Eve, because of a very thick fog, the ship was sounding its (very loud) horn every few minutes for a period of a few hours. Did we hear it? Not a sound! It kept some awake though.
Tonight is our final formal night so our last chance to don the finery, drink champagne with the captain and have more photos taken before dinner. I hear we are having escargot tonight. I have been waiting for them all cruise, yum! Our photos from the last formal night were pretty good given the subject matter, Mike looked really good. So we will wait for tonight's before deciding which ones to purchase.
Our usual coffee & fruit juice has been delivered to our room, so time for showers and off to the dining room for breakfast. We could of course have breakfast on our balcony or in the Horizon Court buffet, however we prefer to go to the dining room & be waited on. I also feel the food is fresher and better. The waiters are fantastic at every meal, filling up water, wine glasses frequently, topping up tea & coffee as well as generally being attentive but unobtrusive. I could get used to this very easily!
Another breakfast with nice company. We have been seated with the same English couple on at least 3 occasions now. We also sat with another couple from Sydney whom we seem to run into regularly around the ship. Then there are others who we see for the first time. So it is very easy to be on the same ship with people and never see them.
Today we went to the Princess Theatre at 10.15am for a culinary demonstration hosted by the Executive Chef, followed by a tour of the ships galley. This was really interesting as they had a full kitchen set up on stage and cooked a 4 course meal of Salmon gravelex, tomato pasta, veal scallopini & Black Forest cake. Of course the cake was pre cooked and salmon had been cured for 3 days, however he did show us how to marinate the raw salmon and then make the salsa & sauce. I actually ordered that a couple of days ago & it was delicious. We were also give some statistics on staff numbers ingredients used and the amount of dishes used per day. For example they wash an average of 70,000 pieces of crockery & 24,000 glasses/day. 1,400 fish, 750kg beef, 600kg pork, 500kg of poultry & 250kgs of lamb & veal are consumed/day. Also there are 2,500 kg of vegetables, 200kg of pasta & 800 kg of salads consumed/day. Now that is enough useless information for today! There will be a test when I return :)
Mike (always preparing early) has started his packing. I, on the other hand have decided to leave mine until tomorrow night as the thought of it makes me feel like the cruise is over. We still have another day and a half before the collect luggage so I will string it out.
Looks like we have service briefly so will try to post this.
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