June 14

June 14, at sea. This is the last day of cruise #3. The good news is that I don't have much packing to do because I didn't unpack much this week. So far there is no bad news ... at least not in my immediate world. I can hardly speak for that mess beyond the horizon. 

Last evening on telly, I watched Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, christen the Royal Princess. Both the Duchess and the ship looked very fine. It's amazing how popular animal prints are over here, especially the spotted ones, although I'm just old-fashioned enough to think that might not have been the most flattering choice for her short, flippy dress at this late stage of pregnancy. Yet she carried it off better than many non-pregnant females aboard this ship. 

They mentioned that the previous Royal Princess had been christened 30 years ago by Princess Diana. That brought back fond, if chilly, memories of the time my mother and I sailed in her from Montreal to New York. Mother wanted to do a "fall leaf color" cruise, I think it was in the mid-90s. There were several excursions, particularly one at Bar Harbor, ME, where I have never, before or since, been so cold. Of course, by the time we got home to Virginia, our own trees were turning the exact same colors we had spent so much money to go see up north! Sill, that Royal Princess was a lovely ship, and one of the earliest ones I ever saw to have any kind of "interactive tv system" in the cabins. 

Had a nice, quiet time up in the Metropolis lounge again. It's as high as you can get at the aft end of the ship. It's Deck 18, so you have an excellent view of where we've been. On the other hand, I rather prefer the view at the front of where we're going. On this ship, my wheels won't go there. Ah well. Time to get something to eat then go back and chuck the suitcase out into the hallway.

June 12/13

June 12, Olden, Norway. Pretty much the same as yesterday. FYI, sunset last night at this latitude was at 11:35 p.m. and sunrise this morning was at 3:47 a.m. Makes me glad I have an inside cabin. When I got up about 8:00 a.m., sunrise was just creeping down the mountainside toward the town.

By the way, the info about flat, non-diet Coke having all the electrolytes you need comes from a perky blond British nurse named Stephanie. I just figured it was too useful not to pass it along. But I will say that it will be a long cold day somewhere before I drink another dozen 150 ml teeny tiny toy cans of flat Coca Cola in about 36 hours. It works, but bletch!

Yea! I am free! No more isolation (probably a politer term than quarantine). No more Niky and the HazMat boys (the real name for them is Hit Squad, but I like HazMat better). The first thing I did was to take a nice long nap. Go figure.

Olden is a really lovely little place, and I think I see a few shops right at the end of the dock, so I'm going to head that direction if my strength holds out. (I am rather wobbly after the better part of a week of being ill and no activity to speak of.). Yes, I wobbled over (after my card didn't want to let me off the ship), looked around, and wobbled back. My card not only didn't want to let me back on, it refused to rulet me into my cabin. So, up to the main desk for card #2.

After another rest and some rehydration, about the time we were to sail,  I headed out to explore the ship for the first time and find a good place to watch our departure. The Captain announced that the strings were being removed, the engines' rubber bands were fully wound up, and he was going to pirouette around the other ship in the harbor. Sure enough, it all happened as he said, and he did the pirouette going backwards! with less than 100 feet to spare in any direction! Progress back down the fjord was slow and gorgeous!

Card #2 may have opened my cabin door, but it would not work correctly at any of the shops or bars, so back again for card #3. So far, so good.

Ventura is essentially the same plan as Caribbean Princess with a few differences in pool structure on the Lido and other upper decks (no flying Skywalker's equivalent although Metropolis comes close),, and a very different decor through the public spaces. Ventura is heavily urban-techno-modern (which probably isn't the right name for it). It has more character, and I actually like it a lot better, than Caribbean Princess, but that's a matter of personal taste. I can't say much for the public areas' background music which is too loud, hard driving, repetitive, mostly tuneless, and senseless, but that's true of most cruise lines and just about everywhere else these days.

June 13, Stavanger, Norway. It is raining today, but since I've been here and done the main tour of Lysfjord and Pulpit Rock here, I don't count this against the weather magic ... or at least not by a full point. 

A fair number of people stayed aboard what with the weather being uncooperative, but I grabbed a good spot in the Metropolis with a great view of the harbor and the MSC Poesia next to us. Poesia left first, sailing straight out.at a good clip. We had to wait for some late passengers ... one pair of which were the same as yesterday's. Then the captain "let off the last strings," and did another backwards pirouette to get us going. Pretty quickly we got into a thick fog, so with nothing to see, I opted to go back for a nap. 

For dinner, it was a formal night, and I had no interest in unpacking the suitcase down to the sparklies, so I nipped up to the Italian dinner buffet on Lido Deck for a quick bite. P&O's version of penne carbonara is definitely NOT my idea of the dish ...iIt was almost inedible. However, yesterday evening, their room service folks produced a truly superior bowl of spaghetti Bolognese. The sauce wasn't quite as good as Tom's home made version, but it was close ... very close!

June 11

June 11 Andalsnes, Norway.  The weather outside appears lovely judging by the tv feed from the camera up front. I am sorry to miss my tour here where the spectacular Romsdal Alps meet the north end of the Romsdalfjord. In 2010 the Hurtigruten Ferry came into Romsdalfjord as far as Molde, but not all the way up to the end. At least I have a fine camera view on the tv even if I can't take photos myself. I'm also sorry that I'm missing activities on board, especially some of the movies that I haven't seen, although some of the other stuff sounds like fun also. Oh well ... better that I be fit for cruise number 4.

The "HazMat" guys are a trip. One dons protective gear and comes into the cabin while the other waIts in the hall. The "inside" guy has a disposable apron, shoe covers, rubber gloves and a mask plus a big spray bottle of disinfectant, a couple of wipes of some sort, and perhaps scariest of all, a big red trash bag marked BIOHAZARD.  All hard surfaces that you might have touched get cleaned, and any trash, including the pressed paper trays, paper plates, cups, napkins, etc. from room service go into the red bag. The outside guy runs errands like clean glassware, ice, etc. and hands stuff in. When he's done, the inside guy stands on the threshold to the room and strips his gear into the red bag before stepping back into the hall. They take this stuff seriously, as well they should. I'm sending some stuff to the laundry. It goes out in a "special" pink laundry bag, and I was warned that it will be washed in VERY HOT water. I said that if it doesn't survive, that's okay, and got only a solemn look in reply. It probably goes straight into an autoclave. 

Oh goodie. Today I get a ham sandwich instead of a boiled chicken sandwich for lunch. Still drinking flat Coke from the little toy cans for the electrolytes. Ah HA! Potato chips! Oh joy, oh rapture!

And more good news! According to Dr. Farouk Parker, I may get sprung from this durance vile tomorrow! He and his staff of duty nurses, especially Stephanie, have been great. Now, if I can just kick the cough...

To celebrate, I ordered a "Pizza American" for dinner. Major Mistake. P&O's version of pepperoni pizza is not for the faint of heart or any other organ. Fortunately, my friends of the "HazMat" team arrived a short time later for their evening visit and put the pizza and its aroma into a red BIOHAZARD bag which solved that problem!

June 6 - 10

June 6, Southampton. Since I'm mostly unable to go do what I wanted to do here, I spent the greater part of the day reading "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper, and a fine old space opera shoot 'em up it was. 

The Novotel hotel here in Southampton is newly renovated with lots of ultra-modern furniture that is a little lower than I prefer, but manageable. The tub, sink and shower are all higher than optimum for me. Go figure. It is very close to Mayflower Quay, but not so close to the Carnival-owned Ocean Terminal.  If you are sailing from Southampton, it would behoove you to find out, before you make hotel reservations, which pier your ship will be at. On Caribbean Princess, we sailed from the former and returned to the latter. Also, there seems to be a certain amount of noise in the area: sirens, horns, whistles, and the occasional deep reverberating boom as well as occasional odd noises inside the hotel. It's not constant noise, just occasionally startling ... especially the boom which I have yet to identify. Then there were the "rabid robo-termites" chewing holes in the hotel's walls as part of the final stages of the renovation, although I'm told that is done now. It's okay ... the place is clean and nice, and the staff are very helpful.

June 7, still at Southampton. As before, I spent the day sleeping, reading and watching BBC2, plus a bit of a chat with Jeff. Not feeling too great this past day or so, but should perk up in a while. I do admit that thoughts of my own bed, bath, etc. have begun occasionally crossing my consciousness.. 

June 8. On to cruise #3 on P&O's Ventura up to Norway. Ably assisted by taxi driver Paul and Assistance Agent John I left the hotel about noon and whizzed through check-in to be deposited on Lidoe  Deck to await cabin availability. By the time I got to my cabin, I realized I had a sore throat, cough and a fever which turned out to be 102. So off to Medical to be perforated by the doc on board. Will spend a day or two in my cabin til that goes away. Didn't have anything scheduled for 2 days anyway ... a day at sea and a day at Bergen. Remembering the old days sailing on Sitmar when the doc on board was a retired Italian grandpa, and you just prayed that you could understand each other.

June 9 the less said, the better ...note to self:  round two of stomach bug does not go well with heavy cough.

June 10 the rest of the ship is visiting Bergen. I'm still in quarantine in my cabin with twice daily visits by the nursing staff and the HazMat boys who come to "sanitize" the place. The only good news today is that I can get electrolytes from flat non-diet Coke instead of little "flavored" packets of powder mixed with water ... all the flavors were bad, but the banana was really really ugly. So now I have a lot of little toy cans (150 ml) of Coke sitting open on the dresser going flat.

June 5

June 5 end of cruise number 2, Southampton, England.

There was the usual sort of pseudo-chaos getting off the ship, but I got through it and grabbed a taxi to the Novotel. It's a very modern decor hotel fairly near the docks. First I napped through lunch, then I went downstairs to the hot spot in the lobby and unsuccessfully tried to do several things. First was to try to load photos into my recent posts - nope, no luck.

Second was to try to arrange some activities for while I'm here in Southampton - also no go. This is a somewhat bare bones hotel with no concierge desk, but the front desk people have tried their best. I especially wanted to visit Down House, Charles Darwin's home in Downe, Kent. Which is part of the "English Heritage" group along with Stonehenge et al. The quote I got before I left home was for over $1,100 for a car and driver for the day. The quote the hotel got from a local taxi company was £500 or about $625. While I really want to see Down House, I don't really want to see it that much.

I can probably get to Stonehenge via public bus, if I can get to the central bus station, but I did see it years ago when you could still walk up among the stones. I may wind up just vegging at this hotel for three days of non-excitement. If the weather is nice, maybe I'll go to the local zoo. I'll let you know, but don't expect too much.

June 3/4

Am finally at hotel with wi-fi in Southampton, but still can't seem to get photos into blog posts. Sorry.

 June 3 at sea again. The seas have been really calm, almost glassy, including the Atlantic, the North Sea and the English Channel. Come to think of it, all the cruises I've taken in the past 5 years (6 except for a hurricane in Drake's Passage) have been quite calm. Gotta keep that weather magic powered up and working!

 First I slept really late, getting up only briefly to let room service deliver breakfast which I did eventually have for lunch. I then "planned" a day of not doing much of anything and achieved it. I sat in the Library for a while and partially listened to the excitement of the Egg Drop Contest out in the Atrium. Evidently contestants get some time to try to devise a container for an egg to keep it from breaking when dropped. It appears that most break, and only a few survive, but I'm not sure how high the drop is...3 feet or 3 floors. It's just another variety of shipboard silliness. I generally avoid such activities even as a spectator, and if I rarely do go to watch, I sit in the back row and never volunteer for anything.

 I had a nice chat with a lady from Brisbane. She and her husband had been driving around England for a month. They got tired of that and happened to see an ad for this cruise in a travel agency window. It was the right timing and a heavily discounted price, so they hopped on to see Ireland and Scotland. That's something about cruises...people aren't afraid to strike up a conversation with a perfect stranger. I like that.

As it was a formal night, I finally made it up to Skywalker's for the Captain's Cocktail Party. To get
there, you hike to the aft elevators and go to the top which is Deck 18. Then you walk up a long slope to get to Skywalker's on Deck 19. There you get a great view of the ship's wake, a free glass of champagne and an hors d'oeuvre or two. Then you reverse the process to get to dinner down on Deck 6.

June 4 is our last stop at Le Havre, France. I'm not sure why this is on the itinerary instead of one of the east coast British ports. It's probably so that the Americans can do all-day tours to Paris or Normandy and say they've been to France.. I, personally, am doing everyone in Paris a big favor by not going there. Each time I've been to Paris in the past, either the bus drivers or the Metro workers or both have gone on strike resulting in traffic jams so colossal that the entire city was grid-locked and you couldn't get anywhere at all.

 In fact, I didn't even set foot on Le Havre. And have no photos worth posting. There is a huge
passenger terminal which supposedly has free wi-fi, but this can wait for a more comfortable venue. The city center is a very long walk away, mostly through the docks, although there is a shuttle over there for a few euros. There are several other cruise ships in port including the Celebrity Infinity and another whose name I can't see and whose logo and paint job I don't recognize.

So I decided to just take it easy, pack up slowly, and enjoy the ship with most of the passengers gone. However, there were a fair number of people sunning themselves up on Lido Deck, and even a few in swimming. Brrr.

June 1/2

June 1 at Invergordon, Scotland which is as far as we can get up Cromarty Firth towards Inverness. If I had known how far the hike was to the tour buses, I'd have left the ship sooner so I wouldn't have to hustle so fast. Ah well, I made it eventually.

My tour guide this afternoon was one James Monroe in kilt of his clan tartan and a tweed jacket in a nice soft green. His accent was perfectly understandable, but Andy, our driver, had an accent so thick that even James missed it occasionally, and to me it was like a foreign language with a sprinkling of English words. 

I think they have a different kind of grass over here that they use for silage as it is a whole lot greener than our grass at home. That may be why Ireland is called the "Emerald Isle," but the same stuff is in the fields of the Orkneys and Scotland too. Anyway it contrasts beautifully with the bright yellow of fields of rape seed in bloom. (That's the plant that canola oil comes from.) Then there's the darker yellow of either gorse or broome along the roadside. James said the way to tell the difference between gorse and broome is to put on a kilt and sit on it...if it's comfortable, it's broome, if it's prickly, it's gorse. The bright green also makes the sheep and cattle show up well, especially the bright white lambs.

We did a pretty comprehensive drive-by tour of Inverness which looks like a really lovely city. This is a photo of Inverness Castle from across the Ness River. We then headed up the Ness River and along the Caledonian Canal which I hadn't heard of before this trip. It connects the Atlantic Ocean with the North Sea diagonally across the middle of Scotland through the Grand Cleft. It's a geologic fault zone that created a series of lakes/lochs that were connected by pieces of canals with locks. Unfortunately, by the time it was completed, most cargo ships were too big to use it, and now it's mostly used by fishing and pleasure boats.

We eventually got to Loch Ness through alternating periods of sun and showers. Our main destination for the tour was Urquhart Castle. It's a rather magnificent ruin of a really old castle at one end and a much newer part at the other end, all with a fantastic view of Loch Ness. There is a fine Visitors Centre with a film, a cafe and, of course, a gift shop. While I did manage to get downslope from the bus park to the center (and back up again later), I did not actually go on downhill to the castle itself. Instead, I bought a very large chocolate muffin, sat on the patio of the cafe and shared it with a duck. I didn't get a photo of the duck due to my fingers being sticky and covered in muffin crumbs.

We came back to the ship over the hills and through the heath-covered moors, then back down to the green arable lands again. As has happened on several of my afternoon tours, I was almost the last one back on board. I am still amazed at how fast the crew can "break camp" and stow all the equipment they use for gangways and security checks, including the big machines that screen your bags.

June 2 Edinburgh. Well, not actually at Edinburgh. We're out in the Firth of Forth about a 20 minute tender ride from South Queensferry where we get our tour bus to Edinburgh. Caribbean Princess is too tall to get under several bridges particularly the antique Forth Rail Bridge in its bright red coat of paint. At least we're not out in the North Sea trying to tender into some place, although this has been an exceptionally smooth trip so far. My weather magic is still working except for a few brief showers. 

The tour I had was excellent, especially for one of the "drive-by photo shoot" kind. Our main stop was two hours at the Royal Scottish Museum which was brilliant! In fact, I could have easily spent a whole day there. It's an amalgamation of two museums, one was archaeology, anthropology and Scottish history, and the other was technology and engineering with a Scottish focus.  The building is a combination of Victorian and modern styles and was recently renovated to be fully accessible. The photo (that will eventually be) here is of the Museum's Grand Gallery. I ditched the guided part of the museum visit and had a fine time wandering about. I even got up to the roof terrace with its fabulous view of all of Edinburgh and this shot of the Castle.