After a long travel day yesterday we slept well, but the morning gave us a shock. Around 6.00am ship time I got up to use the bathroom. While I was in there, I heard a loud crack and bang. Mardi yelled, and when I came out, I saw a large ceiling panel hanging over the bed, suspended only by an electrical cable with a light fitting attached. The panel was roughly 90 centimetres across and was swaying gently from side to side with the movement of the ship. It was about a metre above the bed. We both said the same thing: WTF.
Mardi called housekeeping right away, but the woman who answered seemed confused and not overly concerned. Ten minutes passed with no one showing up. I called again and got the same response: it’s been reported. Meanwhile the lights no longer worked, and we had an exposed electrical cable dangling from the ceiling. It could have been a dangerous situation, so we sat on the couch and waited.
After about 15 minutes I found our room steward and asked him to come have a look. He was horrified. Within a few minutes a maintenance team arrived: an electrician, a carpenter and someone who looked like a supervisor. They managed to fix it, but it was still unsettling. The panel and light fitting would weigh at least 25 to 30 kilos. If the cable had snapped, it would have landed on Mardi’s legs. What worries me most is that there was no bad weather and no real movement at the time. It just fell.
Once the excitement settled we headed out to explore the ship, play a bit of trivia and see what else was happening. Yesterday we met two lovely couples in Princess Live during a quick trivia session, so we joined them again today. Bob and Carol are from Perth, and Jodie and Andy are from Adelaide. We clicked straight away and agreed to be trivia buddies for the cruise, especially for the progressive trivia that runs on every sea day.
After trivia we wandered the ship, skipped lunch and lined up early for afternoon tea. The best part was the seating, tucked right at the rear with a huge porthole view. The food, though, needs some work. The cucumber sandwiches, cakes (including what they called a coconut sponge but was clearly a lamington) and the scones were all a bit dry. Strange, because everything else onboard so far has been pretty good.
Later we split off to the gym. Mardi joined a Pilates class while I used the weights and rowing machine. Then it was back to the room to regroup before dinner at Sabatini’s, the Italian specialty restaurant. We had a couple of nice entrees and a main, then wandered to the casino where we tried our luck on roulette, craps and a poker machine with a theme of North American animals. We’re not regular pokie players, so we mostly pressed buttons, laughed at the animations and enjoyed the time together. After an hour of harmless fun and a slightly lighter wallet, we called it a night.
Tomorrow is my birthday. Sixty. Mardi has a couple of surprises lined up, so I’m looking forward to whatever comes next
