At around 5 o'clock am, we wake up and see that we're still in the harbor. Hm, this isn't making much progress. Half an hour later, we hear some announcements, but we can't hear them in the room. We can hear them in the hallway and on the balcony. Emergency announcements can be heard in the room. It turns out that we're departing.
We fall back asleep and both have strange dreams. Feeling well-rested, we wake up, shower under a refreshing shower, and head to breakfast. We stroll around the ship, exploring it from left to right and from top to bottom, and keep getting lost. And this is just a medium-sized ship.
 |
| Our balcony |
 |
| Our view |
 |
| The atrium |
 |
| Beautiful decors 😜 |
 |
| The elevators. There are also panoramic elevators, and they are fun |
 |
| Every day a different carpet |
 |
| The Lido Market |
 |
| Useful to know where your cabin is |
 |
| Deck 9, the Lido |
 |
| Also deck 9 the inside pool |
 |
| With one of the many bars |
 |
| On deck 10, there's The Crow's Nest where you can sit, read, solve puzzles, and enjoy a cup of coffee |
 |
| The Oosterdam of 36.000 legobricks |
 |
| The Main Stage |
There appears to be an indoor swimming pool with hot tubs as well. We should remember that. Let's check out the gym; we'll schedule some time there. At 11 a.m., there's a lecture by one of the two members of the Antarctica Experts team on Mainstage, Dr. Neil Gilbert. It was very interesting, and it was told in an engaging way. He will be giving more lectures in the coming days, and when we reach Antarctica, he will also provide detailed explanations. We'll definitely be interested in attending.
On deck 10, there's The Crow's Nest with a nice view, and the seats by the windows at the front are very popular. Here, there's also a cabinet with beautiful coffee table books, puzzles, games, and reading books. It's very cozy. The desk for land excursions is also located here.
We'd like to know how to show our ID if it's in the safe in our cabin, but we find the line too long. So, we head back to the cabin, and we can enjoy sitting in the sun on our balcony. It's only 15 degrees, and there's a wind force of 4-5, but with a southerly wind, as we're sailing south on the southern hemisphere, everything is reversed here, so south is cold, but it still feels warm there.
Then, we head back to the Lido Market for lunch. It's Indonesian cuisine this time. After lunch, we grab our e-readers and find a cozy spot to sit. We try a few places, and the indoor pool area seems to be the best. Later in the afternoon, we have a drink there, and I decide to try a cocktail: The Bohemian. It's a bad idea because it's very delicious 😂. We bump into Alfy and Marianne and agree to have a meal or a drink together later in the week.
If Jan no longer feels comfortable, we go a few floors down to the Lincoln Stage. There is live music, Latin on piano and violin. It's nice, but not a performance that we love.
Tonight we have reserved at the specialty restaurant Canaletto, an Italian restaurant. We had 3 credits and this is one of them. The dress code throughout the ship tonight is "dressy", so we change clothes. We order calamari, spaghetti a la vongole, and affogato with a glass of white wine. We make it a night out and go to the Rolling Stone Lounge where a band is playing. Country music is always fun, so we find a spot. After the break, they switch to 80's music. The singer is very good, and so is the singer, but there is another singer who seems to serve more as visual filler. At the end, he gets his moment too, but it's not really great.
We discovered the panoramic elevator tonight, and now we don't want any other. It's a lot of fun, just a shame it goes so fast. We're back in our cabin by 11 o'clock.
Unfortunately, we don't have a land excursion tomorrow. The captain has recorded a video that we can watch in our cabin on TV, in which he explains exactly why we left so late and won't be going ashore tomorrow. It was a series of circumstances. The cruise before us couldn't dock in San Antonio due to high waves. As a result, disembarking and embarking were much later than planned. Loading of the ship was also not completed until 11:30 PM. In theory, we could have departed then, but many container ships were in the harbor, and a lottery was held to determine who could leave first, and we were last. Then a pilot was needed who initially wasn't available. Eventually, he did come, but in order to dock in Puerto Monte, it needs to be low tide. They are building a bridge there, and there are cables hanging, so there is only 2 meters of clearance at low tide, so higher water is not possible. Waiting for the next tide takes 12 hours, and then the schedule gets even more messed up. Therefore, the captain had to make the decision to skip the stop in Puerto Monte. He showed exactly on the computer what all the criteria and circumstances were, and it was perfectly clear to us. A case of "shit happens". Let's hope that's the end of it.
Throughout the day, the waves got higher and higher. During dinner it was a bit calmer, but when we were at the music, we felt the ship rocking again, and walking back to the cabin, it felt like we had drunk more than we actually had.
In bed, I write this report and we read some more. Tomorrow is another sea day.
 |
| Rough seas |
