At sea...

Sunday, May 14, 2017

 

There hasn't been much to write about and the Internet is really slow and expensive, so I have not added to this blog in nearly a week.

 

On Tuesday (5/9) we arrived in Bermuda.  The weather was great and we took a nice sailboat trip viewing many of the lovely homes, and stopping for a swim. We glimpsed part of the Michael Douglas property and saw the house Mark Twain rented and the porch on which he did some writing. Bermuda is a lovely place-- very clean and filled with white and pastel-colored buildings. As we are on a smaller ship, we docked in the town of Hamilton and could walk around town right from the ship.  We saw the larger cruise ships docked much further out, and understand they required a long ferry ride to get into town.  It was a nice day and the last we've seen of land since!

 

We were supposed to arrive at Horta in the Azores today, but weather has required a change in route and we will not see that port. The weather has been generally pleasant (low 70's) but we were told by the Captain that we are on the edge of a "depression", requiring our change in course.  The last couple of days have been pretty hazy and a bit of rain mostly during the night. The seas have been a bit rougher also. Our next port is to be in Brest, France on Wednesday (this port was added to our itinerary when Horta was deleted).

 

We have kept busy with the usual ships activities.  We have attended on "Gala" evening dinner in the formal dining room and a couple of other nice dinners there.  Most of our meals are taken in the casual dining venue called the Lido. For those unfamiliar with Holland America Ships, the Lido is a cafeteria-style eating area where you can get everything from soup and sandwiches to the same fare being served in the formal dining room. On this ship there are also two "specialty" restaurants--a seafood and steak restaurant called the Pinnacle and an Italian venue called Canaletto. We had a lovely dinner at the Pinnacle on Thursday and we are scheduled for dinner at the Canaletto tonight.

 

We have done a lot of reading; seen four movies in the small movie theatre on board ("La La Land", "A Dog's Purpose", "Golden Years", and "Hidden Figures"); attended a lecture or two, and been to the live shows every evening. The shows have included the usual singing/dancing shows by the ships own entertainers, as well as a comedian, a pianist and an amusing and entertaining group of young brits with ukeleles!

 

A transatlantic cruise is a great way to rest and relax.  We needed the rest after our hectic week in Orlando, and we expect to be kept quite busy on the days in Prague and Bucharest before our river cruise.  We are enjoying sleeping late, and a nap here and there. It appears Dave has found the cold that Lynn got rid of earlier this week, but we hope we will both be fine by the time we reach land again. When we reach our next port in Brest, we will be in a port every day until we disembark in Amsterdam and fly to Prague on Saturday.