Well, we made it to the ship. Just. Our lovely friend Heather drove us to the airport through pouring rain and peak hour traffic (hope she speaks to us again). We checked in, luggage overweight, but weren't charged. Thank you QANTAS. No trouble taking my two bottles of bubbly as hand luggage. Got there nice and early and when it came nearly time to board, were told that the plane we were to fly on had been struck by lightening on the flight Sydney/Brisbane and had to be thogoughly checked by engineers. If there was a problem it would be cancelled and all further flights were full. Ouch!! Eventually we left an hour and a half late. I was pleased when we were half way to Sydney because then they wouldn't turn back if there were problems. Met a few CruiseCritic people in the embarkation queue (Sunny and Lynn) and met GTR58, George and Dianne on deck when we sailed – fun people. Found Garth and Di from Sandstone Point and Steph and Jeff from Ceduna when we had a belated lunch. There was free champagne at the Sailaway party . I went up late but had I known, would have been there much earlier. Captain gave a huge blast of the whistle as we went under the bridge where there were bridge climbers and people just on the bridge waving. Wonderful. Our dinner last night, I thought was delicious. Allan, Sally and the two of us were at a table with people with whom we clicked instantly and had a wonderful (if rather noisy) time. Then we realised that the waiter had seated us at the wrong table.  and that we probably would have to move to the correct one tonight.  We are going to beg and plead and cry if necessary and mention how good the corner table is for john's bad hearing. Was beautiful to wake up this morning and be able to look out from the bed and see the ocean. Have walked my 2 miles around the deck today and haven't used the lifts yet.

For next year's cruise people:

• Get an early flight or go the night before if you don't live in Sydney

• Free champagne at sailaway – get there early

• We have a letter saying we have $400 free internet each for platinum whereas we thought it was $200 each.

• Whoever asked – there is raw sugar (am still to check on the cider)

• John packed most of my things in what he calls a containerisation system – clip lock bags – ie, one for tshirts, one for evening tops etc. Have decided to just leave them as they are in the suitcase and take out whatever when needed. Avoids cluttering the rather small wardrobe space.

Have just had our CruiseCritic 10CCrs 'Meet and Mingle' which was very successful. Lots of people there and it was great to put faces to names . Jill produced an huge spreadsheet with a list of activities for people to sign up for. Looks like we may have at least three trivia groups. The sea is very calm and the weathr sunny – we just passed Mt Warning so should be off Brisbane soon. I'm off to see It's Complicated, with Meryl Streep and then to Trivia. Will not be able to keep up this pace. Did I mention that I love being on this ship!!!

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