“Gee there was a lot happening on this ship! We finally found some places we could get away from the new people. There are adults on this ship too! And quiet places just for us.”
We do like being by ourselves here on this big ship. It makes you feel like it’s yours.
“That’s a lesson worth remembering. Be where they ain’t!”
Maybe because there are so many balconies, a lot of people didn’t need to be on the observation decks, maybe that’s why. These observation decks didn’t go all the way around the ship but they were big and there were lots of ways to get onto them. I enjoyed this spot to myself almost every time I went there.
It could be the sunsets were earlier than before because we are further West along the northern Australian coast.
6:30 now.
People may have been in the dining rooms or shows at sunset. They would have missed a lot because most parts of the dining rooms did not have windows and the theaters don’t have any or are covered by LED displays.
That’s probably Venus but I can’t be sure. Celestial objects are in different parts of the sky down here. Even the moon seems to look different. It seems like it has a smiley face on it.
“How could that be? Doesn’t the moon look the same from everywhere on the planet?”
I think the 1 week cruisers were just happy to get away from work, eat fancy, and dress-up. There were lots of families so they just couldn’t sit around for hours and hours waiting for these moments like I could. They probably had very short attention spans. I talked to a few people and they didn’t even know we had birds flying with us. We always have birds flying with us no matter how far we go.
A lot of the time I’m standing all by myself when I get these pictures.
Maybe it is because there are so many things to do on this ship, it keeps them busy. There are shows in the front theater and in the mult-purpose room called the Two70. They do Zoomba and Tai-Chi in the mornings. There are always people doing that. They even bring their kids with them.
I don’t think they do this at home because they aren’t very coordinated, but they are having fun!
They go to dinner and shows in the evenings so that’s probably why they miss the sunsets. This place would have a great view of the sunset if it weren’t for the LED screens that slide down over the windows for the show, which starts right about that time.
It can be a mystery what the show is actually going to be. Like “Mario, Queen of the Circus” was. For this show, I had no idea what it would be, and I didn’t even catch it until it had already played 3 times. Fortunately, it had 2 shows on 3 of the days of the cruise so I went a couple times!
“Ling Ling can sing and dance!”
I love showgirls, being from Las Vegas, they are part of my image of home. I thought there were 3 of them because there were three costume changes in the show. It was fun to watch.
“She was one of the secondary actors in the first scene and we missed her in that because they weren’t the focus of the first scene. They were pretend taking pictures of the dancers, the dancers had the lights on them. This is the first time the singers were lighted. She had 4 costumes.”
Once the lights came on and we heard her voice we knew it was the same girl.
“We have to find her! That’s a Ling Ling!”
“But how? She disappears into the stage at the end. And she has 4 costumes and is wearing a wig in at least 2 of them. There are 5,000 people on this ship. How are we going to find her?”
Challenge accepted!
“You think you are just going to bump into her in the buffet? Is she going to be wearing one of these outfits? Same make-up? How we going to fish for this Ling Ling?”
“Nee hen how can dummy! That won’t work.”
Hmm, let’s think about that. She has skills, we have skills too. Let’s do what we do.
This guy here bought security software from a well-known vendor. That vendor has a good reputation. They even gave him a shirt they are so proud of their product. This guy has 99 problems but malware isn’t one of them.
“This guy has more problems than he knows. We have more than 98 other ways to make a fool of him. He might as well be a new person. Does he know Ling Ling?”
Not this guy, I’m just making a point. I’m just proposing we get some insider to give us what we want.
“How we gonna do that?”
Just a few tries are all it will take. We will just go for the direct access, bypass everything. You know the people who run security, they know everything about everyone on the ship, that’s what they do. They always have more access than they really need to do their jobs. We just need to find one of them and let them do the work for us. Its so much easier than trying to find the exploit in this guy’s software. We could do it but why? We will take the shortest most direct route to get what we want.
“Oh, this guy is soooo screwed he doesn’t even have a clue. I bet he sleeps well with his subscriptions though. He might even be a Vice President or something. At least a C level. He looks real smart in his corporate ‘swag’ t-shirt made in Malaysia.”
He’s not our guy though. We are going to go back on the ship. This guy gets a pass.
“Today only! Ha!”
Back to the ship Commodore!
5 minutes later…
Here we are. Mary Kate Ling Ling. She’s like all the other crew, she works 8 months straight! I bet she gets lonely on this ship. Here’s her room number and a bunch of other things we don’t really need.
That’s a security design flaw. It happens a lot where too much information is available to people who don’t need it.
“Ya, like the woman who showed it to you! What we gonna do? Wait for her to get off the ship in Seattle and greet her with flowers? Oh, Hello Ling Ling. I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Oh, these flowers? Oh, they are for you! I was holding them just in case I bumped into you at the buffet. What we gonna do? I know, surprise birthday party! Everyone loves those. We will befriend the family in Canada and get in on a Facetime chat! But she’s only 24.”
Did you just call me old? Maybe you want to play the Shut-Up game again?
“No, I didn’t mean that. She just seems kinda new.”
Being a showgirl can age you, like working 8 months straight! Anyways, you know the rule. 24*2=48 add 7 and that’s close enough! And her birthday puts her over the finish line.
“I think you are doing the math wrong. Isn’t the rule ½ plus 7?”
Either way.
“Can we do it backwards?”
“Doh! I knew you were going to do that!”
Beetlejuice 3 times. Don’t say it!
“What we gonna do then? Sail on the Quantum of the Seas again? What we gonna do? Cancel her passport and rush in like a White Knight with a rescue plan? Just a little computer ‘glitch’ and we can help Ling Ling get home.”
Nooo, don’t be ridiculous! We are going to go with direct approach! We are going to be an adoring fan and send a card to her dressing room. That’s what they do in the movies! We just have to write something nice and have it delivered to her. She will come to us!
“She can come to us if she wants to. Good plan Chief!”
It’s always their choice. I only want the one who wants me too. 1 ling only.
“Right!”
Meanwhile this ship actually went somewhere. We are in France now. Check it out.
Ok, well not France in Europe. One of its territories, Noumea. It was going to be the 51st state but we let them have it. Tour guide said this. I forgot why, maybe because the locals spoke French. There’s a lot of French stuff here.
“But there’s more America stuff here. This was the US Base in the South Pacific during WW2. There are all sorts of things leftover from that time. Tour guide says the Americans transformed the place when they landed.”
This is called ‘Lemon Bay’ because there used to be a bunch of lemon trees in the area.
This is the other side of Lemon Bay. It has a Hilton there. It’s world famous for hosting windsurfing events. That’s what the tour guide said. I’ve never heard of it till now.
It is a good looking beach!
They even waved goodbye when we sailed away.
That’s a nasty French woman smoking a cigarette on the beach. I can’t believe they allow that.
“They allow French women on the beach?”
She isn’t old either. Smoking is really bad for you, just look at that! She’s only 30. She probably eats snails too.
We also went to Vanuatu, which is another South Pacific Island country.
“We went swimming in a tropical waterfall.”
That was a lot of fun!
And we visited ‘Mystery Island’.
“There’s a story behind the name of this island. The story goes…”
We have our own stories about this place. Mr. Rourke can make dreams come true and that’s what we want.
“You know Mr. Rourke’s fantasies don’t go the way you want.”
It looks like Gilligan’s Island.
If you follow the path you find this beautiful view.
Watch out for the jellyfish.
“What happend with Ling Ling?”
I never heard from her. I guess she’s busy.
“You didn’t send flowers. They send a card AND flowers in the movies.”
I’m sure that is the reason.
“You’ll never know.”
That was going to be the end of our adventures, but we decided to keep going! Instead of flying to Papeete, we decided to go on another cruise around New Zealand!