Another normal day at sea – gym, breakfast, then Chef’s cooking demonstration of Coconut Crab & Shrimp soup. A yummy Thai-Indian fusion thing.  And we have all the ingredients (well, all except the crab) in our freezer at home.  Perfect!  Then lunch on the Patio – finally after almost 30 days on this ship!  We used to always eat there, but not these voyages.  And quite frankly, the Spicy Tuna wrap was not the same.  Far, far less tuna, and little strips.  Not the normal big juicy loins they used to serve.  Hmmm….cost cutting everywhere.  Ed said the Grouper sandwich was fine – so there is that.  But we certainly didn’t miss anything these last 27 days or so.

The Christmas elves have been busy decorating every night so it is fun to explore each day and find all the new lights and trees all around.

After lunch we have Chuck with a talk on game drives and the big 5, touching briefly on a lot of information Dr. Jean talked about last cruise.  Immediately following that was Jim with a talk about Geology and the beers of South Africa! Of course we’re all in on that one.  Very interesting and fun – nothing we didn’t know about brewing beers, but interesting about the water and then a quiz on the names of 7 beers for which he gives us clues.

Oh, and while we were waiting for the cooking demo, we were in the Drawing Room just loafing around and found a Photo Scavenger Hunt.  We’ve not seen that before – but then again, we are never up here!  We’re intrigued and take a copy – then after the lectures start roaming the ship looking for items.  This is actually fun in a very weird sort of way!  Some things we get right away, others we’re going to have to search for – but we have loads of time left – and we have help (on the sly of course!).

Later it is gym, drinks and dinner.  Then a new British, sigh, Comedian.  We position ourselves in our comedian “fade” seats at the absolute back of the Cabaret, just in case.  But he is actually pretty good, and he is originally South African, but living in the UK, which makes him a) easier to understand, and b) not so Brit-centric that we don’t understand the jokes!  So, all is well, and we don’t have to fade tonight…until the show is over and we are back on the balcony for our night cap.