World Cruise Day 21/152 - another sea day - jackets and hats and bottles, oh my!

Cruise day: 21/152
Ports days: 8
Sea days: 13
Countries: 4
Continents: 1
Ports: 6

The sea and the sky were lovely this morning and the air was chilly.  In fact, it stayed that way all day, hovering around 60-degrees.

We started our bridge training over again today.  The instructor is repeating the first several lessons so that newly embarked passengers can get to the same level as the rest of us newbies that got on in Florida.  We're taking the opportunity to review and hammer home those initial concepts.

We also got our excursion booking forms for Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, Puntarenas, and Panama City.  We picked some excursions and are waiting to see if we get our top selection for each port.

We also stopped by the cruise consultant's desk to finalize our deposit on a big cruise for 2023 - an 81-day adventure from Vancouver to Sydney with a two-day stay in Sydney at the end.  We're pretty excited about it, even though we don't sail until September 17, 2023.  We will pick up many of the stops we missed from this cruise's initial itinerary.  We're hoping that COVID has calmed by then.  Of course, in March of 2020, we never would have dreamed we're still be dealing with this crap nearly two years later.

With the departure of two of our members, we have assembled a new trivia team, unfortunately with similar results.  Still, we have fun and learn things.  Queen Victoria's reign?  63 years, 7 months.  Harry Potter books?  Seven.  Railroad cost in Monopoly? $200. We knew that last one but talked ourselves out of it for $150.  Doh! The new host, the newly added assistant cruise director stated that this is the first trivia of the world cruise, underscoring what we have been saying all along - the first portion of this cruise didn't feel like, nor was treated like the world cruise.  We've mentioned that to Viking officers, but nobody seems to get it, nor care.

I mentioned yesterday that our jackets arrived.  Viking sent out an email well in advance of this cruise with instructions to order a jacket.  All passengers would receive one once onboard the Viking Star.  Here is the jacket.

It is actually quite a nice jacket with a soft lining and water & wind-resistant shell.  It is embroidered with the 2021-2022 world cruise logo.  Here we are, striking our best catalog model pose.

Viking also included a brushed fabric baseball cap, leather card wallet, and commemorative magnetic pin.

It is pretty nice swag to remember this epic journey.

Talking with some friends, they said something about bottles of liquor in their room.  We said, "huh?"

Turns out that since everyone on this cruise gets Viking's Silver Spirits beverage package, all you have to do is call room service and they will send bottles to your room.  Wow!

Since we (mostly me...) likes a small nightcap, we've been stopping by a bar on the way up to the room.  No more!

I had a bottle of Cointreau and a bottle Lemoncello delivered this afternoon.  Our cabin steward keeps an ice bucket stocked with ice, so now, I'm good to go each evening.  That's a pretty nice touch.

Something has been twanging in my right knee yesterday and today, so I relaxed in the room this afternoon.  Dedicated Arlona went walking on deck 2 for a while and then came back to the room.

One interesting thing about today is that we are going slowwwwww...like perhaps 11 MPH or about 10 knots.  We have a lot of time to get to Cabo, so the Captain is taking his time. 

We got info in the room tonight that we have to apply tomorrow for a Chilean vaccine pass. Our floor has its meeting at 1:30pm in the Star Theater, so we'll see what that's all about.

Tomorrow is another sea day, so more bridge, more trivia, and Chilean vaccine passes.