TRAVEL ... with David Bray
So what do you do on a cruise? The quick answer is as much or as little as you like. My even shorter one is that I was never bored. A month at sea and there was always something interesting to do. Not a lot of sitting around the pool in deck chairs. None of it at all actually. Nor a great deal of strolling the promenade deck.
But this isn’t an ordinary cruise. We sail from sunny Sydney to windy and cold Wellington, up into the tropics and further north to Osaka and darn cold Peking, Shanghai and cold damp Hong Kong. Not much sun to bake in and occasional ice on the deck. So, okay, what do we do?
Here’s one day: 6am gym; 7am. fetch coffee from Sir Samuel’s to cabin (stateroom, they call it); 8am. Breakfast; 10am Destination lecture on Beijing, its history and culture; 11.15 Lecture on Europe, Japan and China – Can the world adjust to two Asian super powers? 12.20 to 2pm lunch; 3-5pm Mrs. B has watercolour class. 3.30 Lecture on seafaring lore and legend. All speakers and well qualified and entertaining. 6pm dinner, with our regular four and the table is so entertaining that we are always pretty well last to totter away to make way for the second sitting.
That pretty well sees us out but there is on this night a variety show in the Royal Court theatre. The planetarium is running Passport to the Universe, which we have already experienced. Three good shows on offer during the voyage. The Internet centre of three rooms and the casino are always open. We go to computer classes, notably an introduction to Paintbook, and even to a couple of bridge classes. Apple rules on this ship. We’re Microsoft. I spend some frustrating hours trying to get messages out, though plenty come in to the iPad.
There’s a good, welcoming, well-run library of 8500 books. The cabin TV shows many channels including repeats of those lectures and a raft of international news services. We see the Fukushima tsunami live as it happens, at sea, not all that far away. The cinema is a grave disappointment, abysmal selection of films.
We enjoy another look at Amadeus, but had hoped for offerings involving ports of call. Our travel group is regularly offered bingo or trivial pursuit and for all I know go along and enjoyed these harmless pastimes. They may also meet for drinkies each evening at 5. We must be a bit anti-social, because we rather enjoy the sundowner on our own balcony.
Out in the open air there are pools various sporting set-ups, even a golf net with a basic club and balls provided. It says something about the range of activities that your reporter, a life-long golfer, didn’t pick up a club. There are shops and every so often a market-style line-up of tables is set up in a main area flogging watches, jewelry, that sort of stuff. Extraordinarily popular it looks, too.
Then, of course, there are the shore excursions. You know what, we are always, without exception, glad to be back aboard the great and grand Queen Mary 2.
