Day 41, At Sea
With the
extra hour of sleep, we gained last night, we were up before 8:30. We had our
usual breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and hung around there for a while before returning to the room where I updated the blog and downloaded yesterday’s
pictures while Val watched a movie on TV.
We went
to the Lido for lunch and then Val went to trivia while I read for a
while. When Val returned from trivia, we
went to the Neptune Lounge and looked at more of our pictures through our visit
to Gibraltar, only a few more days to go and we’re caught up.
Despite
feeling better last night, Val still isn’t feeling well and it looks like her
cold is coming back and she has a bad sore throat. She spent the rest of the afternoon resting
and I spent it reading. We did our usual
trivia, dinner, casino routine and then returned to the room and called it a
night.
Friday, December 1, 2017
Day 42, At Sea
The
captain had said yesterday that we were headed into a storm and to expect lots
of rocking and rolling and we started to feel it during the night. When you look at the ship’s course since
leaving Madeira, first he went to the north, but then turned back to the south
to avoid the worst of it. Strangely
enough, the weather was sunny and warm this morning, but windy with very heavy
seas.
Val woke
up and felt worse and decided to see the ship doctor this morning. Her sore throat is getting worse and she
doesn’t want to end up having to fly home sick.
While she was at the doctor I, I ate some breakfast at the Neptune
Lounge, and then stayed there to read for awhile.
While I
was reading in the lounge, Val walked in, back from her doctor’s visit. It turns out she has an ear infection and the
doctor gave her a round of antibiotics to take.
We talked for a bit and then returned to the room where Val rested and I
decided to start going through our photos and getting rid of the bad ones and
duplicates.
This
brought us up to lunchtime and Val didn’t feel like going to the Lido so I went
up and got her a sandwich and got one for myself. The seas continue to be rough and I decided
to try and take a movie showing the horizon up and down and tilting. I went down to the promenade deck
and to get closer to the water and I tried to take more movies of the big
splashes of water caused by the ship’s bow going up and then crashing down into
the trough of the wave. The promenade
deck is deck six and at times the water was shooting up over my head so it was
going pretty high. Nobody was getting
wet though as the water was going away from the ship.
I
returned to the room and Val wanted to get out for a bit so we went up to the
casino and wasted a little money. We
returned to the room where Val went back to resting while I continued going
through the pictures. That is going to
be a slow process as we have taken over 11,000 pictures so far. I got as far as Portugal and then I relaxed and read until dinnertime.
Val
still wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to trivia, dinner or even the
casino so I went down and told the trivia group that we wouldn’t be there
tonight. As it got past 7:30 I was getting
hungry and Val decided she had to eat so we went up to the Lido to have dinner
and then returned to the room. Despite
the fact that we gain another hour tonight, Val went to bed early hoping the
antibiotics would take effect and she would feel better in the morning.
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Day 43, At Sea
Because
of the extra hour sleep we were up just after 8:00 and happily, Val was feeling
much better; the antibiotics had done their job. We had breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and
then hung around until our room had been cleaned before returning.
We had
nothing planned so I went back to work on our photos and Val read and watched
television. Today we had scheduled a
lunch in the Pinnacle Grill with our evening trivia team. The Pinnacle Grill is the high-end restaurant
on the ship and unlike most of the other choices for food, they charge a fee,
albeit a small one. We met the group at
12:30 and had an excellent lunch and better conversation. The only person missing was Gabriella who has
a very bad cold.
After
lunch, Val and I decided to make up for last night and visit the casino. I quickly went through my money, but Val had
an excellent day and broke her losing streak.
We returned to the room where I continued going through the pictures and
Val relaxed and read.
After going through as many pictures as I could take, I updated the blog
and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading and relaxing until it was time
for dinner.
After
our big lunch at the Pinnacle Grill, we weren’t very hungry for dinner, but we
decided to go anyway and eat lightly.
After getting ready we went to the evening trivia and had one of our
worst nights, but nobody did well so we didn’t feel too bad. After that we had dinner, but skipped dessert. We finished the evening in the casino before
returning to our room. I went to check
my e-mail and found the Internet wasn’t working so I spent a little more time
working on our photos before calling it a night.
 |
| Our evening trivia team - Charles, Judy, Roy, Gabriella, Val and myself. |
We
continue to have rough seas which is quite a change after the calmness of the
Mediterranean. It doesn’t really bother
us as neither of us tend to get seasick, but it would be nice to have better
weather. The captain said tomorrow will
be worse with rain expected, but then it should start to clear up. We’ll see, but at this stage of the cruise,
it really doesn’t matter anyway.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Day 44, At Sea
We woke
up this morning to overcast skies and rain.
The seas were rough on and off during the night and I heard thunder at
one point. We had our usual breakfast and returned to the room where I again tried to get our
e-mail. The talk in the Neptune Lounge
had been about the lack of Internet and nobody seemed to know why. It’s not a big deal, but my parents are in
their 90's so I do like to stay in touch with my brother as things do
happen. Last year while we were gone my
mother fell and broke her neck and it took my brother several days to get in
touch with me. This year I vowed to stay
in close touch, but now we have gone almost two days without e-mail.
Not
surprisingly, my attempt to get my e-mail was futile so I spent the rest of the
morning working through more of our photos.
I made my way through Mallorca so I am making real progress. It would be nice to finish this before we get
home, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
The
weather is quite bad today with high winds and heavy rain. The winds are so bad they have closed the outside
decks. I went out on our
balcony and although it is somewhat sheltered, I could still feel how hard the
wind was blowing and the waves looked like surf breaking with the wind blowing
on them. Despite the bad weather, the
seas weren’t quite as rough as they have been though. Also, despite how nasty the weather looked,
the temperature stayed around a very comfortable 75 degrees F.
We went
to lunch in the Lido and then Val went to afternoon trivia in the Crow’s
Nest and I went back to working on our pictures. When Val returned from trivia we went to the
casino to participate in the second slot tournament of the cruise. Today is the first of three qualifying days
with finals being on the final day of the cruise. Val
usually does well at these, but surprise, surprise, I ended up at the top of
the leader board and Val didn’t qualify.
My score was over 1,000,000 and it’s the best I’ve ever done. Usually that high of a score will get you
into the finals so maybe I’ve made it this time. Val has two more tries to qualify; it would
be fun if we both ended up in the finals.
After doing our qualifying rounds, we hung around the casino and played
for a while and we both ended up breaking even so we can return tonight after
dinner.
It was
late afternoon when we returned to our room and while I continued my work on
our photos, Val read. The storm seems to
have broken as the seas have calmed and the sun is out. We are supposed to have better weather for
the rest of the cruise. We did our usual
dinner routine and although our trivia team did well tonight, we didn’t
win. We went back to the casino after
dinner, but I didn’t do well and my night was quickly over.
When we got back to our room we found that we would be gaining another hour of sleep
tonight so it was earlier than we thought.
The Internet was back so I downloaded my e-mail and found that I didn’t
miss anything during the outage and that was a relief. The countdown has really started for the end
of the cruise with only four days remaining.
Most people we talked to are ready to get home again. There is a cold going around the ship so many
are suffering from that, but luckily Val is feeling much better; now if I can
just keep from catching the cold.
Day 45, At Sea
I ended
yesterday with the comment that I hoped I didn’t get the cold that was going
around, but I may have jinxed myself, I woke up this morning coughing and
feeling congested. I hope it’s just a
passing thing as I sure don’t want to have to spend the day getting off the
ship and flying home feeling sick.
We had
our breakfast and hung around the lounge while they cleaned our room
and then it was back to working on our photos for me. I am making progress and have thinned a lot
of the not-so-good and duplicate pictures out.
The
weather has certainly improved as it is partly cloudy with the temperatures
staying in the mid-seventies. We decided to have pizza one last time before the cruise ended so we decided to do
it today. We headed up to the pizza
place on the Lido Deck and found out the wait time was 45 minutes – it looks
like everyone else had the same idea we did.
That was too long to wait as Val had her trivia to go to so we
decided to wait and do it another day.
After
lunch, Val headed off to her trivia and I updated the blog and then backed up
the work I had been doing on our photos.
Today is the second qualifying round for the slot tournament so after
trivia Val and I went back to the casino.
I was still in first place so there was no need for me to compete, but
Val tried once again to qualify for the finals. Today was
better than yesterday for her and she moved into third place. Val and I are now number three and one, I
hope we get to compete against each other in the finals.
 |
| The Leader Board - I'm number 1 and Val's number 3. |
We
stayed and played for a while, but I quickly spent my money and returned to the
room, but Val stayed. Val returned a little
later and was very happy; she had done very, very well – the best win of the
trip. We decided to look at the rest of
the pictures for the trip and went down to the Neptune Lounge and
spent the rest of the afternoon doing our review; we have now looked at all the
pictures we took. We spent the rest of
the day relaxing and reading until it was time to get ready for dinner. We did our usual dinner routine and then
returned to the room. I worked on the
pictures for a while and checked my e-mail, but I figured the best thing for my
cold would be rest so I called it a night and went to bed.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Day 46, At Sea
I woke
up this morning and definitely knew I had a cold. Although not feeling terrible, I was
definitely sick so now my goal is to be feeling better by Friday when we arrive
in Fort Lauderdale and get off the ship and head for home.
The
weather has definitely improved as it was sunny outside with a few clouds and
the temperature was up in the high seventies.
We had breakfast and then returned to
the room, but just as soon as we got settled, our room steward arrived to clean
the room so it was back to the Neptune Lounge.
After
they were done, I worked on pictures for the rest of the morning while Val read
and watched some TV. We went up to the
Lido for lunch and then Val was off to trivia and I laid down to rest for a
while. When she returned, it was time to
head down to the casino for slot tournament finals. I was still first and Val third, but just
minutes before the qualifying round ended, someone knocked Val down to
fourth. It doesn’t really matter what
place you’re in as long as you qualify.
Charles,
Judy, Roy and Gabriella (our trivia team) came down to cheer us on and the
finals were underway. Things didn’t go
as we hoped and neither Val nor I won.
Oh well, this was Val’s fourth time playing in the finals since we
started cruising, but it was my first so that was exciting for me just being
able to compete. After the finals we
stayed in the casino and played for a while and then returned to the room.
I was
feeling a little better so I decided to work on pictures
again. I would really like to get the
sorting and culling done before we get home and that goal is now in sight.
It was
the eighth and last formal night of the cruise tonight and Val and I decided we
were done with formal wear for the trip and decided to skip the dining room
tonight. We did go to trivia and then
went to the Lido for dinner. It was back
to the casino for a short visit and then back to the room. It was still early so after checking my
e-mail I decided to what … go through more pictures of course. The end is in sight and I hope to finish up
tomorrow.
Even
though I’m feeling better, I am still not back to normal so I didn’t stay up
too late.
We gain another hour tonight so that will help also. I have started the coughing phase of my cold
so I hope it doesn’t keep Val or myself awake tonight.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Day 47, At Sea
Despite
gaining an hour last night, I still slept late this morning. I did have several bouts of coughing in the
night and that kept both of us awake.
Today is our last sea day and tomorrow we will be at Half Moon Cay Island
in the Bahamas.
After a
long break for breakfast while they cleaned our room, I
went back to working on pictures. I
really want to finish this first cut before we get home so I have dedicated
today to finishing it up. Val relaxed,
read and watched TV while I worked.
We decided to have our last pizza of the cruise today for lunch, but decided to
wait until Val returned from trivia to avoid the long wait. After trivia, we went to the Lido and got our
pizza and had a nice lunch. I said it
before, but the pizza is surprisingly good, especially the crust. I didn’t feel like going back to working on
the pictures so after we finished our pizza, we went down to the casino to lose
a little more money.
I was
quickly done in the casino again and I wanted to take some pictures around the
ship so I left Val in the casino and got my camera. After finishing my picture taking, I returned
to the room and decided to make one last push to finish going through our
photos. I’m happy to say that I have
made it through all of them and managed to reduce the number of photos by quite
a bit. That’s one job I won’t have to do
when we get home.
When I
finished the photo, I updated the blog and then spent the rest of the afternoon
reading and resting. I’m still coughing,
but feel better and hopefully by the time it’s time to get off the ship, I’ll be
back to normal. We returned to our
normal evening schedule tonight with trivia, dinner and the casino. I’m ending the cruise with the same bad luck
I had at the beginning. Oh well, at
least it was pretty good in the middle.
We gain
another hour of sleep tonight, that’s two days in a row. I would have rather they saved it for tomorrow
night since we’ll be arriving in Fort Lauderdale at 7:00 on Friday and we are
schedule to be off the ship at 7:45.
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