Pontifications from a medium-size cruise ship (can't live up to Bill Bryson's standard!)

What follows are as much notes for our future reference as anything else, so if you just like to look at the photos and captions on this blog, please ignore!

Some interesting points as we get two-thirds of the way through this cruise –

• we’ve perhaps had more days of noticeable motion than we’d expect on a 12-night cruise, but then this is the Pacific rather than some of the more sheltered waters we’ve mainly been in before
• the age profile has been quite high with the usual proportion of those who can’t/don’t want to fly but who want a holiday
• quite a few people we’ve met have done this cruise or something very similar once or more times before.  Perhaps that suggests that Australians have a much more limited choice of itineraries than we’re used to having
• the passengers are mostly Australians and are very good company.  I’m reminded how much we have in common with them and many are either emigrés or their parents were.  The big surprise has been to meet former Brits who have taken on Australian citizenship but who seem able to keep their British passport!
• there are a surprising number of Americans on board and perhaps more Brits than we expected plus a smattering of other nationalities
• there’s a 200-300 strong contingent of mainly women from the Australian Embroidery/Needleworkers Association on board (getting on for 10% of the passengers)
• the general level of dress is either going down generally on cruises or in particular on this one – or is it an Australian or even European trend?  Celebrity have abandoned formal nights altogether and replaced them with so-called ‘chic’ nights.  When you read the dress code for ‘chic’ nights, you’re left wondering what the difference is between that and ‘smart casual’.  And ‘smart casual’ on here seems for many to be interpreted as ‘scruffy casual’.  As a result we’ve seen hardly anyone wanting to have ship’s photographer photos taken
• we’ve seen a group of rainbow lanyards and the Friends of Bill W have meetings according to the daily schedule, but the ‘Friends of Dorothy’ and ‘The Red Hat Society’ seem to have disappeared
• the food in the cafeteria is some of the best we’ve ever had both in terms of range and quality
• Easter as a festival has been disappointing on here.  There was a ‘Happy Easter’ cake on display plus some chocolate bunnies as well as some paste eggs but it was nothing like the sort of Easter show that Royal Caribbean or Princess would put on - or at least used to
• The entertainment has been fairly thin overall and increasingly geared towards income-generation
• We heard from other passengers that all guests in balcony cabins and above – or is it Concierge class balconies and above – have been given free drinks packages.  We’ve seen almost nobody signing to pay for drinks. We feel that not enough bars are open during the day and one fellow passenger suggested that this was to keep the serving of free drinks down!
• There’s the hardest sell we’ve ever known for the speciality restaurants on board on this cruise
• We’ve been invited to three ‘exclusive’ receptions but have attended none.  In the past it was a good way to get a few free drinks as we went along, but with a free drinks package, what’s the point?
• This has been the most generous cruise we’ve had for free perks.  They gave us $300 of on board credit for booking early plus a further $200 for having paid a future cruise deposit some time ago (although we had to fight to get that once on board), gratuities included (normally $12.95 per passenger per night) plus a free Classic drinks package
• The Classic drinks package includes many beers and types of wine by the glass, in fact all the ones we would normally have, plus such as Bacardi and coke, Bailey’s with ice, cocktail of the day plus such as pina coladas and a Cointreau after our meal.  You can also have free the more upmarket coffees and such as hot chocolate which they would normally charge a little for
• As a general point, it seems that perks in the future may become scarcer.  We went to the Future Cruises woman to ask about the benefits of paying a deposit for a future cruise.  She was almost disparaging about the low level of perks which Celebrity would offer us and we came away disinterested.  We’ve also booked a cruise some time ago for this Spring Bank Holiday with no perks and researched a specimen one for Easter 2017, but were told there was no on board credit or free tips or drinks packages or free airport parking or free internet time on offer at all
• We heard from other passengers that someone was airlifted off the other night but we don't know why