My body continues to want to be in New Zealand, waking up at what would be a respectable time there. Here it was 4am, and even forcing myself back to sleep only got me through to 7.30.
At home I can wake up at 7.30, a cat will realise I’m awake and demand a cuddle, he’ll depart and another cat will jump up, snuggle up to me and go to sleep herself. That’s all I need, I’m good to snooze through to 11 like that.
No cats here. I got up instead, went and found breakfast for only the third time all cruise, brought it back to my cabin. The cold has subsided substantially overnight but it’s still there, threatening to bloom again.
That enforced isolation means there’ll be little to talk about today. I did take the time to back up the photographs from my camera, 2315 of them now, at least 4 of which are worth keeping. 40GB, so a single 128GB card may suffice for the whole trip. I have five with me, so if I do start taking more photographs I’ll be fine. I suspect New Zealand will boost the numbers somewhat, natural landscapes tend to require more photography.
On the hour I turn on the TV, hear the terrible news that Jose’s been sacked, turn off the TV. At 9.30 I pull on socks and shoes, fetch coffee, return to my cabin, remove shoes and socks. The cruise ship that had been tailing us, tracking our heading on a bearing of around 200 degrees was still there two hours later, unwilling to overtake. Perhaps it would follow us to Brisbane, dock beside us tomorrow, help overwhelm the city.
80 minutes later, while watching videos from the 2018 world champs, a quiet knock on the door. “Housekeeping,” says a diffident young man, effeminate movements contrasting with his stocky build. I’d seen him earlier, working with Roy, Moris nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Moris has caught my cold, or maybe he gave it to me. Where Moris would be distraught at me turning down my room being cleaned this man seemed delighted, his work day suddenly a whole cabin easier.
A 90 minute post lunch nap in which I’m not sure I slept, my inner pedant telling me it couldn’t be a post-lunch nap because I didn’t have lunch. I seemed to benefit from turning the lights off and lying down anyway. Another trip for coffee, around a 400m walk each time, the passing ship now past and out of sight. I checked the DVDs on offer, found a film I’d like to watch, called to borrow the DVD. They didn’t have it. So much for that.
Started playing Hacknet. It’s really scriptkiddynet, you just acquire and use tools written by others, but otherwise it’s exceedingly good. Perhaps a tad easy, but lots of lovely references to hacker culture and tropes.
It’s a gala night, so dinner is a ‘nice’ menu, and I didn’t want to miss out. So I took my book, asked for a table to myself, hoped I didn’t spread disease to anybody nearby. Hopefully past the infectious stage anyway.
Sadly the menu didn’t live up to expectations. The appetisers were all seafood or tripe, the soups and salads more inedible offerings and the main courses limited. I ended up with a veal chop on mashed potato. It was ok.
The chocolate cake made with no flour for pudding was only ok too.
Heading up to the lido after for coffee I found my route continually blocked by slow moving old people. Being slow I can handle, it was their ability to slowly move to the side and block my own progress that caused me annoyance. To escape them I went on deck, found a surprisingly pale blue sky beneath the moon, the sun already below the horizon.
On the other side of the ship a reason men go to sea: where else can you watch it raining 20 miles away on the coast of Australia.
Back in my room tomorrow’s schedule had been left for me. Arrival at Brisbane at 8am, departure at 10.30pm. Except that we’re not in Brisbane and it’ll cost $25 for a bus to get there, or $70 each way for a taxi. Sounds to me like further false advertising; I can cope with being ‘near Brisbane’ but putting ‘Brisbane’ on the itinerary then charging $25 for a 45 minute bus trip to the city stinks.
The lady at Guest Services was no help. Yes, there’s a shuttle bus, yes, it’s $25 (USD), yes it’ll take an hour (ok, so it’s 45 minutes to an hour). So give the ship money to get to where they promised we’d stop or be stuck in Fisherman’s Island, wherever the hell that is. She didn’t know that either, just that this is the name of where we’re docking. I too know absolutely nothing about Fisherman’s Island and can’t now research it without handing over $25 for substandard internet access. Actually, that’s not true: I do know it’s nowhere near Brisbane.
I left her with a promise to write and complain to their head office. It’s bad enough the ship docking in middle of fucking nowhere but at least give us warning about it. Back in my cabin I logged onto the intranet, which does give access to the Holland America website, and left them a formal complaint, invited them to redress their failures and also asked them to confirm that the other two cruises I have coming up will actually stop in the countries advertised.
Going on cruises has a lot of benefits but these clowns appear to be doing their best to overcome them. I chose these cruises because of the ports at which they stopped. There are better cruise lines with better onboard options; given Holland America don’t actually stop at the advertised ports I can only state very strongly: Book with someone else. Avoid this shitty cruise line.
Finally, to assure that I don’t put the whole day behind me and go to bed in a good mood, when I put on my shoes to get a glass of water before bed I find out that one of them has an issue. I think it’s the gore tex lining, but something between the inner lining and the outer shell of the shoe has managed to fold over and create a lump that digs into my foot. I’ve managed to mostly resolve it but it’s an ominous sign with so much walking still to do before I can get home. I’ve left my cabin for food, coffee, water and a 50 yard walk to Guest Services today and still done over 3km..
If I have to I can cut open that part of the lining, use sewing thread to both hold the inner part in place and also repair the cut I make. Hopefully it wont come to that.
If I seem unduly unhappy it’s because losing out on Cairns and Brisbane combined with three ‘sea’ days and the barren wasteland of Airlie Beach means that by the time I reach Sydney I’ll have spent a week doing nothing, exacerbated by a vicious cold for half of that. That would make me grumpy anywhere.
Even the moon shining a delicate silver onto the water didn’t help. I left the deck and went to bed.