I will add little things as I go along and remember backwards. For one, I did not enjoy the Virtuoso amenity tour in Hobart. It started at around 8:30 in the morning. We seemed to drive around the town in circles for awhile, and though it was nice to see some of the nicer residential areas (these people love fretwork on their porches and eaves, by the way) I was waiting for more. Then we were deposited at the Yacht Club, where we had "morning tea" and the Commodore of the Yacht Club (a most charming lady) gave us a little welcome. Since I had just had breakfast, it was like, "what's next, let's go!" for me. Then we went to the Museum which was great. About half-way through my visit there, they were collecting to group to continue on, and I told the leader I was dropping out, as the rest of the thing was lunch at some fancy restaurant, supposedly the best in Tasmania. Well, for me, food just isn't that important, and it takes too much time. So I enjoyed the rest of my time at leisure in the museum (I actually was surprised that they had so little about the Aborigines in the museum) and then I went back to the ship for a quick lunch and off again to explore the town way before the Virtuoso group got back on. There is a nice shopping area very close to the ship in a more historic area. That's where I took my picture of the Amnesty International sign that you will see in my pictures. There were lots of nice little shops along the way, and one of the big sellers here is yarn! Knitting is a pretty big thing now in the US, and they had the prettiest mohair, and kits for scarves that included too many strands for me to keep track of for one project all at one time!

Just a point about Virtuoso. I have only been on a couple of their amenity excursions. Once was on VJ7 when we did a dinner at a castle/villa in Lisbon, and we had a lot of fun because we ended up at a table with a lot of folks from NYC. I think those people know no strangers, and we just had the best time. The other was in Juneau, where we had one of those whale-watching boat trips and then a salmon-bake on a little shore. Weather was good, we saw whales, and the kids (I had all 4 of them on this cruise had a good time)

On Leg 2, and perhaps for the rest of the WC, they have to be very sensitive about the mobility challenges of a lot of the world cruisers, and I appreciate this. However, if you are one one of these long cruises with RSSC, and are very mobile, you may want to look closely at the itinerary so see if it is really what you would enjoy. On a WC, there are a lot of passengers who rarely get off the ship for these reasons. And the Virtuoso excursion seemed to attract them. Had I to do it over again, I would have picked some other ship tour in the morning, and been on my own in the afternoon.

Okay, back to the widow. She is really a lovely lady, not past 50 in my view, and not one of those "tight-faced" ones Joanna is talking about. (I have my own ideas of who her Sandra Dee people are). Anyway, she booked this cruise because she said she didn't want to have to deal with the phone calls on the first anniversary of his death! So she got on board, and lo and behold, here is this single man aboard and presto! The chemistry worked, and I enjoyed competing against them, and their other friends I also liked, at "Smoker's Trivia"

Other little things I am still just recalling:

Room service dinner does NOT come course by course, it comes all in one tray, but you do get a full bottle of wine of your choice (just put the leftovers in your fridge)

All New Zealand wines that I saw on board, and also in the wine shops seem to have screw off-caps! When my waiter for room service tried to very professionally remove the cork, he seemed to be having a problem. I looked at the bottle, and saw the cap. He was most embarrassed, and we had a good laugh about this!