SUMMARY “At sea” day. Breakfast in bed, well really just in our room, followed by a several mile walk around the exterior of deck 7. Quite, er, invigorating? Bracing? Fancy lunch at the Veranda Steakhouse which caused us to need a nap and to only have cheese and sushi/sashimi for dinner. Evening’s show was an aging couple of acrobat/dancers who were pretty entertaining. - Karen
DETAIL Today’s our first full day on the ship and our first ‘at sea’ day. Tomorrow we’re in Southampton, England, our first ‘in transit’ port (and our last). The rest of the time will also be ‘at sea days'. We’re now just north of Holland. Denmark, and the northern tip of Germany, are to our east and the UK is to our west. The seas are fairly calm.
Last night we put out a ‘breakfast in the room’ card with our order and desired time. It arrives right at 7. We relax in bed most of the morning but finally change into our swim togs and bathrobes and head to the hot tub. It’s fairly warm but we guess their lawyers keep them from having it ‘the right temperature’.
Later we change and walk the deck seven, the promenade deck. You can walk all the way around the ship and it’s about 1/3 of a mile per lap. It’s a popular past time. The ship can hold around 2,600 passengers so hopefully they never want to all walk at once.
Our room is on Deck 4, the lowest deck with cabins (or as they call them ‘staterooms’). We did this for cost savings, plus we still have a balcony, it’s just not as open. There’s more chance that a big wave could reach this high, so the balcony wall is steel, other than a big square open area to look out of. The balcony itself is fairly large.
For lunch we have a special meal, like we did last night. I guess since the room was inexpensive we’re making up for it by paying a little extra for some nicer meals. Lunch is at the Verandah Steakhouse. It’s quite nice, I have the short ribs and Karen has a steak. Well, it’s kind of a steak, it’s a cauliflower steak, where they cook a thick juicy slice of cauliflower and then smother it with yummy sauce. On the side she has purée of… yes, cauliflower.
The whole meal is quite good and when it comes to dessert we chose the “Baba au rhum, your way”. The “your way” part means they give you the Baba and let you choose the rum and pour it on yourself. Well kind of. They present three different bottles of rum from a cart, you choose, and they pour you a small (maybe 1/3 cup) of the rum onto your baba. It’s very good but oh the calories. I can’t imagine. Well, we’re splitting it. Whoops, oh, and a piece of cheesecake…
In the afternoon we hear the captain on the PA system. He’s telling us how the voyage is going, where we are. We think we hear that where we are it’s currently just 16 meters (48 feet) deep. Does not sound like a lot. He says we’re in a transit lane. We guess that means all the ships going one way are in this imaginary lane and those going the other direction over in some other lane. I check my app and it looks like he’s right. He mentions that he’ll be disembarking tomorrow (along with more than a thousand passengers). We’ll be getting a fresh new captain.
At supper time we’re not too hungry, not surprisingly. We grab some cheese and crackers in the buffet dining room, oh and some OK looking sushi and sashimi. All is good. Well, most of the cheeses are, like our ship, from the UK, so we have Stilton (blue), Red Leister, and Wensleydale. They’re fine, though the Wensleydale is a tad tasteless. Maybe that’s why they make a joke of it in the Wallace and Gromit claymation movies.
Entertainment at 8:15 is an older male and female acrobat couple from France. It’s a 45 minute show and parts of it are a tad nerve racking or cringe inducing. We don’t want them to get hurt, and they don’t, thankfully.
Tonight we’re gaining an hour so we try to stay up late. At 9 pm we look out the window and we see the White Cliffs of Dover. Tomorrow we’ll be in Southampton. We’ve been there. once before, but just to disembark from another cruise ship and catch a taxi to Heathrow. This time we’ll actually get to see the city. Karen says we have some shopping to do (and British Pounds Sterling to spend).
Photos
Upon waking up I check my marine traffic app and see where we are. Hamburg's behind us. Southampton is for tomorrow morning. We're so close to Amsterdam, can't we stop??
Headed to out of the outdoor hot tubs. Dressed to hide from the paparazzi or attract attention, we can't tell.
Special lunch at the Varandah Steakhouse.
My real meat (short rib) in the foreground. Karen's steak (cauliflower steak) further away. All good.
Checking the app again after our captain says we're traveling in a shipping lane. Does appear to be the case. Like lines of ants, but each ship is probably pretty damn big.
Karen wanted me to take a picture of the hallway, from one end of the ship to the other. It's so long. Alas there's a couple walking down the hallway midship, so you can't really see the full length, but it's a long way.
Something we do. Reflection pictures. The soft focus hides some of the age giveaways.
Some of the 'over the top' hallways of the main deck of the ship. I guess presumably built for a queen.
Our view of the ocean (or alternate escape route, if it comes to that). Not too shabby. Karen jokes that if you sit on the chairs on our balcony you can see up, to the sky, but you can't see the water at all.
9:00 pm. As promised, we can see the White Cliffs of Dover.
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