This morning was all about scheduling - I wanted to be at the dock before noon. I was hoping to look up the dock information on Google maps, but we had run out of Internet minutes. I even tried going down to the basement where there were 3 computers available for Internet use, but two were occupied and the 3rd one was non-functional - looks like the hard drive went belly up. Gosh darn, NOT my job to fix it! :-D
Turned out to be a non-issue, since our cabbie had a list of all the boats that dock in Barcelona. I guess he was hoping we would know exactly which dock number to go to, but all we could do is point to the Noordam on his list. Of course, just like the gate for our flight to Barcelona, it was in fact the last dock, all the way at the end.
Luggage pickup seemed easier this time than last year – a Holland American guy came up to us, labeled our luggage and took it away.
Unfortunately, check-in was not so easy – the line was almost an hour long. We had a nice chat with the couple in front of us – newlyweds from Baltimore, of all places! It was very warm in the terminal, like the air conditioning was not working or something.
On last year’s cruise, we were shuffled immediately to a sit down lunch. This year, we were told to go to the Lido deck, which is the buffet or cafeteria-style restaurant. However, the daily program showed lunch was being served in the Vista dining room, which is where we would normally have lunch – but only till 1:30. We dropped off our stuff in the cabin and then went to the Vista dining room– we were the last people allowed in. Andy figured out later that the lunch in the Vista dining room was for the “Mariner Club” members, which was not us. Oops. Party crashers!
We went back to the cabin after asking about Internet access (our #1 priority after food). I was able to logon very easily and voila! We were back in action. Good thing, we were beginning to experience Internet withdrawal. Not pretty.
We went up to the Lido deck for the Bon Voyage party – had some food and then wandered around a bit. We were totally amazed at how blue the water is.
Our goal was to have dinner at 7:30, so we could make the first show of the week at 9:30. The people at our table consisted of a couple from the Netherlands, a couple from Australia, newlyweds from Texas and us. Took a while for the conversation to warm up – we were the last to join the table. Never did learn anybody’s name.
It was on our way to dinner that we noticed the rocking of the boat. During dinner it seemed to get stronger. Walking to the Vista Lounge (not to be confused with the Vista dining room) was entertaining. Last year I wondered why there were rails along the walls, and now I know!
The show was ok – it was mostly for the cruise director to go over how things work. The cruise director apologized for the long lines at check in – all blamed on a “computer glitch” on shore. Of course. Also, since we invited ourselves to the “Mariners Lunch” instead of going up to the Lido deck like we were supposed to, we apparently missed long lines at the buffet. According to the cruise director, they’ve discovered the most effective way to avoid wide-spread infections of the noro-virus is to not allow people to self-serve for the first 48 hours of the cruise. Therefore, the ship staff was serving people from the buffet, slowing things down. Glad we crashed the “Mariners” party and avoided all that!
The cruise director explained a bit about our stop in Cannes – it’s not an actual dock, it’s what’s called a “tender”, meaning they drop anchor and we get to take a boat to the shore. This is going to be interesting.
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