"At Sea Day," Gym Time, Buffet Experience, Time in the Sun, Room Problems, Excursion Problems. First Formal Night
Time went back one hour early this morning.
Today we had breakfast delivered to us in our room so that we could get dressed and head up to the gym to get some exercise in, including a warm up of stair climbing from our cabin on deck two the gym on deck 11. It felt good to do some weight work and stretching.
We had lunch at the buffet and we observed the group dynamics of the passengers and commented on the generalized lack of organization. Lack of organization is a nice way of describing chaos.
We then went to lie in the sun for an hour. It was interesting to see how people “reserved” their deck chairs, even though passengers are told not to do this. This resulted in us having to having to head up to the second highest deck where it was very windy and cold. After lying in the sun we decided to warm up (as a result of the wind) by heading to the sauna for half an hour. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful other than having the disappointment of there being no "fine tea" or any tea at all in the buffet area in the late afternoon as advertised in the newsletter. We returned to our cabin to shower off. Our drain clogged and flooded our entire little bathroom. We used our provided beach towels and other towels to try to control the mass of water.
In the evening, we donned suit and gown and headed for dinner for the “formal” night. Right before dinner Bill called down to the excursion office to find out where and when we were to meet for our Tangier excursion in the morning. The answer we heard back shocked us. We would not be leaving until 2:00 in the afternoon when we booked an excursion for first thing in the morning.
The reason why we booked the morning excursion was because we wanted to orient ourselves with the city to know the safe areas as we knew Morocco could be more dangerous than our European ports of call. However, without even the courtesy of notice, our excursion was changed. As the excursion office was closing for the night and we had to get to dinner, we had to hang up and not belabour the point any more.
The food was better than the night before but still not up to our expectations. Many people, but not all chose to dress up, although there was a prodigious number of leathery olive skinned “Over-the-Hill Barbies” in tight/ill-fitting cocktail dresses. We had our first European pistachio ice cream, which was the highlight of dinner. We chose not to eat as many courses at dinner tonight because we wanted to get to bed earlier because we are passing through the Strait of Gibraltar at 6:00 a.m.
When we arrived back at our room, we had the daily newspaper delivered to us with the departure times for the next day’s excursions. We saw that there was an excursion in the morning into Tangier, albeit, a little different from the one we booked. We went up to guest services to tell them that we might have found a solution to our issue: put us on the other tour. Guest services told us that they had no insight in to the availability of tours but told us the time that the excursion office would open in the morning.
Although we’re very excited to scratch another continent to visit off our checklist we are a little apprehensive about venturing into the city alone without a tour in the morning. We were also given no room service breakfast ordering card tonight. Our beach towels were taken away from our flooded bathroom and not replaced.
Time went back one hour early this morning.
Today we had breakfast delivered to us in our room so that we could get dressed and head up to the gym to get some exercise in, including a warm up of stair climbing from our cabin on deck two the gym on deck 11. It felt good to do some weight work and stretching.
We had lunch at the buffet and we observed the group dynamics of the passengers and commented on the generalized lack of organization. Lack of organization is a nice way of describing chaos.
We then went to lie in the sun for an hour. It was interesting to see how people “reserved” their deck chairs, even though passengers are told not to do this. This resulted in us having to having to head up to the second highest deck where it was very windy and cold. After lying in the sun we decided to warm up (as a result of the wind) by heading to the sauna for half an hour. The rest of the afternoon was uneventful other than having the disappointment of there being no "fine tea" or any tea at all in the buffet area in the late afternoon as advertised in the newsletter. We returned to our cabin to shower off. Our drain clogged and flooded our entire little bathroom. We used our provided beach towels and other towels to try to control the mass of water.
In the evening, we donned suit and gown and headed for dinner for the “formal” night. Right before dinner Bill called down to the excursion office to find out where and when we were to meet for our Tangier excursion in the morning. The answer we heard back shocked us. We would not be leaving until 2:00 in the afternoon when we booked an excursion for first thing in the morning.
The reason why we booked the morning excursion was because we wanted to orient ourselves with the city to know the safe areas as we knew Morocco could be more dangerous than our European ports of call. However, without even the courtesy of notice, our excursion was changed. As the excursion office was closing for the night and we had to get to dinner, we had to hang up and not belabour the point any more.
The food was better than the night before but still not up to our expectations. Many people, but not all chose to dress up, although there was a prodigious number of leathery olive skinned “Over-the-Hill Barbies” in tight/ill-fitting cocktail dresses. We had our first European pistachio ice cream, which was the highlight of dinner. We chose not to eat as many courses at dinner tonight because we wanted to get to bed earlier because we are passing through the Strait of Gibraltar at 6:00 a.m.
When we arrived back at our room, we had the daily newspaper delivered to us with the departure times for the next day’s excursions. We saw that there was an excursion in the morning into Tangier, albeit, a little different from the one we booked. We went up to guest services to tell them that we might have found a solution to our issue: put us on the other tour. Guest services told us that they had no insight in to the availability of tours but told us the time that the excursion office would open in the morning.
Although we’re very excited to scratch another continent to visit off our checklist we are a little apprehensive about venturing into the city alone without a tour in the morning. We were also given no room service breakfast ordering card tonight. Our beach towels were taken away from our flooded bathroom and not replaced.
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| April contemplates the Mediterranean |
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| Look at us all fancy at Formal Night #1 |
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| Bill looks ready to devour this grilled fish |
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| This grilled fish was beautifully presented |
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| The ice cream was the highlight of the meal. Proper pistachio ice cream again . . . finally! |
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