Ausflug 35

Back to the Beaches of Bermuda

June-July 08

Day 2: Sailing to Bermuda

Up at the crack of dawn, Monika and I had a quick bowl of cereal at a snack bar aft on Deck 10 before taking a long walk on the promenade that surrounded Deck 7. Since we were now out in the Atlantic Ocean proper, our ship had a decided rocking motion due to the ocean swells (6-9 feet our Captain told us later). We had had also accelerated to the ship's normal cruising speed of 18 knots (21 mph), so we had a really brisk wind as we walked around the deck. In fact, the wind was so brisk that we were not allowed to walk around the bow section of the promenade deck; the crew had installed gates to prevent access to the bow area of the ship. Presumably the closure was for safety reasons, but it was disappointing nonetheless. Waves in the smaller of the two pools on Deck 10 were crashing into the air, but while we watched a crewmember drained the water out and installed a net to keep folks from falling into the dry pool. Such party poopers!

Still, it was fun just walking the deck watching the sun rise and make beautiful patterns of light and shade against the superstructure of the ship. Since I didn't want to return to the stateroom and awaken Lois prematurely, I searched for one of the public bathrooms and was surprised to find one not listed on the ship diagrams that we had been provided with. That made me curious, so we began a systematic search through the rest of the ship and found at least 5 unmarked bathrooms. Never knowing when that information would come in handy, I marked them on my pocket map although I remained baffled by NCL's decision to omit that information from the ship guides.

We were pleased to find that NCL also did a morning "walk-a-mile" on the promenade deck, but they didn't give Vitality Points and that might explain why there were only 4 of us participating out of about 1500 passengers. Also, like every other cruise ship except the "Pride of Aloha", the Captain did give us a noon position report that included our latitude, longitude, course and speed. He also specifically warned against renting the ubiquitous motor scooters on Bermuda due to the risk of serious injury or death.

We attended 3 presentations on Bermuda during that day. The first presentation emphasized the shore excursions available on Bermuda, and the second one emphasized more of the island beaches, flora, and fauna, plus a discussion of the bus and ferry system and highlights of the different parishes. 'The third presentation covered more of the culture and history of Bermuda and had some really great photographs of beaches, buildings, and people. So by the end of the day we felt we had enough information to choose a couple of NCL shore excursions and otherwise plan our activities using the public transportation system.

Dinner in the Seven Seas dining room was once again excellent, and the evening show was fantastic. The entertainment troupe consisted of 4 dancers and 4 singers, and their song and dance routines were all derived from Broadway musicals. The choreographer had, however, chosen and arranged the numbers so carefully that the transitions were all sensible; I noticed none of the jarring, abrupt transitions that had made most other productions of that sort on other cruise ships seem like such a pastiche.

Working on a small, almost theater-in-the-round type of stage without any scenery or props turned out to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage as I would have thought. First, the singers and dancers seemed to know that they had to engage the audience's imagination to be successful and they were very much "on their toes" during the entire performance. Second, the tried-and-true tactic of walking out into the audience during parts of the performance worked much better in this theater-in-the-round than on the larger, front-only theaters on the bigger ships. Third, the small-scale setting gave us seats that were very close to the performers, so we could see the details of their maneuvers, face expressions, and so forth, and that in turn made the performance come much more alive for us. Monika and I enjoyed the performance so much, in fact, that we returned for the second show time at 9:30 and watched it all over again. Since non-flash photography was allowed, I even managed to capture some of the cast in those rare moments when they were still for a split second! And so to bed.

Copyright 2008 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog
Day1

Leaving Baltimore

Day2

Sailing to Bermuda

Day3

Docking and Swimming

Day4

Snorkeling

Day5

Helmet Diving & Crystal Cave

Day6

St. George and Leaving Port

Day7

Sailing Home

Epilog

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