Reporting from LAT 42.10, LON 67.35--The North Atlantic
We woke up pretty early--somehow skipping the "nightcap" paradoxically resulted in better sleep? Back to the buffet...
Wandering back to the room for a shower, we stopped to get Mindy her "flattened penny". These are the old timey machines where normally you put in two quarters and a penny, and then turn a crank which embosses and design on a now oblong penny. You generally see them in touristy areas today. In this case, you tapped your room ID on it and then cranked. While it accepted her card, no amount of furious cranking generated a penny. So we had to get a technician to come over, who just handed her a penny in the design she wanted.
After a shower, we thought we'd sit out on the balcony but it was very windy out there. Not at all restful. So we went out on the waterfront where things were quite a bit calmer and found some chairs.
After a while, we heard an announcement from the captain that we're rolling into a storm and a gale warning this afternoon. So I doubt we'll be outside after lunch. We're actually okay with that--we've had wonderful weather almost the entire trip (warmer than anticipated), and if you're going to have bad weather, you want it the day you're at sea.
Lunch at Savor/Taste. We had salads--I had taquitos, while Mindy had her favorite, the Monte Cristo sammich. We also had some drinks—I got an Old Fashioned, while Mindy had a glass of wine. The drink package was included, and darn it, we were going to use it!
On the way back to our room, we saw packets of sickness bags by the stairs--they clearly think something is coming.
The ship is swaying a bit, but it's nothing like our first cruise, where you could see the horizon going up and down out the window. It's more like being rocked to sleep. The bigger issue is the wind--the dividers on our balcony are shaking like a leaf, and there's a hissing coming from the balcony door, due to pressure differences.
We spent some time packing--as always, we brought way too much stuff. You can choose to leave most of your bags in the hallway the night before disembarking, and they'll whisk them away to a collection area at the dock, but we think it would be far faster if we just roll them out ourselves (famous last words).
Things were still rocking and rolling, so we holed up in our room for awhile, watching random stuff on TV--an episode of Scrubs, Firefly, and a Frank Capra documentary.
Time for dinner, back to Savor/Taste. Mindy had cheese soup and stuffed pepper, while I had scallops and shrimp fettuccine alfredo--plus dessert.
Onto a stage show--"The Choir of Men"--or at least we thought we were going to see that show. Bad weather and the shaking of the ship canceled it, so they replaced it with I guy who does a comedy juggling act (although I'm not actually sure I'd want to be a juggler when the ship is swaying back and forth). We had actually thought about seeing the juggler earlier in the week but were too tired that night. So it's good news/bad news. The juggler was good, if a little blue for an early show (not that we minded).
We finished off the evening with our first mojito.
That'll do it for the final full day of the cruise. Tomorrow--disembarkation and a long drive.
#escapetothegreatwhitenorth