Hawaii / Tahiti 30 Day Cruise - Day 27 - 29 Sea Days

Thursday Day 27 through Saturday Day 29 – Sea Days

These last few days have not been very good ones for me, the antibiotics are doing their job, but they are making me feel nauseous most of the time.  I went back to the doctor to get a different type of antibiotic, but he said to “just tough it out” so I am.  I spent a lot of time just laying down, but there were times when the nausea would lift and I would get out and about a bit.  The worst part was, I had no appetite and wasn’t able to enjoy all the good food in the last few days, I even missed the chocolate extravaganza.

It has been hard on Val also, she worries about me and anything she does she does by herself.  On a thirty day cruise you meet and get to know many people so at least she had some new friends to hang out with.  She did attend a memory improvement workshop one day, but said it wasn’t very helpful because it only taught techniques to memorize lists, and she wondered how often she would need to do that. 

On Friday, I started to feel a little better and we attended a virtual tour of the Bridge by Captain Rens Van Eerten.  Because of security concerns, passengers are no longer allowed on the Bridge so it was quite interesting to everyone.  He used a Power Point presentation to explain the operations and equipment on the Bridge as well as some of the workings of other parts of the ship.  Afterwards he took questions which lasted quite a while.  It was a very informative and entertaining talk as the captain speaks well and has a great sense of humor.

Early this morning we had been awakened at 6:00 AM by the very loud fire alarms going off on the ship. Every room and area on the ship has speakers so you can’t miss it.  It was cancelled almost immediately as it turned out to be a small fuel leak in the engine room, but you can imagine the captain took several questions about that during his presentation.  He pointed out that although it turned out there was no real emergency, the system worked keeping the ship safe.  I don’t think any of us felt too bad about losing a little sleep when it means keeping the ship safe. 

We went to dinner in the dining room tonight and although feeling better, my appetite is still not good so I again couldn’t appreciate the excellent food.  We had gone to the casino before dinner so it was early to bed again for me.

Saturday morning I had a setback as I wasn’t feeling very well again.  I spent most of the day until late afternoon just laying around so it was a mostly wasted day for me.  Val attended the finale of the team trivia completion and her team did well. On a daily basis they were usually in the top four, but because of some problem early in the competition they missed a day, which was reflected in their cumulative score. There were about 150 people competing in 33 different teams.  Anyway it’s fun and Val has enjoyed playing and getting to know the members of her team.

The Smarty Pants, Val's trivia team (minus one).

As it got near evening time, I suddenly realized that my stomach wasn’t bothering me anymore, hallelujah!  Tonight was the last formal night of the cruise and even though we didn’t feel much like getting all dressed up again, we decided to attend.  For the first time in several day I was hungry and really enjoyed dinner.  It was amazing how much better I felt.  After dinner it was off to the casino where I had my usual poor luck and retired to the room early, but Val was having a very good night and decided to stay on to parlay her winnings to even more, but unfortunately it rarely works that way and she gave almost all of it back.  Amazingly though, as she was down to her last few dollars she was able to win a hundred dollars, which she smartly saved for Sunday our last day.

Our dining room stewards Pram (left) and Mega (center).  They were super!

These have been lost days for me and it makes me mad that I haven’t been able to enjoy the last few days of our cruise, but things could be a lot worse. I will say this though, I was not seriously ill.  It was basically like being a little seasick all the time, and I’m very grateful that this didn’t occur during our time in French Polynesia.  Tomorrow is another day and I hope I wake up feeling as well as I do tonight.