Cairns, Australia

We finally made it on board the ship, Queen Victoria, which we have renamed “The Retirement Home at Sea”.  It seems to suit the ship better. Elliot, Isabelle and Grisha are half of the kids on board…yes half.  There are 6 kids total on board, 7 if you include me, which most of the passengers probably would.  Let me just say that I have a new appreciation for the thought of “old people”…sorry mom and dad, you are NOT old.

 

The ship is beautiful and luckily we have a very spacious room that we can seclude ourselves to and/or hide from the old people glaring at us.  I have yet to see any other passengers entering their rooms on our hallway.  I think they strategically didn’t put any other passengers on our hall…we might even have the whole floor to ourselves.  There is also an awesome kids playroom that has air hockey, guitar hero, wii, movies…they let me come play whenever I want. When I’m not playing in the kids room, I have taken up origami lessons, water coloring, and my grandmother would be happy to know that I may even be joining her weekly bridge club back home, assuming that I will probably pick it up on the daily afternoon games that are played on board.

 

Grisha and his friend Claire (one of the other kids on the ship who is 4) have successfully learned how to have their own private pool on board.  Apparently not everyone likes splashing and screaming during swim time as much as we do.  We’re hoping to break our record but so far we can clear out the pool in about 3 minutes. 

 

We attended the formal Black and White Ball a few nights ago, where I believe we were the only ones wearing glow necklace and bracelets. We were introduced to all the men who are given a free cruise to come on board and dance with the single women. They all range from about 60-70 but I will say that some of them have very impressive resumes. I am still waiting for them to introduce the 20-30 year olds that they have hired for guests like me…

 

It rained all day yesterday, but today was a beautiful sunny day for our stop in Cairns, Australia at the Great Barrier Reef.  We went on an excursion which took us on a catamaran out to the reef. There, I got to do an introductory scuba dive while Jonathan and Elliot were doing real scuba diving (since they’re certified).  We went down for about 30 minutes with a guide and it was so much fun. I touched a huge clam, saw a shark, stingray and millions of fish!  It was beautiful!  On my group dive were two other guys who work on the ship, and were actually the first people I’ve seen my age in a while. So, I hung out with them and made friends, they even offered to let me use their free Internet, so thanks to them you all might be getting blog updates a lot more frequently. 

 

We have found our favorite place to eat on the ship…the fondue restaurant.  They have it set up only a few days at a time and switch off between other types of foods, but last night and for the next 3 nights it’s fondue!  I will say that it was very hard for us to sit through the whole meal knowing there was chocolate coming at the very end…if you think I’m only talking about the kids, you’re kidding yourself.  We’re going again tonight, just for the chocolate part!

 

All in all, life on board is pretty great. It’s only day four, but I think I could get used to this lifestyle.