Featured photos is World Cruise Games team Air winning our first competition. The mountains of shoes from all 4 teams were close in height, but Air beat the number 2 team (Water) by 2 cm. The hardest part was keeping the various shoes from disengaging from the stack. One of the Air team went to cabins near hers and asked for shoes to use in the game. She brought all she collected in 2 large suitcases. That certainly helped us.
The day began with a beautiful sky and a view to a storm some distance from us to the North. When I took my shower, I found that the water was still leaking from the gap at the bottom of the shower door. Each day we have received a call from customer service asking if the leak has been fixed and I have answered that I will let them know when it is corrected. They are very customer oriented. We skipped breakfast in the dining room today because the fruit was beginning to build up in our cabin, so we decided to have a fruit breakfast.
When we returned to the cabin after games, we found an invitation to attend one of the specialty restaurants 1 time for each of the 3 legs of this voyage. There are 2 specialty restaurants on board – a sushi bar and a steak house. We made our way to the steak house and reserved a table for 6:30 on Thursday evening. In the process we found that the invitation was given to us because Kelsey and I are Diamond Voyager Club members (Jan is a gold member and that is another story). You’ll find a copy of the invitation and the menu in today’s photos.
Also because of the Diamond memberships, we have been getting bottles of prosecco delivered to our cabins. To date we haven’t opened and consumed them but are keeping them refrigerated and ready if the mood strikes.
The entertainment this evening was Queen themed (the rock group, not the monarch). The show included many songs to which the audience could sing along and had acrobats performing during the songs.
And now for the conclusion of the Chinese visa saga…
Today I received a reply to the email sent on Sunday requesting assistance to obtain visas from the Chinese embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados. The opening paragraphs explained they had reviewed the email and needed to clarify what service they could offer. They said that the embassy in Bridgetown processes visas for Barbados citizens – not persons from other countries. They also said that the fastest they can process a visa is a day so if started for us on Friday, visas would not be ready until the following Monday (3 days after we would sail away). Then they said that we don’t need visas for the travel we plan in China. There is a rule that if you arrive from certain countries (a list of 55) at certain ports (some airports and some seaports), you may remain in China for 240 hours without a visa. We are from one of the listed countries and we are arriving and departing from listed seaports and our stay will be 96 hours. WHAT A RELIEF! I took the email to the immigration officer to give him the good news. He was unaware of the 240-hour rule and asked for a copy he could relay to superiors. I also gave a copy to the excursion desk. They said that another passenger had referred to that rule, but they could find no information about it – so they were glad to have a copy of my email. I also gave them our signed applications to take the China excursion. We are ready and anxious for March 29th!
You can view photos from today here.
One response to “At sea to Barbados day 2”
Congratulations on winning the mountain of shoes game. Sorry about visas for Barbados but am glad you figured out the China visit for 240 hours.