September 18th, 2008: Cruising on the North Sea to Dover, England
Bob: After three nonstop active days in Copenhagen, I not only was looking forward to having a restful day at sea but also really needed the time to work on our accumulated pictures. Since I had started taking panoramic pictures with my new Olympus, I had to download and backup pictures from 3 cameras, and then additionally use the Olympus software to download the panoramic shot sequences from the Olympus chip and stitch them together. The entire process filled in a couple of hours between breakfast and the 9:45 a.m. Walk-a-Mile on Deck 7. Princess did not give bonus points like Royal Caribbean on Wanderung 17, but they had a shipboard Pentathalon certificate for completing 5 athletic events, and the Walk-a-Mile was the first event in the series. It was tight getting the mile finished by the time the port lecture started at 10:15, but we just made it. |
Monika: I was curious how Princess would keep their guests entertained during the at sea days. Well, we did have a full schedule of things to do. There were no "Ship-Shape dollars" but stretching and aerobics if you wanted. They also offered a Pentathelon: If you completed five out of nine events during the sea days you get a certificate. Well, the first event was Walk-a-Mile, where we signed up and walked. The walking track was on the Promenade deck. Three times around was a mile, and to make it interesting, there were stairs to the Emerald Deck at the bow, so we had some stair climbing exercise. |
Bob: The port lecturer covered not only Dover, which had a museum and Dover Castle as its high points, but also the nearby attractions of Canterbury or Leeds Castle, and the somewhat further afield sightseeing opportunities in London. He showed only a few slides toward the end, which was kind of a shame, but the information was very valuable and we decided in the end to take the train to Canterbury for the next morning, followed by maybe the museum or the castle in Dover in the afternoon. |
Monika: After walking we listened to a port lecture on Dover and surroundings and then there was line dancing. But the best activity was in the afternoon, where a husband and wife team gave a lecture on Ira and George Gershwin. They were music historians and musicians: he played the piano and she sang. So they would illustrate the lecture with appropriate songs from the musicals. It was quite interesting and musically well done. So we both enjoyed it thoroughly. The astronomy lecture afterwards, however, was somewhat boring. I saw more than one person nod off and have to admit that I too closed my eyes at times. |
Bob: Fortunately that nap really worked. After dinner we attended the Captain's Welcome Aboard party. His talk was quite brief and to the point, but the string quartet playing in the central atrium before his talk was really good. Given the size of the atrium and the rather loud chatter filling the background, the quartet had trouble producing music loud enough to fill the space (bad acoustics with an open space packed with people like that), but coincidentally the only place we could find to sit was on a ledge right next to the quartet and so we heard every note perfectly clearly. Again I found that I really liked the simple performance of some very good instrumental music, mostly old war-horses like "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik", a couple Brahm's Hungarian Dances, and some Strauss waltzes.
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Monika: This was the first formal night and I put on my "slinky" skirt and dress, made from the same material as Bob's "Roman Centurion" tunic for the summer concert. We went to the Captain's reception, which offered rum punch instead of the more traditional champagne. It was in the beautiful atrium and a rather good classical string quartet entertained us until the captain said his few words. |
Bob: The evening performance of Motown favorites from the 50s and 60s was obviously much more to the taste of the ship's passengers. It had all the razzle-dazzle that you could possible want and then some. I had, for once, remembered to bring my earplugs and with them inserted the performance was at normal loudness levels and very enjoyable. Of course, those expandable-foam plugs reduce the sound level by 28-30 decibels, so the performance was probably plenty loud for everybody else. To finish off the evening I read a bit more in "Pretty Poison" by Joyce and Jim Lavene before turning in for the night. |
Monika: After the reception we went to the first of the three production shows we will see. It was entitled "Motorcity" and was a melange of motown songs. There were the obligatory singers and dancers and live band. It was quite good, a little loud, but, in my opinion, not as good as what we saw on Costa or on the Norwegian Majesty. I guess, I am becoming quite critical of cruise ship entertainment. |
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