Our final sea day on this leg, as we reach Tauranga tomorrow. We always look forward to Tauranga, and tomorrow is our third visit, but first we enjoy our sea day.
We start with a double round of trivia, general knowledge followed by movie trivia. We score ok today, 13 and 12. What do you think is the greatest movie of all time? We said Casablanca. Mardi thought it could also be Gone with the Wind, and it was. And when did James Bond first say “Bond, James Bond”? Dr. No, in 1962, with Sean Connery at a casino table.
We relax in our room for a while before lunch. At lunch we enjoy a burrata salad, Mardi has a bunless burger, and I have a petite filet mignon. Aldo and Rosina invite us to join them after we’ve finished, and we sit with them for a while sharing travel tales. They’ve travelled a lot and have some wonderful stories to share.
After lunch we meet with a future cruise host. Sometimes there are advantages to booking your next cruise whilst you’re currently cruising, usually onboard credits. We explore cruises in 2028. Options include Vancouver to Japan, then onto Singapore on a back-to-back journey aboard Celebrity Edge. After that, Celebrity Edge goes into dry dock for maintenance and refurbishment.
A dry dock is exactly what it sounds like, a giant basin that’s flooded so the ship can float in, then drained so she’s resting on supports, with her entire underwater hull exposed. For a ship that spends her life in the water, it’s a rare chance to see and work on the parts nobody ever sees. The hull is pressure-washed and inspected, steel thickness is measured to check for corrosion, and the hull is repainted with fresh anti-fouling paint to cut drag and save fuel. The propulsion gets serious attention, including the Azipods I was so interested in on the bridge tour, with the propellers, stabilisers, and bow thrusters all inspected, serviced, and polished. Tanks, sea chests, and underwater valves get cleaned and checked, and classification society surveyors work through the ship’s mandatory safety surveys, which come around every five years.
The other half of a dry dock is what passengers actually notice. Celebrity Edge was built in 2018, and she reportedly had her first dry dock in Marseille in 2023, a stay of around two weeks. Dry docks are also when ships get their makeovers, carpets, furniture, and soft furnishings replaced, venues redesigned, and new technology installed, all the work that’s impossible while 2,900 guests are on board. The shipyard has a tight schedule, because every day out of service is lost revenue, and the whole job is planned about two years in advance. By the time Edge sails again, she’ll look a little fresher, run a little more efficiently, and be ready for another five years at sea.
After our meeting we rest before progressive trivia. It’s the penultimate round today, round 9. We’re still in third spot. Around 13 of the 56 teams have either not bothered to turn up or haven’t handed in their scores. Today’s round is tough, and we score 13. Do you know what DNA stands for, and can you spell it?
Here you go: deoxyribonucleic acid
What year did Walt Disney World open? It was 1971, for future reference.
After trivia we chill out before dinner. Dinner is sashimi, asparagus, cod, and some trout. We then return to the poker machine that was generous yesterday. It’s not as generous, but we do ok as we move around to some other machines. We call it a night and settle in, me watching the cricket and Mardi reading.
