Feb. 9

As we sail from Mooloolaba to Whitsunday Island it’s an opportunity to comment on our fellow passengers. The Viking Sky carries 900-1000 passengers. Perhaps half of them are doing the “full cruise” from Ft. Lauderdale to New York. If Viking could sell the entire itinerary to 900-1000 customers, they would. But, they sell in segments to customers looking for shorter cruises, like Sydney to Singapore or Cape Town to London We didn’t know it when we purchased the cruise, but we’re on a long segment from Los Angeles to London. The ship continues on another month-long segment of London to New York.

Everyone’s habits and activities place them in contact with certain groups. Karla, for example, knows certain people from Bridge lessons, Bible study and church, or walking the deck. We know people from our morning green juice and latte routine and cocktail hour/music in the Explorers’ lounge. And we meet people on excursions. But, we could spend the entire 4 months and not see people who eat in a particular restaurant and choose other activities. Then with new people getting on for their segments, there are always new faces.

The demographics continue to be average age of 73-75, I think. There are lots of aging bodies that move slowly, sometimes assisted by canes and walkers. This is especially apparent as we take bus rides on our excursions. It seems like getting off the bus can take 8-10 minutes. That’s no ones fault, but it works better when passengers know their limitations. And, while Viking labels excursions as easy, moderate or difficult, not everyone is accurate in their self-evaluation.  If there are 150 stairs to a monument, lots of passengers learn that stairs are harder than they used to be.

Another realization is that people have different senses of line etiquette. I’m reminded of traveling with a Spanish group in Egypt. Our busload of Spaniards was lined up with a northern European group. As soon as a door opened, the Spaniards broke ranks and headed for the open door. The Dutch, or whoever they were, were offended, but overrun.  On our excursion buses, passengers generally disembark by row. But there are always some who are attracted to the open door as soon as it opens. That can bother some people. And, I think that we (especially Karla) can bother older passengers because we walk fast between points A and B rather than shuffle along. I detect some form of “road rage” as perfectly nice people get upset because of others’ actions. When we visited the Australian Zoo, there were some complaints because “there was too much walking.” I suspect that they weren’t pleased to see us walking fast between exhibits.

Sometimes, the Captain will make the call on skipping a port because of “heavy seas.” Once, we skipped a port on a South Sea Island and sailed around the island to a more peaceful bay. Yesterday, at Mooloolaba, we anchored in the bay and took about a 30 minute tender (lifeboat) trip to the port. The swells were fairly high and getting on the tender required good timing and, lots of time, assistance from the crew. Stepping from the ship to the tender could be “flat” or could be 2-3 feet moving target as a swell moved the tender. With timing, it was OK for us. But, for people with canes and walkers it required lots of help. The most exciting tender experience for friends of ours occurred with rough waves near the dock. A wave hit the tender and it rolled enough to make some passengers think they were going in. Several people were thrown out of their seats. So far as we know there were some bruises, but no serious injuries.