Wanderung 19

Meandering the Mediterranean

Cruising the Eastern Mediterranean

April - May 2009

Friday, May 1st, 2009: At Sea

Bob:

Although I would not have minded seeing Split, Croatia, again on our way back to Venice, we had the entire day at sea, sailing along at a steady and no doubt fuel efficient 18 knots. That gave us a nice relaxing day to rest up before our final day in Venice and flight home. Besides, most cruise lines are pretty good about scheduling entertaining activities during the sea days so we, at least, never get bored.

We used our 20 minutes of free shipboard Internet time to sign on, check our email again, and pay some pending bills. Monika had suspected that Chase had done its usual trick of locking our account without warning so that our automatic bill paying would not work. That unpleasant surprise is a yearly event with Chase that no doubt results in a lot of missed payment fees and additional interest and penalties for the bank, but doesn't do much for the consumer. Since we didn't want to conduct any sensitive financial transactions on the internet cafe computer at the bar in Corfu, Monika worked it out on the shipboard computers (that hopefully had up-to-date firewalls and virus scans) in just under 20 minutes. Meanwhile I was addressing all the postcards I had written to our friends and relatives, and after the computer session we dropped off the postcards at the purser's office to be mailed back home (at $1.20 each!).

The busywork out of the way, we walked for a mile on deck, attended a pool side stretching class, and walked another mile on deck. Returning to the cabin, I tried to update the journal but ended up falling asleep over the keyboard and taking a nap. Monika roused me for a quick lunch just before the Captain's special reception for Platinum and Diamond members of the Crown and Anchor society for Royal Caribbean, where we had some hours d'ouvres for dessert and two glasses of fizzy drinks, one green and one pink. Then it was on to Tango class, where I learned how to turn, always a useful bit of knowledge on the dance floor. Just having the practice with timing my steps to the music also helped because, as the Gentle Reader must by now be fully aware, I am a hopelessly bad dancer.

After stepping on Monika's toes (literally, unfortunately) for a while we went "gambling" on our way back to our cabin for the afternoon. "Gambling" is when we use the matching coupons thoughtfully provided by Royal Caribbean to the Platinum or Diamond members and then bet against each other on roulette in such a way that we are guaranteed to make money. We had a lot of fun doing it. First I bet on red and Monika on black, and I won, and then I bet on Even and she bet on Odd, and I won again! That left her busted and me at $30, but if you take us as an economic unit it was a sure-fire net gain of $10, which cash we always use for additional tips for our waiters and room steward.

Once we were back in our cabin, I finally caught up on the journal while Monika started in on Hans Mateboer's book about being a cruise ship captain called, "The Captain's Log". His collection of hilarious incidents from his long career made her chuckle just as much as it had done for Phyllis and me. Then we addressed the rather depressing task of packing up to leave the ship. Due to the cramped quarters it was more feasible to take turns, and it took us each about an hour to retrieve our things from the corners of the cabin and stuff them back into our respective suitcases. Monika had accumulated three pairs of pants and several blouses plus a sweater during our trip, so it was nip and tuck for her to get it all back in. I packed some of our accumulated presents into my bag, but I still had room because we had used one of the small red rucksacks given to us as a bon voyage gift by the travel agent to cram in our dirty laundry. After another "dinner for two" (sans Russian emigres) and a good bye from the wait staff, we attended the last evening show featuring a mime and the usual good-bye from the ship's crew before we turned in for the night.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Northern Italian Bus Trip Map of Eastern Mediterranean Cruise

April 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
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5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
May 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24/31 25 26 27 28 29 30

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