Coffee Chat

Every Sea Day at 9:00 am, Cruise and Travel Director Ian Page hosts Coffee Chat in the Rolling Stone Lounge.  Ian will interview one of the crewmembers or maybe a guest entertainer.  These last about 30 minutes with a chance for Q & A at the end.  

Executive Chef Neil stops by Coffee Chat every few weeks to give an update and answer questions.  Today he was accompanied by two of his assistant Chefs, Ronald from the Philippines and Tushar from India.  

Neil discussed some of the recent supply chain challenges, as some containers of food that were supposed to arrive in Perth failed to arrive.  They are working on getting them rerouted to Port Louis or other future ports.  One of the missing items was Cranberry Sauce, so the Roast Turkey served last evening was without this usual side dish.  

Neil mentioned that the menus are initially planned in Seattle on a 35-day rotation, but we will likely never see an identical menu twice.  Individual menu items will repeat, for example, Rustic Lasagna, but the other items on the same menu will be different.  This is unlike shorter 7-10 day cruises where the identical menu repeats every cycle on a particular day.  If you have ever done 7-day back-to-back cruises, you will experience this repetition.  I have uploaded a copy of every MDR menu for the entire world cruise HERE.  If you go back to my other world cruise blogs, you can find a copy of every menu from 2016, 2018, and 2020 if you want to compare one cruise to another.  

Executive Chef Neil also makes modifications based on guest feedback and the availability of certain menu items.  About 30% of menus will be modified onboard.  

The food on this cruise, in my experience, has been outstanding and consistent with the high quality I have experienced on all of my previous HAL cruises.  

SLOT PULL

At 3 pm, fifteen guests assembled in the Casino for a Slot Pull.  This has been a regular event on cruise critic roll calls for years.  Here is how it works.  

The slot pull leader, in our case, Jerry, will select a machine where $15 will give you 5-6 spins for the maximum amount.  Anymore, it seems that most machines are branded as 1 cent, but you can play up to $10 a spin in some cases by selecting multiple lines and combinations.  If you want to win the maximum amount, you must bet the maximum amount.  

Jerry found a penny machine where betting $2.50 per spin would make you eligible for the maximum prize, in this case, about $1475.  We would all contribute $15, which would give us six pulls.  We would end up with 90 pulls contributing $225.  

Here are the details of how it works.  Jerry put his cruise card, with a small casino balance, into the selected slot machine.  Jerry’s Card stays in the machine the entire time, so the winnings will all be recorded on one card.  Every player in turn, will feed $15 in bills into the machine and take their turn – pressing the MAX Bet button six times.  

Jerry started the pull with the first 15 dollars and pressed spin six times.  We realized the volume on the machine was too low to achieve maximum slot pull excitement, so one of the slot machine regulars showed us how to adjust the volume on subsequent spins.  We all had a great time hooting and hollering as the wheels went round and round.  

After the final person completed, we won a little over $111 or about $7.40 per person and to make things simpler we each received $7 back on our $15 “investment”.  More important was we all had a great time!  

TREVOR KNIGHT

Australian Country Music artist Trevor Knight was on the World Stage this evening and put on a marvelous show singing hits from Glenn Campbell, John Denver, and the Seekers.