Dawn Princess World Cruise 2010 - Wednesday September 1

Day 102 Across the Tasman Sea
We went shopping for cardboard boxes yesterday and these now stand starkly in the room to remind me of the imminent conclusion of our adventure. Today was a whirl of social activities as each group on the ship began the process of thanking people for their service and companionship over the past 100 days. There was a most enjoyable afternoon tea dance with the Dawn Princess orchestra at 3.30 pm in the Vista Lounge followed by a cocktail party run by CruiseAbout (our travel agency) in the Wheelhouse Bar at 4.30 pm. Both were very elegant functions. We then had the penultimate dinner with our 5.30 pm table. We were making this the second to last dinner with them (tautology) and business / domestic cards were duly handed around. The discussions at dinner have been wide ranging and stimulating and I think we have been very fortunate to have had such nice people on our table. After dinner, we made our way back to the Vista Lounge to see a Scottish Instrumentalist wearing a kilt play a selection of tunes on his piano accordion. There was a sparse crowd and we had low expectations but he was actually quite good. He finished with Scotland the Brave accompanied by much hand clapping from, I presume, the audience boasting a Scottish ancestry. After a short break, we hurried to the Atrium Lounge to compete in out last trivia quiz (on travel, would you believe). When we failed to guess the next letter in the travel sequence H , P , M , P, we knew that our trivia crown was lost for this cruise. By the way, the answer is A. Joke for the day. Did you hear about the rabbit breeder in Paris? He had a hutch back at Notre Dame! (Bill)