World Cruise Day 58/152 - Sea Day - Wine O'clock

    

Cruise day: 58/152

Ports days: 18
Sea days: 40
Countries: 6
Continents: 2
Ports: 11

Pro tip time

Question: What is one thing that cruise ship staterooms never have? (Besides enough room, enough storage, and toilet paper that doesn't remove skin...)

Answer: A clock!

We've been on Premier, Disney, NCL, Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Celebrity, and Viking and have yet to find a room with a clock.  Not a biggie since we all carry smartphones, but if you want to know the time in the middle of the night, you don't want to fumble for your phone (that is typically charging) plus you don't want to light up the whole room when your phone unlocks.  A bedside clock could be handy but unlike Viking Ocean and newer ships on other lines, lots of ships have no bedside power.  What to do?

Enter the projection clock.  We used them at home but had never thought about traveling with one. Arlona started packing one of these babies in her travel bag a few cruises ago. The clock itself is AA battery powered.  The full-time projection requires a power cord.  The nice thing is that most of them let you flip the display around, either by pointing the projector in the other direction (like this cheap one) or by actually flipping the digits around.

Now, all we have to do is roll over and we see this on the ceiling over our bed.

Here's the clock itself.  It is small and easy to pack. We chose not to clutter the nightstand and put it on the desk across the room.

For this clock, that requires us to turn it around and then flip the projector around so the digits will be facing the right way from our vantage point in bed.

One interesting thing is that this clock seems to understand how we think.  What do you see?

Do you see 7:52 AM?  I see that it as 7:wine glass.  We get 24 reminders each day at eight minutes to the hour to enjoy a glass of wine!  Then, at 25-minutes after the hour, it reminds us that we should wash the glass and turn it over to dry.  

Your attitude is all about your perspective!

Our sea day routine is pretty much set.  Roll out of bed between 7:30 - 8:30, grab chow, head to bridge lessons at 10, play casual bridge with our partners at 11, trivia at noon, lunch. Arlona typically does art at 2 and the rest of the afternoon varies based on activities for that day.  Dinner around 6 and entertainment at 9, assuming it is someone we want to see.  Today was no different.

Trivia today was a little harder and we finished just out of the points today.  The misses:

• What country has the longest man-made canal in the world, named the Grand Canal?
• No, not Italy - it's China and the Grand Canal is 1,104 miles long!
• What country's flag is this?

• Our guess of Chickenslovakia was wrong :-)  It is Uganda, and that bird is Uganda's national symbol - the grey crowned crane
• What Disney movie was based on a book written by Dodie Smith?
• 101 Dalmations
• Bonus because I think it is interesting - what land mammal has the highest blood pressure?
• Giraffe - Arlona reasoned that their heart has to pump blood a long way up to the brain - and she was right on

Arlona's afternoon art was necklace construction. Just so nobody panics, I took this photo on the leather top of the desk...

The day has grown overcast but the temps are in the low 80s.  As we approach the equator from the south, we are definitely warming up.  We are just about half of the way from Cape Horn to the Cape Verde Islands. Unfortunately for us, this means we are in the middle of the ocean with about the worst satellite coverage around.  Couple that with our misbehaving antenna amplifier and that means our internet will continue to suck for some time.  As we get closer to land, I'm hoping it improves, but the real improvement will happen in Cadiz, Spain when the amplifier gets replaced. For now, the internet varies between sucks and really sucks.  Viking is doing everything they can so it is what it is.

One exciting piece of news came in today.  Our car dealer let us know he was placing the order for our new vehicle today and it should be at the dealership around a month before we wrap up this trip.  That's great news since we traded in our vehicle the day before we sailed.  Woo hoo! 

We spent the evening with other central Floridians, Dave & Donna.  A drink in the Explorer's Bar and then a leisurely dinner and conversation in the World Cafe.  This is what makes a World Cruise great - you get to meet, and then spend time with lots of interesting people.  

The sun provided another nice farewell performance tonight.

There was also an amazing orange moonrise tonight, but the wind and the rocking ship made it too difficult for me to capture to my satisfaction.  Oh well.  It was still beautiful.  A perfect end to yet another great day on the Viking Star.