I woke this morning at 2am to the sound of the wardrobe
doors sliding open and close in sequence with the roll of the waves. I guess we have exited out of the calm of the
Strait of Gibraltar and we are now in the open ocean. I fell back to sleep with the roll of the
waves till 8am not thinking too much of it.
When I woke at 8am the ship really was rolling and as I headed to
breakfast you really had to make sure you had a good foot on the ground and a
hand out for a rail. It was like walking
2 steps forward and one to the side. I
am used to saying that I don’t get sea sick/motion sickness but I have found I
have had my moments on the odyssey. The two
that come to mind was the ferry crossing from Stornoway to the Isle of Skye, that
was a shocking crossing and one of the roughest water crossings I have EVER
done and I got sick. And the other was
when Em drove home to London from Inverawe on the windy roads I was feeling
dodgy, but no sickness. Is motion
sickness something you can get later in life?
I finished breakfast and as I had done the previous day, I made my way
to the front of the ship, found my little nook that over hangs the ship and set
up my computer to get some blogging done.
I was joined by the Dutch guy that sat with me yesterday, so after a few
pleasantries he turned to his crossword and I listened to some tunes and typed
my little heart out.
So what was on the daily programme today? NOTHING at that interested me.
Stretch and relax
Sudoku challenge
Acupuncture for arthritis
Latin Fitness
Eat more to weigh less
Behind the scenes bingo tour
Basketball tournament
Spa seminar-wrinkle remedy
Informal Cards and bridge game
Napkin folding class
Art Auction
Belly dancing class
Relieving back pain
Indoor cycling
So nothing really appealed. So again I was happy to just be typing with a
magnificent view. I do have to say that
sitting at the front of the ship when it is a little rough probably wasn’t the
best move for me and after 2 hours, at 11am, I had to pack up all my things,
say goodbye to my Dutch friend and head to my room. I really was feeling quite green. It wasn’t so much that it was rough weather,
but the open-ocean and just the natural roll of the waves in a 75,338 ton ship
was too much for me. There was one thing
I did miss on the daily programme was there was a shore excursion talk at
11am. I turned on the TV when I got back
to my room and they have a ship channel and they told me about it at 11.20am
for an 11am start. I have to admit I didn’t
look online at any of the tours or what is a ‘must’ to see before the cruise,
so I am a little torn on which tours to do, but I HAVE to do it today as we
arrive into Madeira tomorrow-so I will look at it over lunch and drop them off
at the shore excursion desk in the afternoon.
But man I would have loved to have gone to the talk. My boo boo.
For some reason at the buffet all the seats are always
busy inside, but if you head outside there are always free tables. It was a little windy yesterday, but it was a
glorious day today and the free air was going to do me good, so I was armed
with all my blogging tools and after a light lunch of salad I read my book till
4pm. I could see the Costa cruise was
still to our right, so in am assuming they will be in port tomorrow and I will
be able to see what ship it is. I wonder
where and when that cruise started as I could only find the NCL cruise, but to
be honest I still would have chosen NCL as they are an American Ship where-as
Costa is Italian and I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but it can
be. Costa’s announcements are made in
the language that has the most nationalities on board for that cruise and being
an Italian line, they get a lot of Italians.
Then all the game shows, shows, shore excursion explanations are all in
Italian. It gets a bit much after a week
and I will always pick an American ship I think based on that. It depends what you are looking for in a cruise
I guess. I was surprised with Norwegian
Spirit that everything on board was in USD and staff spoke English as I was
just expecting Spanish for some reason and it really did make a pleasant
surprise, especially with everything in USD-nice to give the GBP and the EUR a
kick in the arse for a while.
I have done a lot of cruising across a lot of companies
and I have to say they all pretty much have the same formula. From on board spa’s and specials, the sale of
chains by the meter, the selling of jewellery-particular stones for particular
countries, watches, the portrait photos, drinks packages, Bingo and the seminars,
they all pretty much mirror image each other.
It obviously works and certain ships would discern to a particular age
group. For example there are lot more
older people on this cruise so the seminars are more age appropriate, skin
care, weight loss, memory etc…. where the cruise I did in the Caribbean was more
geared to the younger generation and families to pub crawls, pool games, more
music and ‘how to’ seminars. It is an interesting
field cruising, and people either love it or hate it. I do still think that you need to travel with
people you know, but in saying that I am still enjoying my time on board-its
day 3 and I am looking at getting off the ship tomorrow.
I made my way back to my cabin at 4pm for a nana
rest. This cruising gig takes the wind
out of you. Walking back to my cabin you
can see remanent of the previous ship, Superstar Leo. There is a lot of Asian influence in the
specialty restaurants, there is a plaque in the main atrium, some of the art
pieces are Asian, there is Chinese writings on some things and my inside cabin
painted window is a shot from the Superstar Leo facing a tropical island. I cruised on the Superstar Virgo with my mum
6 years ago-the Leo and Virgo are sister ships, but nothing looks familiar to
me on this one. It is strange that NCL’s
catch call is Cruise like a Norwegian-but it is an America ship-so I am not
sure where the Norwegian theme comes in except obviously from the name. NCL are introducing 2 new ships into their
fleet-one this year called the Breakaway and one next year, but I am not sure
what they are calling that one. Amazing
to think that any company is still building new ships.
So what goes into feeding 2000 passengers for a nine
night cruise?
Here is a grocery shopping list for the Norwegian
Spirit:
907kg of cereal
1,125kg of butter
675kg of pasta
1,170 Cheese
9,900kg Fresh fruit
907kg of sugar
48,000 fresh eggs
2,925kg of fish
450kg of veal
450kg of lobster
5,400kg of poultry
5,400kg of beef
2,250L of ice cream
1,170kg of seafood
4,500 cups of yogurt
405kg of coffee
9,900kg of vegetables
7,200L of milk
2,250kg of rice
3,600kg of potatoes
3,150kg of flour
150 different types of wine
As promised I was going to go to all the shows this week
and tonight was FourEver. I wasn’t even
sure what to expect, but at 6pm I got ready and at 7pm I made my way to the
Stardust Theatre. I like getting there
early, getting my seat and then I play solitaire till the lights go down at
7.30pm and then 4 men in black suits appeared on stage and sung their opening
song Sea of Love in Spanish. It was
AMAZING and the next 50 minutes were just like a paid concert for me. They were like the Ten Tenors, but only 4 of
them as their name suggests, and they had a hint of Human Nature with some
swanky little moves during their songs and they even had a very deep baritone
guy, just like Toby Allen, that was just phenomenal to hear, it was so
deep. If I wasn’t so tired I would have
gone back to their 9.30pm show to see them again. Now that is what I call a show! From the show to buffet dinner and I have to
say I still wasn’t feeling so great. It
will be good to get off the ship tomorrow to just get off a moving vessel. I always thought it would be cool to do a
transatlantic crossing from New York to London, which I believe is 6 days at
sea, but after today, I am not sure if I will have the stomach for it.
So that goes down as another day at sea. It’s hard to believe we are on day 3 of the
cruise already and I still haven’t unpacked yet-my room steward must think I am
a lazy arse!!!!!! I have high FIVED
myself that my blog entries are nearly there.
To all the people who are sending me messages, I am only online to load
the blogs and then pretty much off again.
At 40c a minute I can’t be online for too long as the clock is literally
ticking using satellite internet. It is
killing me to not to be able to load any of my pictures, but at least I know I
have a good internet connection at the hotel in Barcelona and 3 days to do it
all before I have a clean slate heading into Kenya and also the start of a new
blog.
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