Days 23 to 27…… 1st - 5th May cruise days at sea

 Day 23 - 1 May - At Sea

We had a good sleep last night given all the travel we have done and flying through the night to get here, plus the bed is much softer which is lovely :-).

We just mooched around today getting to know the ship. The swells are 8 to 10 m so the ship is really rocking and rolling to the side. A lot of very sick people today - there are sick bags placed on all the stairs and they were being used. One lady standing in the lounge holding a bag to her mouth, eyes closed and not able to walk away by the look. But we are lucky and probably have our sea legs from our recent cruise. We both have a bit of a jet lag headache, but that’s it. Very grateful, given the degree of vertigo I usually suffer from with any kind of ongoing motion! 

The ship is so quiet compared to the last one. We have read lots of posts on the ship fb page for quantum of the seas, with passengers from that cruise writing up about how they had easily drunk their $1700 per person, drinks package. One person boasting that they were drinking 14 top shelf alcoholic drinks a day! It’s certainly not the case on this ship from what we’ve seen and people looking for a quieter vacation.

We went to the restaurant for dinner – we have my time dining, which means you just line up. If you were able to book a table, which wasn’t before 8:45 pm on the app (so way too late for us), then you just line up as they have two lines – one for ‘with reservations’ and one without. The poor guy on the front desk looked so stressed – I don’t think he stood up straight the entire time as he was madly leaning over his screen, trying to find tables for people. There were plenty of tables free, but I think it’s also a staffing issue but we were happy to wait and chatted to people in the line. We sat next to a couple from Tampa Florida Matt and Makisha, who we had a great chat with – such lovely people 😊 .  They have led really interesting lives - Matt coming from Nigeria and Makisha from Belize.

There was almost a punch-up when we were lining up for dinner, though, I forgot to mention – one guy who was a real drama queen, and appeared to like the sound of his own voice, was telling everyone how the lines would run etc. I actually thought he was a staff member until I saw he was just another person in the line. Someone tried to squeeze past his partner to go round to the other side of the line, and there was some exchange of unpleasantries, and this guy amped up big time, really flipping his lid and they ended up taking it outside so to speak. They did just manage to avoid hitting each other!

Enjoyed walking around the areas on the ship – much quieter than the other ship for sure. It’s funny as the ship is a lot smaller – 10 decks rather than 15, and only 800 less people see you think it would have been crowded. Still, the whole ship has a lovely vibe, very restful. A beautiful sunset tonight.

                Seasick bags on all the stairwells and they were running out!

Day 24… 2nd May

We had a big big sleep last night and slept in until 9:30am . Lucky Graeme put his clothes on as we couldn’t remember what time we had ordered our continental breakfast, and the knock on the door was only about 15 minutes later! We are still doing this with the food as it helps us not overeat as we’re both feeling bloated and want to eat a bit less.

Had showers and went up on the walking track. This one is only 250m around so half of the last ships walking track, but  is very pleasant and you don’t seem to have the same amount of incredible wind on the front starboard side like the quantum of the seas did.

The seas have eased a bit today, and more people are out walking. A lot of them have the seasick patches behind their ears! We wandered around a bit more and then went up on the swim deck – the reggae band who are real Jamaicans were up, playing some great reggae, which gave the whole area a lovely vibe of being on holiday. We werent going to stay out there but we did as we had a couple of hours of sun, had a beer at about 2:30 pm followed by a couple of cocktails. My goodness, these cocktails on the ship are the proper ones. On the last ship, they used slushy mixers all the time, and it did not taste strong at all – often tasted like a mocktail as many others have commented on. Had a lovely time up there. Dancing to some music and enjoying the atmosphere, then went downstairs and had a lovely nap. Thanks to the alcohol ha ha!

We got ready for dinner as we are going to ‘Chops restaurant’  tonight, which is the same restaurant as on quantum of the seas, and one that is worth getting the specialty dining package for of three nights. It is the only specialty restaurant on this ship which we knew luckily. It is formal night tonight so we dressed up and went and had a lovely meal in the restaurant, although our waitress was very abrupt and got the distinct feeling she didn’t want to be at work, but we enjoyed the food. 

Went for a wander around as the captain had his official welcome – they didn’t do it on the other ship, but on this one, all the senior staff came out, and stood on the stairs in the Centrum – it has great viewing from all the floors, and they went through and said a bit about themselves, then there was dancing and onto the Ophelium theatre for a Celine Dion night with a lady called Tracy Shields. She has this big screen with all lovely photos of Celine on it and builds up into a crashendo and then she walks out. Has all the intonations that were very practised but without looking like Celine Dion at all! The mic was turned up so loud I literally had to cover my ear and we lasted about four songs before we left – not Graeme’s cup of tea, and it was a bit over practised with the hand movements and intonations for us!

Into bed after talking to Danni for about half an hour as she has flown into soul, South Korea for her second flight. We have travelled 800 nautical miles, have 2000 to go to Funchal in Madeira and the ocean is a deep 5000m! We move forward one hour tonight as we continue east.

Something to consider for people looking at long crossings at sea with few land days – if you don’t have any/much sun, you tend to spend most your time sitting indoors. Fine for us as we were looking forward to the relaxing time and have something to go onto in Europe afterwards… hopefully with less rain! However we feel you get what you get with weather. We have probably only had four or five sunny days out of about 25 to date though.

Though we had better try the rum punch drink in honour of Dads love of rum! Very strong and very nice!

A different kind of sunbathing as there was little sun!

  

Days 25, 26, 27 …..3rd-5th May   At Sea still..

Ive been so lax with my blog! To be fair I probably would have bored everyone as these seas days have been very quiet, as we have been in cloudy or wet weather and mist the whole cruise. Its meant the big area outdoors they normally utilise on this ship for entertainment hasn’t been pretty usable. There have been a few people up there, but with clothes and towels wrapped over themselves to stay dry or warm! 

The swells have remained high at approx 8 feet and this ship definitely rocks from side to side a lot - its quite funny when you are walking and it steers you off to one side, then  back, we all look like we are drunk without being so lol. I think people generally drink less when its not hot and sunny and there are a lot of tea and coffees being carried around instead. Its not too cold to be fair though as we move east towards Africa, as we will be visiting Madeira. We have travelled 2000 nautical miles now at about 19 knots, about 23 miles per hour!

We have gone forward an hour another 2 times, so we are lost as to which day and time it is. Its a problem with iPhones as they dont have a cellphone signal out here, so we have needed to pay attention when they say to move clocks forward and go in and change our phones manually.

We were a bit sad yesterday as it was the 1 yr anniversary of losing our beautiful Jake and it brought back the pain of that loss especially with the fb memory feed that comes up, so we got ourselves together and went to the Schnooer bar and had an amaretto liqueur to toast him ❤️‍🩹♥️🐾. 

Was great when we lined up to go to the restaurant afterwards, and by complete chance Matt and Makisha came up behind us, who we had sat with on the first night in the restaurant! So it was lovely to chat more while we shared tables, it lifted our spirits :-) ,  it’s funny how certain people you keep meeting and others you don’t see at all.

We went up on deck today to listen to the reggae band again, and then had been walking around the walking track to get some exercise, when we heard a ginormous crash and one of the panels of glass that line the upstairs steps, spontaneously exploded and showered the deck below, where we had just passed! Someone was definitely looking over us, as if we had been a tad slower we would’ve been right under it.

We have had 8-10 foot swells and cloudy weather this trip so far

                                                                        A Toast to Jake