Oct. 9, 2018 Day 21 at sea

Got up, showered and headed on down the length of this ship to the Garden Cafe for my usual breakfast. I sat with a nice lady named Julie from Ireland and we shared stories of our cruises. Her favourite one was with MSC on the Fabulosa I think she said. it sounded pretty awesome with its street of shopping down the center with cabins with an inside view but she said it wasn’t really a huge ship. I’ll be looking into it as it sounds like it has lots of real nice itineraries.

She left and the 3 Japanese ladies from yesterdays excursion came over to greet me so i invited them to sit down. They all live in the U.S. now, one in Texas, one in California and the other in Oregon. We had a nice conversation with lots of laughs and then they had to go down to the onboard store where they'll hopefully win a $300. piece of jewellery in a draw.

I walked to the fwd end to listen to a talk on NCL Cruise Next program. I had seen their ads and heard talk about it but wasn’t clear on some of the terminology used. It was pretty interesting as the hostess explained all the ship sizes and where they’ll be cruising to in the next couple years. The Cruise Next program is like a down payment on a future cruise or cruises that can be used anytime in the next four years. Whatever deposit you give them today you get back half of it in cash but the total amount paid will be applied to another cruise. The best deal was for anyone booking a balcony cabin and that’s what i like so i’m tempted to go for it. The full amount you pay today can be split up for 2 or 3 cruises or used all at once on one cruise. I think it’s in increments of $250. deposits. So, pay 4 deposits for a total of $1000. And get back $500. right now which could be used to pay a good chunk of the current cruise.
It then evolved in to destinations and the best time of year to go to each. There was one in particular that sounded like one i’d like to do and it was a 30 day cruise through the Suez Canal, Egypt and then I got sidetracked so i ’m going to have to find out if it goes to Dubai and if it does then i might bite.
Having said that i have to check out MSC first and see if that would have a similar cruise because i think they might be much cheaper. However, i think i’d have to take 2 very long expensive flights getting to and from the ports and that's what I've been saying i don't want to do anymore..

I've since talked to my roommate Annie and she said the trouble with MCS is that they do all announcements over the PA system in several or many different languages. That sounded rather gross to me as there’s a lot of announcements every day on a ship. They report important stuff and a lot of advertising what there is to do every day and it takes awhile in English and i think if you had to listen to it again and again in many foreign languages it might be painful to listen to.

Later i went and played Bingo for the first time in a long time. I used to play a lot but quit when the price became expensive. My 3 cards today cost $39.50 U.S. which is kind of ridiculous for 3 games. However, it did include a ticket to put in the barrel for a draw on the last day of the cruise for a 5 day Caribbean cruise. However, i know now it’s only a bargain for those who live in Miami because the flight there and back isn’t included and you also have to pay the taxes and gratuities and all your expenses on a ship like alcohol and soda pop, fun in the casino and much more. The winner would likely spend 3 or 4 times more than the price of the actual cruise so it’s actually not a great prize for anyone who has a long flight to Florida and back.

I ate dinner in the buffet and it was quite empty probably because tonight is dress up night if you want to and it seems that lots do. So they are probably dining in the two dining rooms and the pay restaurants are probably full up as well. The ship photographers were all setting up scenes and such and they'll do a lot of formal portraits tonight.

Me, i went to the casino wearing my jeans and plain Jane blouse. I had found at the start of this cruise that the Game Kings were very tight and knew i wouldn’t be winning anything on them so had tried out a few different penny machines and one in particular was something i knew i could coax some wins out of. Up until today i've ve had a few $30, $40 and $60. wins and tonight i cashed out $100. Then $50. Then $60 before it went into its losing mode. Hopefully the wins will continue to grow a little as time goes on and if i can cash out 2 or 3 times a day i’ll be happy.

So on my way to the cabin i took a look into the showroom and Band on the Run was in progress and it looked good but i wasn’t comfortable walking in during the show and having to crawl over 15 people to take a seat so i went to my cabin. Annie came in a few minutes later so the show had just finished.
There were two plates of treats in our cabin. This treat thing we’ve been getting is due to the fact that we’ve been complaining about the noise that happens by our room every port day. Everybody knows they’re working on the refit already and because that isn’t fair to the guests who are close to the racket they try to soften us up with these fancy plates of goodies. They will never admit what’s going on but we weren’t born yesterday.

Tomorrow we dock in Keelung, Taiwan and i don’t have an excursion planned. I might debark to check out the sales tents that’ll be on the dock but first i’ll have to either go between 7 and 9 a.m.to get a stamped copy of my passport or if later than that (which i know it will be) I’ll have to go to guest services to get it just for a brief time off the ship. But that’s regulations and how things are done.