In the morning we took a walk around the local Auchan Hypermarket, basically to kill some time, before we head off to the port to join our SHIP called the Norwegian
We arrived at the Port at about 1245 and there must have been about eight large cruise liners and a couple of large ferries all tied up alongside the various quays. We checked in and had to wait about an hour before we could board and so purchased a very expensive coke and panini sandwich to keep the hunger at bay and then we noticed a little table where your could already book a table for dinner and so we booked the steak restaurant called Cagney’s.
At about
This is the first cruise Noel has been on although Jennifer has been several times before with her father. Noel’s experience of a cruise is largely confined to the Dover-Calais route and sometimes the
The cabin (oops, sorry state room) is on the 11th Floor (deck)(level) of the boat (ship) and it is a reasonable size and looks slightly bigger than our caravan, with a nice balcony where there is a great view of the old Docks. Before leaving we were called to muster to find out what to do when the ship hits an iceberg or similar and how to don our life belts, Noel could not find the bottle of brandy on his which was quite disappointing. The Captain is Finnish, the rest of the crew a bit like United Nations but mostly Filipino and they were all very friendly.
The ship (boat) is run on what they call a freestyle basis which means you do not have to use the same restaurants all the time and you can eat when and where you like and 24 hours a day we understand, not for us but looking at some our co-passengers it reminded me of the Monty Python sketch of, ”just a little wafer-thin mint sir” ??.
As we left port the Pope came to bless the ship and the bands played (well actually it was the on board music really) as we slid past the old town of
Cagneys restaurant was pretty much empty for the time we were there and the steaks were very good and so was the bottle of Argentinean Malbec wine which accompanied the meal. For some of the specialist restaurants there is an extra cover charge which is between USD 10 and USD 25 per person but the other restaurants which are included in the fare were quite full.
After dinner we found a bar, surprise, surprise! And listened to a Filipino, playing a guitar, playing songs from James Taylor and Cat Steven etc and he was excellent. He then stopped singing around
At
We are promising to go to the gym tomorrow before breakfast, gosh that could be a big mistake..