Home

I guess this falls into the better late than never category!

We are, of course, home. We were home within 24 hours of so of my previous post. We got disembarked in a very efficient and friendly manner. We waited with our color group until called and then walked off and made a long circuitous walk and down an escalator into chaos. There was a Norwegian cruise ship alongside the other side of the pier also disembarking. The luggage was tightly packed in rows that did not allow 2 people coming and going. So, you could reach your luggage but you couldn't get it out. No one could unless their bags were at the front of a row. After much struggling, we located all 5 bags and got them out to the back of the escalators. I thought we could manage them but Clay insisted we get a luggage handler with a cart to handle them. He was right. The guy he found and asked with an empty cart was a fixer! He got us out of there in a manner we never would have managed. He took us to where the taxi line for Serenity should have been to find that the guy working the road was sending all Serenity people down the block to the Norwegian cab stand! He and the next Serenity luggage carter got some cabs sent down to us but it wasn't clear the guy running the area ever got it or got that he was wrong. Anyway, we were off very quickly and found ourselves with a couple of hours wait in Penn Station. That was fine as it could have gone differently. There could have been traffic or a long line to check bags and there was neither.

The train to Raleigh was okay. The seats were comfortable and the car was not full. The ride to Washington was good and only a little late. The rest of the ride from there was rougher, the car more full and we just got later at each stop. We arrived in Raleigh closer to 10pm than to 9pm. We got our bags quickly and into a cab and home with no trouble.

We were happy to be home. I could hear the house alarm through the door before I opened it. I guess it had been sounding since it went off on August 12! The alarm log said it was the motion detector. I have to assume it was some kind of equipment malfunction as there was no sign anyone had been in the house in our absence. It hasn't happened again. So, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it was a random occurrence.

We haven't finalized plans for our next trip. NYC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! But, we are hard at work on early 2017's trip. Remember when we agreed in the NWP that we won't do the Oceania Sirena Australia Circumnavigation? Well, evidently that was not our decision to make. On September 2, our TA had accepted a guarantee A1 cabin on our behalf. We learned this less than 2 weeks before final payment was due when I checked in with her. I don't know when she planned to tell us since I prodded her before she got around to it. So the options now were to forfeit the waitlist deposit or make final payment and go. We're going, of course. Still waiting for a cabin assignment after telling the TA during the NWP waitlist clearance that we wouldn't accept a guarantee again. Oh well, best laid plans and all. It is a long way to go and costly so we are making the most of it. We have a land tour of New Zealand up front and the Ghan train after. Hesitantly looking forward to it. We'll go to Komodo Island on the cruise. Check that off the list. Also, we'll have stops in Papua New Guinea, so one new country for our time and trouble.

New York, New York

Friday, September 16, 2016

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We were up with an alarm at 6am. There was a beautiful big orange-red full moon low on the horizon as we neared New York Harbor. We were both out on deck 13 before 6:45am as requested. It was a spectacular sail in. Under the Verrazano Narrows bridge and around the corner. There on the starboard side was Lower Manhattan and the new WTC Tower and on the port was the Statue of Liberty. Soon we were all waving to the NBC helicopter as it circled us. The water cannon/fireboat had a technical problem and was canceled. The captain spun the ship around we thought as we passed the Intrepid Museum and we thought he was going to back in so he’d be nose out for a quick getaway tomorrow, but we came in nose first anyway. We were having breakfast at the back of Lido at the time so we saw everything from the rear by then. We are docked on the port side and have a view of a parking lot. The starboard side has a view of the USS Intrepid.

Yesterday evening, we came back to what must be final bed gifts. There were 2 giant maps of our route, but they must have been printed earlier because they didn’t reflect our sail inside the Gulf of St. Lawrence inside Newfoundland passage that we actually took. But, the best was that they gave each of us a set of embroidered patches for every maiden call we made on this Inaugural North West Passage. I’m glad because I had only bought one of the Nunavut flag! Last night we went to the computer center and bought 2 VIP Passes at $60 to visit the 86^th Floor outdoor observatory without lines to The Empire State Building. Clay has wanted to do this since “Sleepless in Seattle” and neither of us had done it before. They didn’t have the lines fully populated but we saved a lot of line time anyway. We went around 2 or 3 full times and when we came down and out of the gift shop the woman in front of me for the bag x-ray and metal detector was still in line for the elevators to the 86^th floor! So, I guess money well spent.

I had found instructions for the subway to The Empire State Building and Clay said he could do that with his phone, but this morning he said he wanted to take a taxi and walk to the Guggenheim after on the way back to the ship. I shot that down since the Guggenheim is nowhere near. When I was out of the bathroom ready to go, he had checked and admitted I was right and it was a bad plan. Since we could overlook the Intrepid Museum next door to our dock on the starboard side, I had already suggested we go there since it was an easy walk and I thought that was what we’d do. He agreed as long as we walked back. I didn’t understand not using the subway, but he wasn’t having it. We had a nightmarish 20 minutes in a taxi. It was only saved by the fact that the guy knew he screwed up and at some point turned off the meter. That and the fact he had NBC on the TV in back and we got to see Serenity sailing in!

We got off the ship at about 9:30am. We got to the Empire State Building about 10am. We left about 11:30am. We started walking back and I was checking You Are Here and Here’s What’s Nearby street maps every block. Clay asked what I was looking for and I said to see if there is somewhere we should go that is in our path. Like what? Maybe lunch. Clay said he wanted a slice. I pointed out that Spinelli’s Pizza was around the next corner towards Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. He checked Google which did not have Spinelli’s. It had 2 Little Italy’s in the next block over. I turned the corner and we found Spinelli’s about 2 doors down. It was very good. 2 large pepperoni slices for $3.50 each. We enjoyed the experience and they had seats and fountain sodas. Refueled we walked on down 7^th Avenue towards Times Square. We walked through a fashion district walk of fame and found some public art devoted to sewing and textiles. We turned on 47^th and walked to the Hudson River through Hell’s Kitchen. WE got to the USS Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum at 12:34pm. We paid for General Admission plus the Space Shuttle. Clay made the decision what tickets. I had argued to go today because the Star Trek 50^th special exhibit was leaving the end of October and we won’t be back until Thanksgiving. But, we didn’t go in anyway. The good news is that under the space shuttle Enterprise was the Galileo shuttlecraft from the Star Trek TV series. A case of life imitating art imitating life…

We came back to Serenity about 3pm and went for ice ceam at Scoops which we ate reclining on the pool deck. A lot of people are leaving today. We saw Ron Chapple, the Cineflex operator, all packed up and leaving as we returned as well as a lot of crew coming and going. We’ll be going ourselves first thing tomorrow morning. We did some more packing this afternoon where the extent of Clay’s overpacking became evident. I have actually thrown a lot of my stuff away as we’ve gone because I packed knowing I was freeing space for things coming back and getting rid of old things or using things up. It seems even with the 2 big expandable bags expanded that we’ll have to pack the duffel bag I brought as an extra bag. Good news is that we are still well within our Amtrak luggage allowances and we should still be able to handle it all on our own. I say that. I hope that is true. We’ll find out tomorrow.

We have dinner at Prego tonight and no other plans for the evening beyond finishing up packing and putting our bags out between 8pm and 11pm. I’ll end here then. It has been a great trip. I’m so glad we decided to do it and that we cleared the waitlist and got to do it!

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Newport, Rhode Island

Thursday, September 15, 2016

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Clay went to the gym for the last time early this morning. He woke me up when he came back in the cabin after 7am. We were scheduled to arrive in Newport, RI until 10am so we had nowhere to be this morning. It was pretty calm sailing overnight. For some reason we came way out into the Atlantic after leaving Boston yesterday. We looped way out and then sailed pretty slowly straight back in to get to Newport. I forgot to mention earlier, maybe because I hadn’t seen it on a map, but when we sailed from Bar Harbor to Boston the body of water we crossed was the Gulf of Maine. I learned that from a shore birds exhibit at the aquarium in Boston yesterday. Now you know. So the sun was shining, some clouds, fairly calm seas and 63F this morning. The high in Newport today was forecast as 72F. That sounds about right.

Land was visible from about 7am until we anchored. We went to the main dining room after it opened at 8am. I wanted a final Eggs Benedict. Since we are asked to out on deck 12 & 13 forward tomorrow by 6:45am, breakfast may be hit or miss and the following day we have to be off by 8:10am. So, I figured this was my last chance at a nice calm breakfast. We watched most of the sail in from Bistro as I enjoyed a coffee. Don’t ask! We also needed to wait for cabin to be ready for the day. We went to the cabin after we thought we heard the anchor drop. We never saw a tender leave but after we were ready, we went down to the tender area. We waited a few moments before they let the 10 or so of us waiting off the ship onto the tender. After we loaded a couple of busloads of Panoramic Newport tours got on and we were off at 10:30am. According to the knitting instructor who sat in our section with a tour sign, we were on the first tender. We never heard any announcements being made about the ship clearing, or tenders leaving. It was 30 minutes past scheduled arrival time and we just showed up. Credit to Crystal again, because we remember what a nightmare tendering was last year here on Oceania. Honestly, we still can’t figure out how Oceania handled tendering so badly or shuttles in Boston so badly. Crystal has done it right all along and credit to them for it. Also, we have not seen on Crystal the preference given to ship’s tours departing the ship that we have seen on every ship we’ve ever been on before. Nicely done.

The tender ride lasted about 20 minutes. Newport must be the sailboat capital of the world. We must have been here on a Sunday last year because it seemed like all downtown was closed. Today was busy and bustling for the Newport Boat Show. It was like a completely different town. We walked around the historic old town center. We saw the outside only of Touro Synagogue, White Horse Tavern, Brick Market, Old Colony House, Courthouse,, Quaker Meeting House, Trinity Church and St. Mary Church. We had lunch on Bowens Wharf sitting outside watching the Boat Show. We had some ice cream and walked around some more before going back and walking right onto a tender before it departed. We were back aboard Serenity by 2pm and spent the next couple of hours doing some packing.

We both admit to way overpacking. We wound up doing laundry about every 7 days and didn’t need at least 30-50% of the clothes we each brought. It was colder everywhere than was normal for each place on the date we were there and still we didn’t use all the heavy clothes and accessories we brought. Something to think about. It is hard to leave at home anything you think you might want or need later, but you probably need less than you think.

We have dinner in the main dining room for the last time tonight. Our final dinner on the last night aboard in NYC is at Prego at 6pm. There is a special NYC New Year’s Eve style party in the Crystal Plaza this evening around 8 to 9pmm with a balloon drop. It is not a sit down event we are told. I can definitely pass on that. There is a Simon Bowman show in Galaxy Lounge tonight at 10:30pm. There is a classical pianist in Stardust. There are 2 popcorn movie showings. We may just go to bed early to be up and out for the Manhattan sail-in. I can hear the tenders being put away. The last one was scheduled back at 4:30pm. We should be sailing in a couple of minutes. We had a beautiful day today.

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Boston, Massachussetts

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

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Last night the video was a work in progress because it isn’t finished yet. Clay and I were both in it, though the videographer Kevin Freeny must have really worked to get us since we both avoid photographers. It is just a few seconds each and you’d have to know it was us. I have a parka hood up and am shot from the back and side but you can see my tremor. Clay has his camera over his face with a big lens and he is cut into footage of a fishing trip that saw whales when his whale watching cruise was changed to a fjord cruise. Maybe we won’t make the final cut. They will either deliver DVDs or flash drives to our homes one per booking number after the cruise. The big surprise of the evening was Edie Rodriguez onstage before and after the video. She held a drawing at each showing for the commemorative gold pendant they are taking orders for onboard. She also talked about a North East Passage cruise with the new polar expedition yacht Crystal have ordered. You have to wonder what it takes to bring her on in Bar Harbor and off in Boston. I mean ordinarily people can’t get on and off foreign-flagged ships between US ports. Anyway, she said she was jealous of us all and had to come when she could and this was when she could. She thanked us all for the success of this inaugural sailing. She said Crystal was going to put out a photobook through Amazon and other online outlets made up of shared photos by passengers because she had been so thrilled with what we were posting online through social and other media. She said all profits from sales would be given to the NWP communities as part of their voluntourism charity effort. It was a nice touch.

We both slept through the night and I didn’t think it was too rough. I woke up before 6:30am to find Clay out of the cabin as we were entering Boston Harbor. We docked at Black Falcon Terminal where we were with Oceania last year. What a difference! Well done Crystal! The complimentary shuttles were well handled. The ship was announced cleared at 8am. The shuttle schedule said the first one left at 9am. If that was true, then we were on it. Through laziness or disinterest or something, no one had a plan here. Our cabin wasn’t ready so I went into the computer room and used their much faster connection to do some research. It turned out that we had done a good chunk of the North part of the Freedom Trail when we did the US Park Ranger led free tour last year. We could try for the 30-person group on the South portion at either 10am or 1pm. So, we went back to the cabin and changed our clean up light to do not disturb and got ready for the day. It was almost 70F already with a forecast high of 82. I think it got hotter! We were first in line at 9:30am at Faneuil Hall when they started handing out tour tickets for 10am. It was a small group. The south side tour did not cover as much of interest and did not cover as much ground and we had a pretty poor ranger/guide. Last year the guy we got was much better. Today, the girl just read from the backs of her prop pages. In her defense, she didn’t have as much to show us as the North side. Just sayin’.

We walked past a place called Cheeseboy that had a S’mores Melt photo in the window. Nutella, marshmallow and graham crackers on cinnamon sugar bread. At 11:10am when the tour ended, we checked out the Boston Irish Famine Memorial and then crossed the street and shared one. It was very messy. Then we walked back to Quincy Market and to Durgin-Park for lunch after 11:30am. Through a lack of imagination and research we returned to Durgin-Park. I had my cornbread and Boston baked beans. Clay had a baker’s dozen of raw oysters and we shared a warm Indian pudding with vanilla ice cream. Clay had a red brick Samuel Adams beer. It was good and filling. Back out into the sun and heat we walked through Quincy Market to the New England Aquarium. It was about $25 each. That seemed high for a compact 4-story aquarium. We thought it would be cooler in there. It wasn’t and it was even more humid. It was fine though. They had 3 kinds of penguins. You could see the harbor seals from outside without even paying and they were in the shade with a breeze so that would be a bargain.

We walked past a dancing fountain that people were playing in and sat in the shade to watch for a bit. It was surrounded by Chinese zodiac head sculptures. Walked back to the shuttle bus about 2:30pm and took an almost full bus back to Serenity. I was so drained from the sun and humidity that I stripped off and took a nap. I slept a couple of hours and missed a big thunderstorm. I was glad we came back early since we hadn’t carried anything for rain as there was not a cloud in the sky all morning.

We had our last of 4 complimentary dinners in Silk Road. We had dishes we’d had before and it was all good even though I had to send my steak back to get it well done. That is the first time that has happened. We plan to go to the Billy Joel show tonight. It will be only about our 3^rd or 4^th time in the Galaxy Lounge at night.

A couple of other notes. Our cabin window was washed today! Hurray! Better late than never. I was sure they had to wash it before the next cruise began anyway. Tonight on our bed we found a North West Passage certificate on our bed for each of us, so there’s that. We traveled 7273 nautical miles. Still nothing for becoming bluenoses by crossing the Arctic Circle. Oh well. We also got a printed copy of the words to the song Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers. They have played that a lot on this cruise as our sailaway music otherwise they play Louis Armstrong’s It’s a Wonderful World.

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Bar Harbor, Maine

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

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Clay was up for the treadmill early. I was up before 7am when he came back. We traveled very slowly over the next 2 hours to reach our anchorage at Bar Harbor. I’d like to say it was a scenic sail in but it was really windy and the decks were very wet so either it had rained recently or the water had been rougher than I’d thought. Those things kept us from going outside until we stopped moving. The dadgum dirty windows kept us from enjoying what must have been a scenic sail in. I have never, ever been on any ship sailing in any sea, around any continent that has not even made a show of trying to clean windows. It is beyond all comprehension. Our cabin window is on the Promenade Deck so there is absolutely nothing keeping anyone from cleaning these windows every day. Yet ours has only been cleaned once, when Clay took one of our washcloths to it.

We had breakfast in Lido and then sat in Cove waiting for 9am and immigration clearance or our cabin being ready for the day. About 9am we went up to deck 13 forward and had a look around Bar Harbor. It was blue skies and sunshine and about 75F today. The last time we were on land for a day like this was in Denali! Finally, time to use that sunscreen I packed for the brutal Arctic sun which we never saw. Crystal was very unclear about the ship’s clearance by immigration. The letter we got assigning us Group 4 which caused us to reschedule our Oli’s Trolleys tour to Acadia National Park stated that once you cleared and had your keycard holepunched that you may proceed ashore. Reflections implied the entire ship had to be cleared before anyone could go ashore and this is how it works most of the time in most places. Clay asked at the desk and she agreed that the entire ship had to be cleared. The CD made one last call for anyone in the 14 or so groups he had called that had not done so to go to the Immigration spot they were assigned. Then he wished us a pleasant day ashore. This was right after 10:30am which would have made us too late for the 10:30am check in required for the 11am tour we originally booked. So it was good that we rescheduled that. Clay took this well-wishing to be an all cleared to disembark announcement, which I didn’t get at all. He didn’t say, everyone is now clear to go ashore and the tenders are running. I had been watching for tenders to go ashore until the nose of the ship swung around and I couldn’t see anymore. So, we don’t actually know how early we could have gotten ashore here. We were ashore by 10:45am and there was at least one tender ashore ahead of us as it was leaving as we arrived.

We walked directly through the building at the street end of the pier and found ourselves at the Oli’s Trolley Gift Shop where we got in line and went ahead and checked in. They gave us a map to show where we were and where to line up for the trolley by 12:45pm. We should have lined up earlier since it was a completely full trolley and we were in the back seat since we only arrived a couple of minutes before 12:45pm. They didn’t start boarding until right before 1pm though and it was hot standing in the sun. So, it was a tradeoff. First we toured a bit by foot. The ship’s port information had a few must sees.  One of them was St. Saviour’s Church, so we headed that way. It was said to have 10 or 12 Tiffany windows but there were a lot more windows than that and we couldn’t say which were Tiffany and which weren’t. We passed most of the other must sees which were art galleries. I use that term almost ironically because it was a lot of restaurants, bars, ice cream and souvenir shops selling art as well as best I could tell. Clay got a t-shirt. He wanted ice cream but didn’t have any because nothing seemed “Maine” enough to him. We sampled some maple popcorn but didn’t like it enough to buy any. We went in the public library and looked up because that was on an on-foot tour I had printed from online. It was nice but not that impressive. We walked though Village Green and we read a lot of historical markers. We saw Smokey the Bear on a fire house. We found the Acadia National Park Information Center there by Village Green and went in and got the NP stamps. I asked about patches and they said several shops in town sell official park souvenirs. Clay’s t-shirt had come from one. We had to walk back down through those shops again anyway. We saw all the free Island Explorer shuttle buses and the schedules were there. This probably would have been the thing to do but with limited time we wanted a guided tour. Ours was just too crowded and rushed to be enjoyable. The park service has guided bus tours at 10am and 2pm that may be better or may not and we’d have chosen that but we were afraid that neither time would work and they wouldn’t have. Oh well. It was a beautiful day anyway. We had lunch at a little coffee shop-type place on Main St. Clay wanted a lobster roll. The first place had a nice outdoor patio but their lobster roll was market price on the chalkboard. I think that struck Clay as pretentious and also he thought they’d be too slow and all I could order there was a big pretzel. We walked on to the Independent and went in. I could eat sandwich #2 on the board, a bacon, mozzarella and pesto panini for $9 and his lobster roll $16. That was good and we enjoyed them even though Clay saw them as low as $12.95. I was excited to see chocolate whoopie pies in a case for $3.50. I had to have that and ate part of it while I waited for my sandwich. Both sandwiches came with chips so they were a reasonable value. The whoopie pie was delish. As we walked back down, I found my Acadia Centennial patch and a maple whoopie pie at Pink Pastry Bakery. It was really good as we ate it on the trolley later. Our trolley tour went by the Hulls Cove Visitors’ Center, the sand bar to Bar Island, up Cadillac Mtn. (15-minute stop), a photo pause at Beaver Dam Pond, Thunder Hole (15-min. stop), around Otter Point for a photo pause, and lastly a 15-minute stop at Jordan Pond House before returning to town. We saw a magnificent Airedale Terrier here. We walked out to the middle of the sand bar to Bar Island and then back to the ship. A nice day in beautiful weather.

Oh, important lesson. Somehow, we had not learned until we arrived that Bar Harbor is named for the sand bar that you can walk or drive across at low tide to Bar Island in the harbor. Hence, Bar Harbor named for a sand bar.

We sailed on time while paging a missing passenger. Once again, hopefully that was a records error. Dinner was okay. We saw the boat come alongside to pick up the pilot. If we have Internet, I’ll post this now. We plan to go to the 8:30 pm preview screening of the expedition video. I might have something to say about that later or not.

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Sailing to Bar Harbor, Maine

Monday, September 12, 2016

Last night we gained another hour. That always makes a restful night’s sleep. Clay went to the gym around 6am and I slept until almost 7am. We went to Lido for breakfast. We went to Palm Court for me to be there for 9am Gentle Yoga. We saw an NCL ship heading north this morning. Today was the final Gentle Yoga class. On the 10am morning of Newport there will be a final combined yoga class. I don’t know if I’ll make that so this may have been the end for me. I went to final Chair Yoga at 10:15am. Clay went to the Captain’s Q&A at 11am and I watched on TV from the cabin. I was happy to hear John Stoll is considering the North East Passage! I suspect he was talking about doing it with the new polar-rated expedition yacht they have recently purchased. It may be too far out for me, but I can hope. 2017 is a repeat of this sailing on Serenity and 2018 they plan to do it with the new expedition yacht. So, I wouldn’t expect the North East Passage could be a possibility before 2018. It was interesting that they started planning for this when NYK (a Japanese company) owned Crystal and it got more feasible when Genting (a Chinese company) who are less fiscally conservative bought Crystal. Obviously, we consider this effort by Crystal a huge success. I hope that the majority, or everyone, onboard feels the same way.

We came out of the Cabot Strait about 7am and it got rockier. We are sailing along the coast of Nova Scotia and passed by Sydney and Halifax. The Captain said he didn’t want to visit those ports in order to get as far south and to fuel and supplies in reliable and affordable ports ASAP so we are sailing through and by the Canadian Maritimes without any stops. We’ve probably been to all of these ports anyway including ports like Corner Brook which passed yesterday so we’re fine with it but they are nice ports and would be a great contrast with the far Northern communities we visited earlier.

John Stoll just told us to expect a gala greeting when we reach the Statue of Liberty in NY harbor! It sounds like they are pulling out all the stops and expect NBC helicopter news coverage.

At noon, the captain made his final noon announcement. We had American Specialties at Lido buffet for lunch. We could just see Whitehead Island off Nova Scotia on the starboard side. When we got back to the cabin, we found every cabin had an envelope outside. In the category of best laid plans and all, the letter informed us that we were assigned to Group 4 for US Customs and Immigration clearance tomorrow starting at 9:30am. Clay went down and asked if we could be in the first group and the guy told him the groups were just suggestions to keep everyone from trying to be first in line, but to come as early as we felt we needed to get ashore on time. This has cluster cuss written all over it. Crystal has done an exemplary job thus far in efficiency in getting people on and off the ship so I guess we’ll see what happens. This is the only port where we booked an independent tour. We booked an 11am departure on Oli’s Trolley Acadia National Park tour. Unfortunately, we’ve been informed we must check in for it no later than 10:30am and they advise to allow 30 minutes to tender ashore. We’ll just cross our fingers and hope everything works out. Otherwise we’ll have wasted our money on this one. I am going to reply to their email reminder to let them know what our circumstances are and maybe they’ll just let us board at 11am and check us in then and there. We’ll see. We thought we were allowing a couple of hours when we booked thinking we anchored at 9am and not considering the US Immigration delays. This could go either way. Good news. Oli’s Trolleys let us move our booking to 1pm. We will have plenty of time to get there now.

Today was a pretty lazy last sea day. It was close to 70F today and the sun shone all day. Now if they’d just clean the windows it would be a clear day all around. About 5:30pm as we passed Halifax we saw Canadian Naval ships sailing nearby. That was interesting. Dinner at Prego was good. Tomorrow we’ll be back in the USA.

Sailing the Gulf of St. Lawrence

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The seas have calmed considerably when I wake up. I look out and we are nearing the Newfoundland coast. Around 8am, we turned slightly right and entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. We can see land on both sides. Around 1pm, we saw what will probably be our last ice berg of the trip. Clay says our last iceberg ever! That’s a bit depressing. We went up to Lido for breakfast. We both went up to Palm Court after. We could see a lot of shipping traffic which has been absent for a long time. I did 9am gentle yoga. At 10am we both attended the Cineflex talk by our expedition operator, Ron Chapple. It was fascinating. All the camera equipment he has fitted on the ship is worth about $500, 000. He told us his company does all the aerial photography for the TV series Hawaii Five-O. After that I took my nearly completed needlepoint project to Miyako and at last she offered me another kit. Unfortunately, she did not, as promised, save me the tablet cover Clay had requested. She only had 3 choices left. I didn’t want to repeat the size I just finished. Choice 2 was a half-spectacles case, which I had not seen before, but which was a nice size. Choice 3 was what I had thought was the most coveted, the Crystal logo pillow top. I had wanted a larger project but I didn’t love this one, plus it wasn’t a complete kit like the others as it was just a canvas. You have to finish it to make it anything like a pillow or else maybe frame it. Miyako showed me that another guest had told her they were putting NWP 16 around the center of theirs. I liked that idea of making a souvenir of the cruise that could be framed or made into a pillow. She sold me. So, if finally got a new kit, but not the one I had been working towards. Oh well.

Today Serenity put on a Sunday Jazz Brunch. What made it a jazz brunch? There was live jazz playing in the Crystal Plaza where the buffet tables were set up. There wasn’t any Bananas Foster or anything necessarily food themed with the jazz motif. Clay went and took photos after they started serving at 11:30am. We waited until after noon and went to Lido. The captain made his noon announcement and said we’d be in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence until we exit at Cabot Strait early tomorrow morning. He says we’re about half way to Bar Harbor where he expects to easily reach on schedule.

We plan to lounge in the cabin until 4:30pm. We have our tickets to Magic Castle at Sea in Pulse Disco then. We don’t really know what to expect other than a 20-guest magic show. We’ll see.

The captain says they are refilling the swimming pool and heating the water. It has been open more than closed for this sailing actually. It has seen a surprising amount of use I think. It is probably about 57F outside, but cloudy and drizzling all day so far. Still the weather is improving for us! Around 3pm we spotted several whale blows. We still haven’t seen any whale parts other than those bowhead tops by Smoking Hills.

Back from Magic Castle at Sea. It was just a fairly standard magic show. I’m not sure why they keep the audience so small. It would have been as effective to me with twice as many in the audience, but then I really don’t like magic. I think it is too sneaky.

Dinner in the main dining room tonight. Nothing exciting on the menu for either of us. We plan to go to the popcorn movie tonight. Hopefully tomorrow will be as calm as today was. Tomorrow is our final sea day. It is also our 2^nd and final formal night. We have reservations at Prego. We still have to dress up.