Wanderung 25

Bob:

We were supposed to be in the middle of the North Sea that morning, but I saw land when I looked out of the windows in the Lido Deck buffet while we were eating breakfast, so I was curious where we were. When we went on deck and looked around, we spied the white cliffs of Dover off our port bow, brilliantly illuminated by the morning sun. They really gleamed in the sunlight, and I could even make out the depression between the two sections of cliff where the small city of Dover lies, as we had walked into and around that town during Wanderung 18.

As it turned out we were indeed still in the narrowest section of the English Channel between Dover and Calais, and the land I has initially seen was the coast of France off our starboard bow. One advantage to having a cabin way up in the top front of the ship was that we had excellent views of where our ship was headed both off the port and starboard bows. We wondered for a bit if we would put into Dover port although it was not on our scheduled itinerary, but instead we sailed on by and continued northward through the channel.

Monika:

Bob:

The Captain later came on the intercom and explained that another medical emergency had required that he put about during the night and return to Southampton to unload yet another passenger for transportation to the local hospital. This was the first time that we had had two serious medical emergencies back-to-back, so to speak, and the result was that we were now 6 hours behind schedule.

The Captain explained, however, that he had to refuel and resupply in Bergen, so we would stop there, but probably only by late afternoon. That meant the shore excursions all had to be canceled, but that did not directly affect us as we had planned just to walk around the town a bit and had thus not made any reservations.

Monika took our dirty laundry and headed for the laundromat on Deck 5 to do our laundry. A nice feature of Princess ships is the open-to-the-public laundry facilities and we had packed lightly with the expectation of washing in mid-trip. After all the walking and repeated soaking of the previous weeks, I was just running out of clean clothes and so the washing was greatly appreciated.

On most cruise ships, "At Sea" days are often also nights designated for formal wear, and the Crown Princess followed that pattern. Since I had traveled with a "One Pair of Shoes" policy, I had to make the best of my pair of black hiking shoes to go with the black pants, white shirt, and charcoal sweater in lieu of a suit coat. The only problem was that all our hiking, particularly in the downpours in the Lake District, had covered my one pair of shoes in dirt and muck. Walking through the streams during our hikes in Wales had washed off the worst of it, but they still looked pretty beaten up. Fortunately I had purchased the black shoe dye at the flea market in Porthmadog, and now I had to put it to the test. I slopped black dye all over the leather and mesh of the shoe upper soles and even coated the sides of the rubber soles until they looked, if not respectable, at least not quite so disreputable.

Monika:

Bob:

After lunch Monika attended a champagne art auction and then we both joined a passenger-recruited choir. I wasn't sure what to expect, and sure enough it wasn't what I expected, which was a true choir with sheet music, different melody lines for different voices, etc. It was more of what I would call a "show choir" wherein popular tunes are combined with appropriately choreographed motions and positions. We had at least the words to the songs, which was a relief as I had only heard two out of the six, but no notes! Forced to fall back on "singing by ear" I did my level best to catch on to the melody line and fortunately we were not singing multi-part harmonies so I could listen to the CD and the folks around me to catch the notes. Still, it was a lot of fun and I hoped that with enough practice I would get the tunes correct and be able to really contribute.

For the rest of the afternoon we simply had a fruit snack during which we passed a field of oil rig platforms in the North Sea off the coast of England and Scotland. Back in the cabin, we watched a TV documentary on Stonehenge on TV, read, and worked to update the journal. A note slipped under our door informed us that we had indeed been scheduled for the early seating! Part of my strategy for traveling light is to not carry a suit coat as it is bulky, weighs a decent amount, and is useful only on the formal nights aboard ship. I had tried to find a black sweater with collar, but had to settle for my old charcoal gray sweater in lieu of a suit coat. I did have a white shirt and tie, however, so I again was hoping that the ensemble with the black pants would look respectable enough to pass muster as formal wear.

Monika:

Bob:

We went down shortly before 6:00 p.m. to the Botticelli Dining Room aft and were promptly seated at table 129 with a charming British couple, Peter and Liz. Peter was a retired Brigadier General in the British Army, who had served in many duty stations around the world, and Liz was a retired school teacher trained in the fine arts and a quilting enthusiast who had, in fact, published a book on applique quilting. I later borrowed her copy and read some chapters and, much to my surprise, it was written well enough that even a complete novice at sewing, such as I am, could understand it, which is the mark of a truly good author. The applique quilts Liz produced using her method were quite beautiful works of art in their own right, something I would hang on the wall as decoration like a fine tapestry.

We had a nice conversation with them while we ate a meal that was quite good. What was a noticeable contrast to our last cruise aboard the Costa Atlantica during Wanderung 24, was that the main meat dish was cooked precisely as each of us had ordered, medium or medium rare in my case, and that the whole meal took more like an hour rather than two hours on the Atlantica. Primarily, the shorter time was because the Crown Princess only had an appetizer and soup course before the main entree rather than appetizer, antipasto, soup, salad, and then the main course.

The shorter mealtime allowed us to attend the Captain's champagne reception in the main piazza in the center of the ship. Although they did not stack up the champagne glasses and do a champagne waterfall because the ship was rocking too much, they did give complementary champagne during the presentation of the highest-ranking ship's officers in each division. I thought it a nice touch that they also honored the employees of the month by presenting them to the passengers. The ship was pitching quite a bit that evening as we made our way back to the cabin and prepared for bed. Being up on Deck 15 at the very bow of the ship gave us maximal motion, so to speak, and I could only hope we could sleep with the room jumping about and the wind moaning past our window.

Monika: