February 28th, 2024

This is the last of 3 sea days on our way to Indonesia. We have had very smooth waters and scattered showers. The temperature continues to rise and we have changed time zones 2 more times.

There is not much to tell about the sea days. The routine is the same. A few people from our morning Mah Jongg group will be leaving the ship in various places. One is going because this is the same itinerary that they did in 2019 and they don’t want to repeat. Another needs hip surgery and thought she could wait until she returned in May but decided to go home and get it dealt with. Some are still up in the air and waiting to see the excursions being offered. When we had the broadcast about the changes they said it would take 5 days to get it all written up and posted and today makes 4.5 days so we are hopeful we see something soon.

We had also originally said we were not interested in Vikings overland tour to the Taj Mahal but apparently they have added more nights to it and more sights to see so we have placed our name on the waiting list and if we make the cut will look at cost and itinerary.

We will say people have gotten quite imaginative in their plans for where to go when they leave the cruise early. We have also heard that Viking is being very generous in their compensation package and very flexible with flight arrangements. We know 1 couple who is flying back to Sydney and have rented a place for a month and will go home from there. We know of another that is flying to Paris to pick up a Viking river cruise from Paris to Prague. There is also a group going to Egypt to pick up the Viking Nile cruise and then they have their travel agent working on an extended overland trip to Petra. I am actually impressed with some of the plans and amazed how quickly people have come up with them. None of them have changed our mind about staying on, Viking took care of us in 21/22 and we have no doubt they will this time also.

There is a gentleman on board who has been doing water colors of all the places we have been going. He has been posting them on Facebook and some are quite good. We know who he is but we have never spoken to him except in passing. He is getting off on our first day in Bali and he posted on Facebook that he was giving away all of his art work to anyone interested. I had admired one of his boat pictures that he had posted but felt weird asking for it when I had never really spoken to him. Unbeknownst to me our friend Kathy reached out and when I went to lunch today she had the picture for me. It was a huge surprise and the picture is now on the wall in our cabin. Thank you Kathy!

You can see the artist name at the top and that this is from the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.

We don’t eat breakfast but we did go up to the buffet yesterday morning to see the donuts presentation. I am told they looked much better than they tasted.

variety of donuts

The other thing I discovered is that the boat has cider that I like available. If you remember when we did the pub tour in Sydney instead of drinking beer I had their apple ciders and enjoyed them very much. I actually bought a 6 pack that we have in the room and I am drinking them sparingly. When I asked Aaron, our favorite bartender, if we had any on board he said we had wild berry and pear. I have tried the wild berry and like it a lot. It is nice to get on a warm afternoon. Hope we have enough to get us through the cruise.

Also after our private bourbon tasking our friend Kathy said she was interested in a Tequila tasting. so last night Aaron accommodated us with 4 different tequilas. I tried to participate but I did not even like the smell of them never mind the taste.

Our private tequila tasting. From left to right we have Michael, Linda, Kathy, Michael, Kathy and Aaron.

As I write this blog we are watching Oppenheimer and there is a nice rainbow outside our balcony.

Tomorrow is Komodo Island to see the dragons. It is a tender port and you can only get off if you are on an excursion. There is no independent travel on the island. The only thing to do on the island is the dragons. It will be very hot but excited to see the dragons.