Sept 23 - At Sea. The two hours back on the first two days have me waking up at 5AM and breakfast doesn't open until 6:30AM. Yikes! Have to say I could get used to the 25 hour days. I forgot to mention that they've instituted a new practice on the buffets aboard. For the first 48 hours the passengers can't touch any serving utensils and no condiments are available on the tables or trays for passenger use. The condiments are brought out by the crew members in individual packets or dishes by request, even salt and pepper, and the eating utensils are handed out, wrapped in your napkin, by the food service people. Starting with lunch today you could serve yourself and the napkin wrapped eating tools are on the tables with the salt and pepper shakers and the ketchup, sambal, chili sauce, etc. were back on the trays at strategic places on the serving counters. Since the transition took place just after 48 hours apparently no one who traveled in those germ incubators, I think you call them airplanes, brought any of the critters aboard with them. Or at least not enough to reach critical mass.
Tonight is our first formal night featuring the Captain's Greeting. This pre-dinner event used to be the Captain's party, but now it's the Captain's toast. They still give you free booze so most everyone is happy. I get a free Diet Coke. The snacks were excellent. They tend to pull out all the culinary stops on formal nights. Various kinds of shrimp, pâté, cheese, salmon tartar, etc. were being circulated by the very friendly Filipino and Indonesian bar and dining room staff.
The Captain introduces the heads of the various departments, thanks us for coming and sends us to dinner. He did give the official passenger count, 822. Since they have a crew of 640 something that's a passenger to crew ratio of 1.28:1. HAL usually shoots for 2 to 2.5:1. No wonder service is so good and there are almost never any lines for anything. Besides the full trip, they sold the trip in three distinct segments, Seattle to Singapore, Singapore to Sydney and Sydney to San Diego. The second segment will have the most passengers but the third will have even less than we have now if everything goes true to form. Unfortunately the start of each new segment will bring new germ soaked individuals aboard and we'll have to do another 48 hours of detention in the Lido buffet.
Tonight's entertainers were the Unexpected Boys. It's a Frankie Valle tribute group. Unfortunately the lead singer is under the weather, read that as seasick. It's been pretty rough last night and most of today. The three backup singers have been on Broadway and toured so they put together a performance that relied a lot on 'show tunes'. Fortunately for me they sang some of Frankie Valle's later songs because he sang mostly with his chest voice late in his career. The under the weather lead singer is the only one who can truly perform in the falsetto voice that characterized most of Frankie's career. The 'later' songs included my all time Valle favorite, "My Eyes Adored You." That saved the evening for me. Perhaps a bit of an explanation is needed for some.
Entertainment Critic's Note: You haven't been reading my blog long if you don't know how I currently feel about 'show tunes'. Until very recently almost every singer that came aboard a HAL ship did show tunes from Broadway or even worse the West End of London. I detest Andrew Lloyd Weber and became totally burned out on almost all show related music. This would seem odd as when I was a lowly college student working at May Co and living on the GI Bill I had season tickets to the light opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in LA. I guess you can reach a saturation point with anything.
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