Day 15 - January 17, 2025 - Friday - Sea Day

We awoke to a hot and muggy morning, 82 degrees and very humid.  We had rain until around 8:00 AM.  After breakfast we attended another lecture by Dr. Hackbarth, this one titled "Extreme Life: from Early Earth to Outer Space."  She presented new theories on the origin of life (it is no longer a primordial soup event).  Many examples of extreme life forms were presented, from deep ocean, thermal vents, extreme cold to lifeforms which live inside rocks.  Who knew?  I found it an interesting presentation.

During the lecture, the Captain interrupted the entire ship with an announcement which was  more confusing than clarifying.  If you remember we were initially scheduled for Bora Bora, Papeete and then Moorea for Saturday, Sunday & Monday.  This was changed due to a medical "event" to Papeete, Moorea and then Papeete again, skipping Bora Bora.  Now, he is saying that we will do Papeete, then Bora Bora and back to Papeete, thus skipping Moorea.  We still don't know how this will affect our excursions.  I didn't mind missing Bora Bora since we have been there before, but Moorea would have been a new port and we had two excursions planned.   Disappointed!

Speaking of being disappointed, although I am trying to be optimistic and think things will improve (we are supposed to take on more crew in Papeete), in my opinion - and this is my opinion only - the service and quality of food on Viking, so far, has been below that which I have experienced on previous Holland America Grand Voyages.  At almost every breakfast in the main dining there is at least one error or omission.  This is not usually the case at dinner, where most orders are correct.  Also at breakfast, I often find my coffee cup empty and experience long waits for a refill.  Regarding food, I find at dinner the chefs do some dishes very well, especially fish and seafood.  I also had an excellent lamb chop, but their renditions of beef and poultry seems to always be overcooked and dry.  I attribute the errors and omissions in orders to the cell phone sized devices the servers are required to use to enter orders.  I believe when they were writing the order down, there were fewer errors.  This is not to say the staff is inattentive or inept,  it just indicates that they are being forced to service more tables than can be done competently.  I put no blame for the problems on the staff, but rather on Viking itself.

To keep things in perspective, I haven't done a Holland America Grand Voyage since 2017 so I really don't know what their service and food is like today. It likely has declined like everything else since COVID.   Or, maybe my expectations are simply too high. Just saying.  Anyway, with those comments I will get off my soapbox, at least for now.

The ship today had another crew safety drill at 10:00 AM.  It appears they have one per week.  This pretty much disrupts activities for an hour (but I can't complain about that - I'm glad they are being prepared).  

At 11:00 we made our way to the Star Theater for a presentation by Mick Dawson, a former Royal Marine Commando and professional sailor.  Mick is one of the most experienced ocean rowers in the world.  He has rowed over 20,000 miles across the worlds oceans during some 524 days at sea in ocean rowing boats.  He has made numerous crossings and attempted crossings on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Today's presentation is about his 2009 North Pacific crossing in which he and rowing partner Chris Martin made the first and to date, only crossing by rowing ever achieved.  This was an almost 7000 mile journey which took 180 days, 10 hours and 55 minutes.  His presentation covered the difficulties as well as the high points they experienced in their boat, the Bojangles, which Mick built for the voyage.

As they completed their journey, crossing under the Golden Gate Bridge

After lunch, Kay and I returned to our cabin and played cards for a while.  We then went to the Explorer's Lounge and read while enjoying the quiet atmosphere and our private 18 foot panoramic window!  The drinks weren't bad either.

To my surprise I found a book about the Mountains of Georgia! 

To my real surprise, I discovered this was Georgia, the country; Not Georgia the State! 
It does look interesting though.

At 4:30 we descended to the Star Theater for the Port Talk for Bora Bora, which now we are now told we will be visiting on Sunday.   Also, with the new schedule, the excursions scheduled for Papeete on Monday would now be held on Saturday (tomorrow).   The excursion director told the audience that we should be able to see our NEW excursions schedules on the Viking App.  If it wasn't showing on the app yet, it soon would be.  We could also see our schedule on the cabin TV which should have been updated.  This was at 4:45.  

It is now after dinner and almost 8:00 PM and we still do not have revised excursion tickets for tomorrow or a schedule on either the app or the cabin TV.  Also, at dinner, our waiter apologized that they were out of both of the wines Carl and I have been having with dinner since the cruise started.  The explanation was that there have been a lot of sea days.  I will also note that we  are out of caps for the take out coffee cups and out of  individual sanitary wipes for the equipment in the gym.  We have been without Coke Zero and Sprite Zero for days.   VIKING, WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!