September 9th

September 9^th

Right now the sea is rough and the ship is bouncing us  around pretty good. But it is not the kind of roughness that you feel in your stomach. It is a noisy roughness. It is as if the bow of the ship lifts out of the water and then drops down with a bang. I don’t think that is what is happening but after the bang sound sea spray rushes past our window, But we are in the North Sea l so I gather this is to be expected.

We are making our way around platforms of all kinds. Some for crude oil , and some for natural gas.

I am glad the Commodore is driving in this wind and not me.:-)

Tonight is the Commodore’s welcome aboard party and the champagne waterfall. It will be interesting to see just how much champagne they pour.

Anyway this is a sea day and we have been relaxing. I went up to the Lotus Spa and had my hair washed and set this morning. It needed doing and formal night is as good an excuse as you get. Ken’s ankles are swollen up quite badly and he had a rash on that part of his legs. It almost looks as if they washed his socks in a harsh detergent that his skin was sensitive to. Anyway I put some anti biotic ointment on them and insisted that he lie down with his feet up and that he drink a lot. Dr. Reid was correct in her diagnosis and the swelling has gone down. The skin is not as red but he was never sore, the tissue was just red and smooth.

So we basically took it easy both yesterday and today. But it is no wonder that we needed to rest. This has been such an unbelievably busy 12 days.

The move from P217 to P206 went smoothly without a hitch. This room is further forward and as a result it is narrower. The bow of the ship tapers in and as a result so does the room. It is not bad but if we had had a choice we would not have picked this one. The staff arrived, they put all of our clothes hangers on a rack and put our packed bags on a trolley and across the hall we went. Of course I went along carrying my carnations. The night table is on Ken’s side of the bed this time so he is happy.

Because this is a different cruise we got all of our gifts again. We have another enlargement, 2 more bottles of wine and another coffee card. Between Kim and the travel agency and Princess we have done very well. We received our new fruit bowl and our bar set up also. We changed it out for what we prefer. I also sent out laundry. I have even been too busy to do much of that and we were getting low on tee shirts.

I put the decorations on the door, I created a new bulletin board and I posted our new picture. So it feels like home to be sure. Strangely enough the art work in this stateroom is the same as was in the previous room.

This was a wonderful  day weather wise. The sun was shining and it was quite warm. Several people were in the pools and hot tubs and some were even in deck chairs getting some sun. We walked around the deck and we saw a beautiful sail away. There were three other cruise ships in port today and this harbour is not particularly large so the commodore had to do some fancy maneuvering.

Last night we met the new people who will share our table at dinner for the rest of this cruise. They are from Switzerland, English is not their first language and this is their very first cruise. That was a long slow dinner. In fact we were the last ones to leave the dining room. I could not believe the line up as we left.  These will be interesting meal times to say the least. Perhaps we should have stayed with a table for 4.

After dinner we were treated to a beautiful sunset, the first of this holiday. We didn’t go to the show , we just called it a night.

Today was the Meet and Greet for cruise critic but I guess we got the times mixed up because we were not there when we should have been. We did meet Doug and Nickie and Wayne and Linda and Barb and Roy for lunch. It is always fun but I am certain the wait staff hate to see us come because we visit so much that it takes us forever to complete our meal.

Ken bumped into Michael and Jan from Seattle this morning so we will have to arrange to get together with them for breakfast or lunch or at least for coffee. I think they are going on the Quebec so we should get to see them several times.

The movie Philomena is showing in the Princess Theatre right now but even though I want to see that one I didn’t feel like going today. I hope they show it on our stateroom T.V. before the voyage is finished. I guess they are going to do a flash mob and the rehearsal for the dance part is happening right now also. There are just so many things to do but we just need to catch up on our rest. I guess we are not as young as we used to be.



We did connect with the COOKIE lady and we got a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk 

mid afternoon. 

Tomorrow we will be in Bergen Norway but we do not dock until eleven so we don’t have to set the alarm.