Voyage of the Vikings Redux – At Sea

Cruise Day 27

 Thursday, August 17, 2023

After six port days in the last seven, we were very much looking forward to a free day at sea.  I didn’t cough much last night, so we got a pretty decent night’s sleep and didn’t get up until 9:00.  In the back of my mind there was a bit of a worry that I might not have a cold, but have COVID instead, so right after I got up I took a COVID test that thankfully came out negative so that worry was gone.

We aren’t planning on doing anything today as I am not at the top of my game and Val is still recovering from her cold.  We got our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and returned to the room to relax until lunchtime, but we were interrupted by our room stewards wanting to clean our room (such an inconvenience to have someone want to clean your room every day 😉).  We returned to the Neptune Lounge while they took care of that and had a nice chat with a woman who is also was recovering from a cold, there seems to be a lot of that on the ship as there is a lot of coughing going on. However, we aren't hearing that there is a lot of COVID onboard so we are grateful for that. Val and I are wearing masks again on the tenders and buses and anytime we are in a crowd, but that doesn’t seem to have kept us from getting whatever is going around.

I spent the rest of the morning writing up the blog and resting until it was time for lunch.  After lunch in the Lido, we took a short trip to the casino and then returned to the room.  We relaxed for a while and then looked at all of our recent photos.  After we finished, I organized them and backed them up and then relaxed until dinner.  We haven’t gone to any of the lectures or activities lately as my coughing would be too distracting, so we have just stayed in our room.

We are having dinner tonight in the Caneletto Restaurant compliments of the casino.  The Caneletto is another specialty restaurant on the ship, this one featuring Italian cuisine.  Our meal was very good and in fact, it was better than our Pinnacle Grill dinner.  After dinner, we of course went to the casino in honor of them paying for our dinner and played for a while.

Tonight, there was a special event called the Zuiderdam Ball that took place on the Music Walk which is the area from the Rolling Stone Lounge to Billboard Onboard area.  This is the walk we take to and from the casino and it was full of people including ship’s officers and even the captain himself.  Music was playing in both venues, and everyone was having a good time.  The casino was very crowded, but mostly from people just sitting on chairs listening to the music and talking.  It was a little annoying as it made it difficult to get to the slot machines and table games, but it all worked out and everyone had a good time.

We arrived back in the room a little later than usual, but the clocks are going to be set back an hour again tonight, so that means another extra hour of sleep for us.  Tomorrow will be a day of scenic cruising as we make our return journey through the Prince Christian Sound.