28 June 08
leaving Tallinn, Estonia
Jeesh, I am getting tired! We have had several port days in a row, which is rare for this ship.
Yesterday when Amie and I got back from the city, I went over to Ventura (who was docked next to us) and got onboard to see Jacques (my counterpart on that ship) I was supposed to meet him at 3, but with the taxi debacle it was almost 4.15pm by the time I got on. Oops! I tried to page him, but I think I did it wrong; then I tried to find the Cyb@Study and when I finally found it he wasn't there! Luckily I asked where the reception desk was (it is on Deck 6 .. holy moly!) and I asked one of the PSA's to page him for me. Finally he found me ... YAY!! It was sooo awesome to meet him; we chat EVERY day on Spark .. several times a day in fact. It was like meeting an old friend, even if it was really the first time we met in person.
Anyway so he took me on a quick tour of the ship; I had to be off in an hour as all pax and crew had to be on my ship by 5.30 for the 6pm sail. I took quite a few pictures; the ship is amazing!! So pretty inside! State of the art and very comtemporary. It made me really long for a BIG ship next. :( Still keeping my fingers and toes crossed!
Ventura pictures:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8qsttqgb&x=0&y=-ea5ouw&localeid=en_US
Today we were in Tallinn, Estonia. It is the capital of this little country, that had been part of Russia at some point. Now only about 30% of the population is Russian Orthodox.
Pierre, Amie, Clare and I went ashore after our normal 11am breakfast time :) We took the shuttle into the city and then a pax told us where the main shopping street was. It was really nice there .. the old city is kind of like Dubrovnik, behind these large stone walls. But the city is not as new as Dubrovnik, as it hadn't been restored recently like Dubrovnik had. As we wandered further into the old city we noticed all the little outdoor pubs had everyone dressed in traditional costume. It was almost mideval in a way; very old world. Of course, as we were thinking that, we passed a McDonalds! LOL I tell you, there has not been one port that we haven't seen one!
We sat at one of the pubs and had a drink; Pierre had some honey beer, Clare and I had a spiced white wine and Amie had a berry currant juice. We just chilled out for a bit, then started walking around some more and eventually headed back towards the shuttle. Had to make our regular stop to McD's for dinner food and to bring some snacks back for the IPM'ers (Gemma and Tanya) Then Amie went to find some liquer for her Dad for his birthday and we all went in the "Alka" store (if that doesn't scream 'alcoholic' in whatever language, I don't know what does!) I ended up getting a bottle of Stoli vodka for $4! Nice deal :) After getting our McD's and booze, we headed back to the shuttle and back to the ship.
Tallinn, Estonia pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.7ltycu23&x=0&y=l85ve1&localeid=en_US
The new girl who is taking over from me got on today; her name is Christine. It seems so real now that she is here that I am really going home. I am actually not liking it (sorry to those of you who are looking forward to seeing me) I am not sure what I am going to do with myself when I get home. But I digress. I am still excited to see all of you!! xoxo
Tomorrow we are in Stockholm, Sweden; certainly looking forward to that since I have never been to Sweden (and we missed our first Swedish port of Visby, due to the bad weather)
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Saturday, June 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Amie and Stacy take on St Petersburg
27 June 08
Well today has been a blast! Not without a lot of SNAFU’s, but in the end it all worked out and looking back it was hilarious! :P
Amie had been on IPM all day and night, so she was really itching to get out and see the city. Since I had seen a lot of it yesterday, I felt quite comfortable getting around and all. I told her I had wanted to go to the St Nicholas Cathedral. We had passed it yesterday, but it wasn’t a stop. It is the one of the most beautiful active churches in the city. It is also the Church of the Russian Navy and they still have memorial services there for those lost at sea. I had seen many churches, but we hadn’t been inside any and I wanted to get a few things from a church that had been blessed.
So we got out to the front gate of the port (it is about a 30 min walk from the ship to the front of the port – so we took the shuttle) We had to go through more nonsense just to get out of the port; look at my crew ID, check my seaman’s discharge book etc. They had already checked it at customs right off the ship, but they had to check it again. And no one there spoke any English. Yeah, that was fun. We had a laugh about it though.
When we got out front, a few “cabbies” were waiting there. I don’t know if they are real cab drivers or not; but I felt safe enough since there were a zillion people around. So I had to bargain with him to get a price to take us to the cathedral, then to the Church of the Spilled Blood and then back to the port. Finally we agreed and off we went. There was a little confusion when we got to St Nicholas, but after a while, we straightened it out. (it was the language barrier; I should have brushed up on more of my Russian) Our guy was to wait for us for 30 mins, then he was going to take us to the Church of the Spilled Blood. He came for us on time and we got back in the car. On the way there he asked if I was British and I told him “Nyet, Rusky” he was really pleased so I figured I had a new friend. (or so I thought LOL) On the way there, I told him I needed to stop at a cash machine. Somehow we ended up over at St Isaac’s, but he swore that there was one down the block. Now from what I recalled ~ the Chuch of the Spilled Blood wasn’t all that close. I am sure we could walk it (you could walk between most of the sites if you wanted to; other than the things across the river as they were harder to get to) But then when it came time to pay, he got all cross with us and I think he got confused as to the money (Rubles, Euros, etc) and started getting angry and just kept saying “Maam, taxi ride fare now” I argued that I wasn’t paying for it, if he was leaving us there. So after a little heated argument (he kept saying “Nyet, nyet” and I felt like that coach from The Cutting Edge was going to come out and tell me to do the Pamchanko) I gave him some money and he left. So we figured what the heck, we would walk and then get another cab back. We couldn’t understand why he got so frustrated and it was a bit annoying to us, but we laughed it off after he left.
So we walked around St Isaac’s and then down the street towards the way I thought we had to go. We came across a Pizza Hut (of course!) and since neither Amie nor I had any breakfast, we decided it would be easy and cheap for lunch. (100 Rubles is $4 USD) It was quite a yummy lunch and we asked our waitress if we were heading the right way (I had a map, but it was the one from the ship, so it was VERY basic) She gave us the right direction to head to. We walked along the Moika canal and I said I wished we could do one of the boat tours. They seemed to be everywhere, but I didn’t think we would have time and although they were in the water, I didn’t see any actual docks where they would pick you up.
We sidetracked a block when we spotted a McDonalds and had to go to get a pic of the sign. :P We walked along and up to the Nevsky Prospekt; which is the main shopping street in the city. We walked along and came across a woman who was advertising the boat tours! It was only $16 USD for a one hour ride, so we decided to do it (we thought the trips were longer). It was really great and I was so excited to go under the Hermitage and out onto the River Neva before coming back in to another canal. It is amazing how many canals there are in the city. There is something like over 400 bridges or walkways over canals in the city. It is like a little Venice!
After our tour, it was only a few more blocks to the Church of the Spilled Blood. We got there and took some pictures and then wandered around the Flea Market. I was bargaining with this one guy (cute Russian too!) and I told him if he found me a cab for a good rate back to the port, I would give him the price he wanted. :P So he found us a cab for 400 rubles and off to spending I did. (It wasn’t all that much LOL but to them any money is better than none) Well when he went to take us to the taxi, it was gone. So he tried to get us another one, but the other one didn’t want to take us because there was too much traffic in the city. We only had 500 rubles between the two of us as we spent the rest of it on stuff since we weren’t going to be back here anytime soon! Uh oh. So he tried to call a taxi for us, but they wanted more money. He then offered to give us more, but still no one wanted to drive us through the traffic! We found a P&O tour bus, but it wasn’t going back to the port until 5.30 and Amie needed to be at work by then. So we figured we would keep trying. We were just about to give up and walk back to the Nevsky Prospekt, when a regular cabbie drove into the square and I offered him 400 rubles to take us back. He wanted 500 so we bargained to 450 and he got the address from our new friend (how do you NOT know where the cruise ships come in???) Anyway, that took a while! I was supposed to go over and visit Ventura at 3pm, and it was 5 after 3 when we finally got the cab! OY
I had no way to get in touch with Jacques (the Ventura MTN Manager) but I figured he would know something came up. It took over 45 mins to get back to the port because of all the traffic. But when the cabbie stopped at the port gates, we were like “Wha?!?!” since it was another 1.5km to the ship! He said he wasn’t allowed in L Amie and I just started laughing hysterically ~ I mean, could the transportation get any worse?!?! So we gave him the money and walked up the gates. There was a shuttle bus at the stop, so we went in to get cleared by Customs again; but we were going in all the wrong doors, nothing was marked. (not even in Russian!) So now we have a case of the giggles because this is just ridiculous! We just walk out the door of the Customs bldg and guess what? The bus pulls away!!!
Well now we are in all out hysterics! It is almost 4pm and we can either wait who-knows-how-long or we can walk. Luckily, a man heard us talking about it and said that at 4pm the busses run about every 10 mins since it is a shift change. Ahhh, that is better! Luckily, he was right so we hoped on and got back to the ship around 4.15pm.
St Petersburg ~ Day 2:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.b83aqo0b&x=0&y=z7v1t6&localeid=en_US
Amie went back on board to get ready for work and I jogged over to Ventura (it was next to us on the other berth) and got on board to try to find Jacques. But I will have more on that in my next post.
I enjoyed the city and the sites tremendously! I have been on the go for 2 days but it was so worth it. My feet are screaming at me to rest, so I surely will the next few days. I wasn’t able to speak any Russian other than the very basics, (please, thank you, yes, no, hello, g’bye) but I feel I did pretty good in reading it. I remember my college professor telling me that if you could remember your alphabet, you could pretty much read most things. So I was still lagging on some things, but what I didn’t remember, I picked back up. Not too bad for not having any practice in several years.
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Well today has been a blast! Not without a lot of SNAFU’s, but in the end it all worked out and looking back it was hilarious! :P
Amie had been on IPM all day and night, so she was really itching to get out and see the city. Since I had seen a lot of it yesterday, I felt quite comfortable getting around and all. I told her I had wanted to go to the St Nicholas Cathedral. We had passed it yesterday, but it wasn’t a stop. It is the one of the most beautiful active churches in the city. It is also the Church of the Russian Navy and they still have memorial services there for those lost at sea. I had seen many churches, but we hadn’t been inside any and I wanted to get a few things from a church that had been blessed.
So we got out to the front gate of the port (it is about a 30 min walk from the ship to the front of the port – so we took the shuttle) We had to go through more nonsense just to get out of the port; look at my crew ID, check my seaman’s discharge book etc. They had already checked it at customs right off the ship, but they had to check it again. And no one there spoke any English. Yeah, that was fun. We had a laugh about it though.
When we got out front, a few “cabbies” were waiting there. I don’t know if they are real cab drivers or not; but I felt safe enough since there were a zillion people around. So I had to bargain with him to get a price to take us to the cathedral, then to the Church of the Spilled Blood and then back to the port. Finally we agreed and off we went. There was a little confusion when we got to St Nicholas, but after a while, we straightened it out. (it was the language barrier; I should have brushed up on more of my Russian) Our guy was to wait for us for 30 mins, then he was going to take us to the Church of the Spilled Blood. He came for us on time and we got back in the car. On the way there he asked if I was British and I told him “Nyet, Rusky” he was really pleased so I figured I had a new friend. (or so I thought LOL) On the way there, I told him I needed to stop at a cash machine. Somehow we ended up over at St Isaac’s, but he swore that there was one down the block. Now from what I recalled ~ the Chuch of the Spilled Blood wasn’t all that close. I am sure we could walk it (you could walk between most of the sites if you wanted to; other than the things across the river as they were harder to get to) But then when it came time to pay, he got all cross with us and I think he got confused as to the money (Rubles, Euros, etc) and started getting angry and just kept saying “Maam, taxi ride fare now” I argued that I wasn’t paying for it, if he was leaving us there. So after a little heated argument (he kept saying “Nyet, nyet” and I felt like that coach from The Cutting Edge was going to come out and tell me to do the Pamchanko) I gave him some money and he left. So we figured what the heck, we would walk and then get another cab back. We couldn’t understand why he got so frustrated and it was a bit annoying to us, but we laughed it off after he left.
So we walked around St Isaac’s and then down the street towards the way I thought we had to go. We came across a Pizza Hut (of course!) and since neither Amie nor I had any breakfast, we decided it would be easy and cheap for lunch. (100 Rubles is $4 USD) It was quite a yummy lunch and we asked our waitress if we were heading the right way (I had a map, but it was the one from the ship, so it was VERY basic) She gave us the right direction to head to. We walked along the Moika canal and I said I wished we could do one of the boat tours. They seemed to be everywhere, but I didn’t think we would have time and although they were in the water, I didn’t see any actual docks where they would pick you up.
We sidetracked a block when we spotted a McDonalds and had to go to get a pic of the sign. :P We walked along and up to the Nevsky Prospekt; which is the main shopping street in the city. We walked along and came across a woman who was advertising the boat tours! It was only $16 USD for a one hour ride, so we decided to do it (we thought the trips were longer). It was really great and I was so excited to go under the Hermitage and out onto the River Neva before coming back in to another canal. It is amazing how many canals there are in the city. There is something like over 400 bridges or walkways over canals in the city. It is like a little Venice!
After our tour, it was only a few more blocks to the Church of the Spilled Blood. We got there and took some pictures and then wandered around the Flea Market. I was bargaining with this one guy (cute Russian too!) and I told him if he found me a cab for a good rate back to the port, I would give him the price he wanted. :P So he found us a cab for 400 rubles and off to spending I did. (It wasn’t all that much LOL but to them any money is better than none) Well when he went to take us to the taxi, it was gone. So he tried to get us another one, but the other one didn’t want to take us because there was too much traffic in the city. We only had 500 rubles between the two of us as we spent the rest of it on stuff since we weren’t going to be back here anytime soon! Uh oh. So he tried to call a taxi for us, but they wanted more money. He then offered to give us more, but still no one wanted to drive us through the traffic! We found a P&O tour bus, but it wasn’t going back to the port until 5.30 and Amie needed to be at work by then. So we figured we would keep trying. We were just about to give up and walk back to the Nevsky Prospekt, when a regular cabbie drove into the square and I offered him 400 rubles to take us back. He wanted 500 so we bargained to 450 and he got the address from our new friend (how do you NOT know where the cruise ships come in???) Anyway, that took a while! I was supposed to go over and visit Ventura at 3pm, and it was 5 after 3 when we finally got the cab! OY
I had no way to get in touch with Jacques (the Ventura MTN Manager) but I figured he would know something came up. It took over 45 mins to get back to the port because of all the traffic. But when the cabbie stopped at the port gates, we were like “Wha?!?!” since it was another 1.5km to the ship! He said he wasn’t allowed in L Amie and I just started laughing hysterically ~ I mean, could the transportation get any worse?!?! So we gave him the money and walked up the gates. There was a shuttle bus at the stop, so we went in to get cleared by Customs again; but we were going in all the wrong doors, nothing was marked. (not even in Russian!) So now we have a case of the giggles because this is just ridiculous! We just walk out the door of the Customs bldg and guess what? The bus pulls away!!!
Well now we are in all out hysterics! It is almost 4pm and we can either wait who-knows-how-long or we can walk. Luckily, a man heard us talking about it and said that at 4pm the busses run about every 10 mins since it is a shift change. Ahhh, that is better! Luckily, he was right so we hoped on and got back to the ship around 4.15pm.
St Petersburg ~ Day 2:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.b83aqo0b&x=0&y=z7v1t6&localeid=en_US
Amie went back on board to get ready for work and I jogged over to Ventura (it was next to us on the other berth) and got on board to try to find Jacques. But I will have more on that in my next post.
I enjoyed the city and the sites tremendously! I have been on the go for 2 days but it was so worth it. My feet are screaming at me to rest, so I surely will the next few days. I wasn’t able to speak any Russian other than the very basics, (please, thank you, yes, no, hello, g’bye) but I feel I did pretty good in reading it. I remember my college professor telling me that if you could remember your alphabet, you could pretty much read most things. So I was still lagging on some things, but what I didn’t remember, I picked back up. Not too bad for not having any practice in several years.
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Back to the Land of My Ancestry
27 June 08
Leaving St Petersburg, Russia
I have just had the BEST two days EVER!!! I just can’t believe I have been in RUSSIA!!
Ok, so I will start with yesterday; our first day in St Petersburg. I am probably going to struggle with actually writing my blog. There was so much to see, so much to learn and I am still trying to digest it all. So as they say “A picture is worth 1000 words” and I will leave it mostly to the pictures.
Got up early to “work” for a few before having to meet the tour group at 8am. (ha ha - I needed to make an appearance so I didn't get a bollocking for buggering off all day and night on tours) I got my bus-load all settled and we left a few mins early even. We headed out of the port and our guide said we were going to do the City Tour first. So basically that is consisting of driving around the city, making a few stops at some important “Kodak Spots” and then moving on. The city tour was going to take a few hours before we stopped for lunch.
We passed St Nicholas church, the Maly Theatre (where the ballet will be that evening) the Summer Palace, Peter & Paul Fortress and the Winter Circus. Had a few mins to stop at the Naval Academy, Cruiser Aurora, Resurrection Cathedral and the Church of the Spilled Blood for pictures and to walk around for a bit.
What a morning!! I had taken about over 100 pictures by the time we were done and heading to lunch at 11.45!
Had lunch at Academia; a local restaurant (pectopah) that has live entertainment. The food was excellent; A yummy salad – I think I have had it before; I will have to ask my Mother. (I think my Aunt Julia has made it) Excellent challah bread and the butter I am used to having at my Grandparents house. The main course was a nice beef stroganoff and dessert was a lemon and peach thin sponge cake. It really felt like I was back in the states, visiting my relatives and having dinner there!
After lunch we stopped at the Alexander Monument for some pictures of it as well as St Isaac’s Cathedral and the Senate buildings on the opposite side. When we finished there, we then made our way to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum.
The palace was amazing! Completely speechless about it, so I will let the pics do the talking. The Hermitage is attached to the Palace so you can easily go from one to the other. You will tell in some of the pictures that the rooms start to ‘tone down’ on the ornate décor as it transitions. It really reminded me of Versailles in France; with the palace and museum. Although, there was not enough space when it was built to add the gardens like Versailles has. (The Palace is built right along the Neva River)
After a few hours, when we finished that portion of the tour we went out into the Palace Square to take some pictures before going to our next stop. Our next and final stop was the State Academic Capella for a choral performance. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was moved to tears when they sang. First of all, the acoustics in the center is said to be one of the best in all of Russia and now I know why. Secondly, although it was all in Russian it was simply brilliant. I literally had tears and goose bumps! (My mother would have been bawling I am sure) I have to say I was gutted when we left and they didn’t have their gift shop open. I wanted to purchase a CD. But I am going to look online and see if I can find anything about the group.
We headed back to the coach and into rush hour traffic on the way back to the ship. It seems ‘rush hour’ starts after lunch and goes right through to dinner. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but our guide said they don’t have any large roads to go around the city, so if you want to get from one side to another, you have to go right through it. (I will mention Day 2’s debacle with such traffic in my next post) Took us over an hour to get back to the ship. I think it should have only taken about 20 mins if we didn’t have the traffic. OY!
I got back to the ship at 6 and had to rush on and to my cabin to change; I had to be getting my group at 6.30 for the ballet! I was already wiped out, but a change of clothes and a quick bite to eat upstairs would do the trick. I made it to my group on time and off we went to the coach again. Once we were on our way, I actually fell asleep on the way there; I was completely knackered!
The ride was short but we hit some traffic and got to the drop off point at about 7.45 (the show was at 8pm) but we had to hussle it on the walk over (just around the corner really). Once I got my group there, they were on their own to the seats (as everyone was scattered about) and I made my way to my box seat with the other escorts. Not sure how we managed that, but we weren’t complaining!
I didn’t bring my camera as I knew we couldn’t take any pictures and even though I could turn the flash off and be sneaky, the shutter makes that proper clicking sound, so I wouldn’t be able to get away with it. Tanya had hers and snuck a few pics, so I will take a look and see if any of them are any good. We were lucky and got to see the performance of Swan Lake!! It was only that night, so I was glad our itinerary had been changed. (If we had been staying tonight, it was a different show) It is the Rimsky-Korsakov Ballet School. I thought they were amazing; certainly not "students" in my opinion!!
St Petersburg Pictures ~ Day 1:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3zlrvx3f&x=0&y=c9861u&localeid=en_US
Stay tuned for Day 2 .. it is definitely a little more interesting! LOL :P
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Leaving St Petersburg, Russia
I have just had the BEST two days EVER!!! I just can’t believe I have been in RUSSIA!!
Ok, so I will start with yesterday; our first day in St Petersburg. I am probably going to struggle with actually writing my blog. There was so much to see, so much to learn and I am still trying to digest it all. So as they say “A picture is worth 1000 words” and I will leave it mostly to the pictures.
Got up early to “work” for a few before having to meet the tour group at 8am. (ha ha - I needed to make an appearance so I didn't get a bollocking for buggering off all day and night on tours) I got my bus-load all settled and we left a few mins early even. We headed out of the port and our guide said we were going to do the City Tour first. So basically that is consisting of driving around the city, making a few stops at some important “Kodak Spots” and then moving on. The city tour was going to take a few hours before we stopped for lunch.
We passed St Nicholas church, the Maly Theatre (where the ballet will be that evening) the Summer Palace, Peter & Paul Fortress and the Winter Circus. Had a few mins to stop at the Naval Academy, Cruiser Aurora, Resurrection Cathedral and the Church of the Spilled Blood for pictures and to walk around for a bit.
What a morning!! I had taken about over 100 pictures by the time we were done and heading to lunch at 11.45!
Had lunch at Academia; a local restaurant (pectopah) that has live entertainment. The food was excellent; A yummy salad – I think I have had it before; I will have to ask my Mother. (I think my Aunt Julia has made it) Excellent challah bread and the butter I am used to having at my Grandparents house. The main course was a nice beef stroganoff and dessert was a lemon and peach thin sponge cake. It really felt like I was back in the states, visiting my relatives and having dinner there!
After lunch we stopped at the Alexander Monument for some pictures of it as well as St Isaac’s Cathedral and the Senate buildings on the opposite side. When we finished there, we then made our way to the Winter Palace and Hermitage Museum.
The palace was amazing! Completely speechless about it, so I will let the pics do the talking. The Hermitage is attached to the Palace so you can easily go from one to the other. You will tell in some of the pictures that the rooms start to ‘tone down’ on the ornate décor as it transitions. It really reminded me of Versailles in France; with the palace and museum. Although, there was not enough space when it was built to add the gardens like Versailles has. (The Palace is built right along the Neva River)
After a few hours, when we finished that portion of the tour we went out into the Palace Square to take some pictures before going to our next stop. Our next and final stop was the State Academic Capella for a choral performance. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was moved to tears when they sang. First of all, the acoustics in the center is said to be one of the best in all of Russia and now I know why. Secondly, although it was all in Russian it was simply brilliant. I literally had tears and goose bumps! (My mother would have been bawling I am sure) I have to say I was gutted when we left and they didn’t have their gift shop open. I wanted to purchase a CD. But I am going to look online and see if I can find anything about the group.
We headed back to the coach and into rush hour traffic on the way back to the ship. It seems ‘rush hour’ starts after lunch and goes right through to dinner. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but our guide said they don’t have any large roads to go around the city, so if you want to get from one side to another, you have to go right through it. (I will mention Day 2’s debacle with such traffic in my next post) Took us over an hour to get back to the ship. I think it should have only taken about 20 mins if we didn’t have the traffic. OY!
I got back to the ship at 6 and had to rush on and to my cabin to change; I had to be getting my group at 6.30 for the ballet! I was already wiped out, but a change of clothes and a quick bite to eat upstairs would do the trick. I made it to my group on time and off we went to the coach again. Once we were on our way, I actually fell asleep on the way there; I was completely knackered!
The ride was short but we hit some traffic and got to the drop off point at about 7.45 (the show was at 8pm) but we had to hussle it on the walk over (just around the corner really). Once I got my group there, they were on their own to the seats (as everyone was scattered about) and I made my way to my box seat with the other escorts. Not sure how we managed that, but we weren’t complaining!
I didn’t bring my camera as I knew we couldn’t take any pictures and even though I could turn the flash off and be sneaky, the shutter makes that proper clicking sound, so I wouldn’t be able to get away with it. Tanya had hers and snuck a few pics, so I will take a look and see if any of them are any good. We were lucky and got to see the performance of Swan Lake!! It was only that night, so I was glad our itinerary had been changed. (If we had been staying tonight, it was a different show) It is the Rimsky-Korsakov Ballet School. I thought they were amazing; certainly not "students" in my opinion!!
St Petersburg Pictures ~ Day 1:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3zlrvx3f&x=0&y=c9861u&localeid=en_US
Stay tuned for Day 2 .. it is definitely a little more interesting! LOL :P
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
I'm on my way ... my # 1 on the Must See List!
25 June 08
Leaving Helsinki, Finland
Heading to Russia!!
YAY!! We are on our way to the USSR!
Ok, I know it isn’t called that anymore .. but I am sooo excited. This is what I extended my contract for; yes, Athens and Rome were wonderful .. but Russia, this is the icing!
I got notified today that I was able to be an escort on the Grand St Petersburg tour, as well as the Ballet! I am going to be very busy tomorrow .. but that is ok, it will be so worth it.
Ok, so back to today ~ we were in Helsinki, Finland. Really nice city. The weather (thank gawd) was not raining; it was a little overcast but the sun popped out at times and really made things pretty. Pierre, Gemma, Cat, (not my Cat, a guy) Amie and I walked along the Esplanade and I said I wanted to go to the Uspensky Russian Church, which was at the end. Helsinki has a strong Russian influence due to its close proximity. (Its only 4 hours by car) Along the way was a beautiful park; it was not unlike the one in Oslo, only the weather was much nicer, so it looked better. We wandered through the fish market, with all the locals selling crafts, fruits and veggies, fish, handmade hats and gloves, etc. At the end, up on the hill was the church. It was so pretty!
We made our way up the hill and then up the steps to the church. It was a nice view from up there as well. We could see back down into the fish market as well as see the tops of the Cathedral in Senate Square. It was so nice inside and it is great to take my friends who have never been to a Russian church. Cat is Romanian, so he is close enough to Russian and celebrates all the holidays on the Julian calendar as well. So it was neat to go around the church with him and be with someone who appreciates it the way I do. Took quite a few pics in there and then lit 2 candles before I left. Made me that much more excited to get to St Petersburg tomorrow!!!
After we left the church, we walked back through the other side of the fish market and then we seemed to have lost the guys. So Amie, Gemma and I went into a few souvenir shops and then decided to go for a coffee at one of the cafes along the Esplanade. As we were wandering around some of the shops, we realized we were only a block from the Cathedral and headed over there to see it and take pics. We didn’t go in, as we were getting a little tired and “peckish” (brit-speak for hungry) so we took some pictures of it and went on. We stopped at a cute little café facing the park and had some nice hot chocolate. It was strange weather; when the sun was out, it was quite warm. But if it wasn’t, the air was quite chilly. So since the sun wasn’t out, we felt cold and ordered hot chocolates. Of course, half way through them the sun came out and then we were too warm! Go figure.
Anyway, we decided not to have anything to eat as all they had were cakes and we all agreed we didn’t need to be eating more cakes! When we finished up, we wandered down the middle of the park and back towards the shuttle bus, to head back to the ship. Took some nice pictures along the way; one is of a Summer Pole. It is the Finnish celebratory pole for the coming of the summer. It will be up all summer long and into the winter, until next summer comes when they will put up a new one. Different, but interesting.
When we got back to the port we went into the shops that were on the quay and looked around. There was this beautiful red leather jacket and it was cheap! $200 US! But it was a little snug and I didn’t like it that way. Shame too. I would have bought it. Oh well.
Helsinki pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.1rvtbwbv&x=0&y=so6817&localeid=en_US
So we got back on board around 4pm and I did a little wash and got my rucksack ready for tomorrow. I have to be ready for 8am, so I have to be up early! I need to stop off in the cyber for at least a few mins to check the connection, etc. before I head off for the day. So I figured I would get my money together, any info I have, charge my camera battery, etc. Then tomorrow all I need to do is get up and get dressed! I tried to nap for a little while, but I think I was too excited as I really didn’t sleep. I will surely have to go to bed early tonight; we have Clocks Forward again! Yuck! (so for those of you counting, I will be 8 hours ahead of the East Coast by the time you get up on Thursday morning)
Off to brush up on my basic Russian!
Leaving Helsinki, Finland
Heading to Russia!!
YAY!! We are on our way to the USSR!
Ok, I know it isn’t called that anymore .. but I am sooo excited. This is what I extended my contract for; yes, Athens and Rome were wonderful .. but Russia, this is the icing!
I got notified today that I was able to be an escort on the Grand St Petersburg tour, as well as the Ballet! I am going to be very busy tomorrow .. but that is ok, it will be so worth it.
Ok, so back to today ~ we were in Helsinki, Finland. Really nice city. The weather (thank gawd) was not raining; it was a little overcast but the sun popped out at times and really made things pretty. Pierre, Gemma, Cat, (not my Cat, a guy) Amie and I walked along the Esplanade and I said I wanted to go to the Uspensky Russian Church, which was at the end. Helsinki has a strong Russian influence due to its close proximity. (Its only 4 hours by car) Along the way was a beautiful park; it was not unlike the one in Oslo, only the weather was much nicer, so it looked better. We wandered through the fish market, with all the locals selling crafts, fruits and veggies, fish, handmade hats and gloves, etc. At the end, up on the hill was the church. It was so pretty!
We made our way up the hill and then up the steps to the church. It was a nice view from up there as well. We could see back down into the fish market as well as see the tops of the Cathedral in Senate Square. It was so nice inside and it is great to take my friends who have never been to a Russian church. Cat is Romanian, so he is close enough to Russian and celebrates all the holidays on the Julian calendar as well. So it was neat to go around the church with him and be with someone who appreciates it the way I do. Took quite a few pics in there and then lit 2 candles before I left. Made me that much more excited to get to St Petersburg tomorrow!!!
After we left the church, we walked back through the other side of the fish market and then we seemed to have lost the guys. So Amie, Gemma and I went into a few souvenir shops and then decided to go for a coffee at one of the cafes along the Esplanade. As we were wandering around some of the shops, we realized we were only a block from the Cathedral and headed over there to see it and take pics. We didn’t go in, as we were getting a little tired and “peckish” (brit-speak for hungry) so we took some pictures of it and went on. We stopped at a cute little café facing the park and had some nice hot chocolate. It was strange weather; when the sun was out, it was quite warm. But if it wasn’t, the air was quite chilly. So since the sun wasn’t out, we felt cold and ordered hot chocolates. Of course, half way through them the sun came out and then we were too warm! Go figure.
Anyway, we decided not to have anything to eat as all they had were cakes and we all agreed we didn’t need to be eating more cakes! When we finished up, we wandered down the middle of the park and back towards the shuttle bus, to head back to the ship. Took some nice pictures along the way; one is of a Summer Pole. It is the Finnish celebratory pole for the coming of the summer. It will be up all summer long and into the winter, until next summer comes when they will put up a new one. Different, but interesting.
When we got back to the port we went into the shops that were on the quay and looked around. There was this beautiful red leather jacket and it was cheap! $200 US! But it was a little snug and I didn’t like it that way. Shame too. I would have bought it. Oh well.
Helsinki pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.1rvtbwbv&x=0&y=so6817&localeid=en_US
So we got back on board around 4pm and I did a little wash and got my rucksack ready for tomorrow. I have to be ready for 8am, so I have to be up early! I need to stop off in the cyber for at least a few mins to check the connection, etc. before I head off for the day. So I figured I would get my money together, any info I have, charge my camera battery, etc. Then tomorrow all I need to do is get up and get dressed! I tried to nap for a little while, but I think I was too excited as I really didn’t sleep. I will surely have to go to bed early tonight; we have Clocks Forward again! Yuck! (so for those of you counting, I will be 8 hours ahead of the East Coast by the time you get up on Thursday morning)
Off to brush up on my basic Russian!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Unexpected Sea Day ... Booooo
24 June 08
now heading to Helsinki, Finland
Well we didn't make it into Visby; the rumours last night said we wouldn't. But I got up this morning on my port hours as usual. The deadlights were still open, so when I looked out my port hole I laughed. Actually, I think I just snorted. The swells were ridiculous and basically crashing right near my window. No way were they going to put the tenders in the water. Not to mention everyone would be sea sick. If they did run the tenders, I would have decided to stay on board. And I don't get sea sick very easily at all normally; especially not after being out here on the ship for almost 6 months! I have very good sea legs now. (of course I won't be able to walk when I am on dry land for more than a day during my leave LOL) But even I would have probably been ill.
So I went up at 8am and at 8.30 they made an announcement that they couldn't put the tenders in the water and wouldn't endanger the pax safety (they always like that) so we were leaving for Helsinki and would have another sea day instead. Good thing I went to bed early last night!!
So I have been working on my St Petersburg plans. I don't know if I can escort a tour (the one I want is way too popular) but I was able to get on as an escourt for the ballet! How amazing .. the Russian Ballet performing Swan Lake! OMG!! So I am very excited for that. I would like to be able to get on the Grand St Petersburg tour, but we will have to wait and see. I am keeping my fingers crossed. The thing I want to see the most is the Chuch of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Sounds wierd - but you all know it. (in case you don't, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Savior_on_Blood ) It is probably the most popular site in St Petersburg. Anything after that would be icing on the cake. I will see how it goes. We have two days there .. but I only have a day and a half as the 2nd day we are there I am going over to Ventura for a late lunch with Jacques, the MTN manager on board. We have become good pals over the last few months, so I am excited to finally meet him! (plus I will get a tour of the ship - which is the newest of the P&O fleet; only was launched in April)
I guess I could always pay for the tour if I had to ~ being in St Petersburg, I don't want to miss anything. It might be expensive, but I extended my contract for me to be able to see this city!
Tomorrow is Helsinki, so I am off to search CruiseCritic.com for things to do and what to see!
now heading to Helsinki, Finland
Well we didn't make it into Visby; the rumours last night said we wouldn't. But I got up this morning on my port hours as usual. The deadlights were still open, so when I looked out my port hole I laughed. Actually, I think I just snorted. The swells were ridiculous and basically crashing right near my window. No way were they going to put the tenders in the water. Not to mention everyone would be sea sick. If they did run the tenders, I would have decided to stay on board. And I don't get sea sick very easily at all normally; especially not after being out here on the ship for almost 6 months! I have very good sea legs now. (of course I won't be able to walk when I am on dry land for more than a day during my leave LOL) But even I would have probably been ill.
So I went up at 8am and at 8.30 they made an announcement that they couldn't put the tenders in the water and wouldn't endanger the pax safety (they always like that) so we were leaving for Helsinki and would have another sea day instead. Good thing I went to bed early last night!!
So I have been working on my St Petersburg plans. I don't know if I can escort a tour (the one I want is way too popular) but I was able to get on as an escourt for the ballet! How amazing .. the Russian Ballet performing Swan Lake! OMG!! So I am very excited for that. I would like to be able to get on the Grand St Petersburg tour, but we will have to wait and see. I am keeping my fingers crossed. The thing I want to see the most is the Chuch of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Sounds wierd - but you all know it. (in case you don't, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Savior_on_Blood ) It is probably the most popular site in St Petersburg. Anything after that would be icing on the cake. I will see how it goes. We have two days there .. but I only have a day and a half as the 2nd day we are there I am going over to Ventura for a late lunch with Jacques, the MTN manager on board. We have become good pals over the last few months, so I am excited to finally meet him! (plus I will get a tour of the ship - which is the newest of the P&O fleet; only was launched in April)
I guess I could always pay for the tour if I had to ~ being in St Petersburg, I don't want to miss anything. It might be expensive, but I extended my contract for me to be able to see this city!
Tomorrow is Helsinki, so I am off to search CruiseCritic.com for things to do and what to see!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Oy! What a day .. and its only half over!
23 June 08
At Sea; heading to Visby, Sweden
I am soo very frustrated right now; first off the satellite is absolute CRAP today so obviously with that comes complaining passengers. God forbid, anyone actually reads the plasma screens in here. And secondly, I don’t know if I have had it with the Brits (sorry Sam, Gill, Crissie) but these pax seem to get thicker on every cruise.
Had a guy who came in several times today to use the net; Internet kept going out so he would come back. One of my workstations is down, so when he sat at that terminal (the whole thing is off BTW) I told him that machine was not working. Would you believe when he came back later on, he sat there again? And then a freaking 3rd time?? He said the one time “oh, it isn’t fixed yet?” Yeah dude, I repaired the PC in the 15 mins that you were gone! RME!!
Now I have a pax in here that sat looking for the outlet for 10 mins before asking for help. I told her (when she asked about it before sitting at the laptop table) that it was in the cabinet. When she asked for help, she said “is it in the cupboard?” And I said yes. She said “well you didn’t say that, you said cabinet” Oh for the love of Mike! English and Americans aren’t that different that she didn’t know the cupboard was also the cabinet. There is only ONE there! Jeezus, use your freaking brain lady!
Whew! I had to get that out or I was going to throw myself overboard.
Rumor has it that tomorrow we are going to be at sea. The weather here is nasty; strong winds and rain and some rough seas too. Ventura couldn’t get into Copenhagen this morning because of it and now we aren’t supposed to get into Visby, Sweden tomorrow. I will just cry if it is another sea day. I would normally welcome it b/c it could increase revenue; however, most of the time when we have to miss ports, the pax get pissy and stop spending. Not to mention that I have no idea what the satellite will be like. Only thing could be that if the sat is good .. they might still come in. Fingers crossed!
Anyway I am posting some, ok lots of pics from the disco the other night. It was Gemma’s birthday so we all went out for some good fun. We had gotten her a cake and then we all sang to her .. then the disco got underway. The pics after the disco were from Jack’s cabin (again) since they have the biggest cabin to fit us all in. Then Clare took my camera “for a minute” and because I was so enamored with my bottle of wine, I lost track of the time she had it. So there are lots of silly pics of Clare and Gemma before I showed up to her cabin and took it back.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3pgbpusz&x=0&y=-ed5pno&localeid=en_US
Some of them are a little "racy" so viewers beware! :)
At Sea; heading to Visby, Sweden
I am soo very frustrated right now; first off the satellite is absolute CRAP today so obviously with that comes complaining passengers. God forbid, anyone actually reads the plasma screens in here. And secondly, I don’t know if I have had it with the Brits (sorry Sam, Gill, Crissie) but these pax seem to get thicker on every cruise.
Had a guy who came in several times today to use the net; Internet kept going out so he would come back. One of my workstations is down, so when he sat at that terminal (the whole thing is off BTW) I told him that machine was not working. Would you believe when he came back later on, he sat there again? And then a freaking 3rd time?? He said the one time “oh, it isn’t fixed yet?” Yeah dude, I repaired the PC in the 15 mins that you were gone! RME!!
Now I have a pax in here that sat looking for the outlet for 10 mins before asking for help. I told her (when she asked about it before sitting at the laptop table) that it was in the cabinet. When she asked for help, she said “is it in the cupboard?” And I said yes. She said “well you didn’t say that, you said cabinet” Oh for the love of Mike! English and Americans aren’t that different that she didn’t know the cupboard was also the cabinet. There is only ONE there! Jeezus, use your freaking brain lady!
Whew! I had to get that out or I was going to throw myself overboard.
Rumor has it that tomorrow we are going to be at sea. The weather here is nasty; strong winds and rain and some rough seas too. Ventura couldn’t get into Copenhagen this morning because of it and now we aren’t supposed to get into Visby, Sweden tomorrow. I will just cry if it is another sea day. I would normally welcome it b/c it could increase revenue; however, most of the time when we have to miss ports, the pax get pissy and stop spending. Not to mention that I have no idea what the satellite will be like. Only thing could be that if the sat is good .. they might still come in. Fingers crossed!
Anyway I am posting some, ok lots of pics from the disco the other night. It was Gemma’s birthday so we all went out for some good fun. We had gotten her a cake and then we all sang to her .. then the disco got underway. The pics after the disco were from Jack’s cabin (again) since they have the biggest cabin to fit us all in. Then Clare took my camera “for a minute” and because I was so enamored with my bottle of wine, I lost track of the time she had it. So there are lots of silly pics of Clare and Gemma before I showed up to her cabin and took it back.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3pgbpusz&x=0&y=-ed5pno&localeid=en_US
Some of them are a little "racy" so viewers beware! :)
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Just a quickie ...
22 June 08
Morning at sea
Just a quick hello - will post more later .. on our way into Oslo, Norway now and expect to get in around noon-ish. Working till then to try and get things in order for the new girl who is coming onboard by on the 28th. I have 5 days to show her as much as I can; and this job is a learn-as-you-go as things are always changing.
Will pop ashore just to see what Oslo is all about; weather is grey and chilly :(
Disco last night .. pics to follow later
Still nothing on another ship; have my eye on one that I think will be available in early Aug. So I am thinking it over and planning what to say ~ then I will email our VP and see if I can have it.
"Nothing ventured, Nothing gained"
Morning at sea
Just a quick hello - will post more later .. on our way into Oslo, Norway now and expect to get in around noon-ish. Working till then to try and get things in order for the new girl who is coming onboard by on the 28th. I have 5 days to show her as much as I can; and this job is a learn-as-you-go as things are always changing.
Will pop ashore just to see what Oslo is all about; weather is grey and chilly :(
Disco last night .. pics to follow later
Still nothing on another ship; have my eye on one that I think will be available in early Aug. So I am thinking it over and planning what to say ~ then I will email our VP and see if I can have it.
"Nothing ventured, Nothing gained"
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Got To Love This Business
19 June 08
Everything can change in the cruise industry with the drop of a dime. It is very often that ships change itineraries, staff changes ships, or contracts have to be ended early to accomodate the continuous flow of the business.
Unfortunately, my contract to go to Crown Princess was short lived :( Seems they need a male for berthing reasons (cabin sharing) so I can't go. I am soooo bummed out. I have been excited all last night and today about it; had chatted online with the current MTN manager and couldn't WAIT to get started on there. Then, BAM! I got an email from the MTN office that I wasn't going after all.
:sigh:
I am trying to cheer up - trying to focus on positive things and on my favorite quote that I tell everyone *else* when they are bummed about something ... "Everything happens for a reason"
So I am back to the waiting game. Hope I will get something soon! Keep your fingers crossed for me and wish me good luck.
Everything can change in the cruise industry with the drop of a dime. It is very often that ships change itineraries, staff changes ships, or contracts have to be ended early to accomodate the continuous flow of the business.
Unfortunately, my contract to go to Crown Princess was short lived :( Seems they need a male for berthing reasons (cabin sharing) so I can't go. I am soooo bummed out. I have been excited all last night and today about it; had chatted online with the current MTN manager and couldn't WAIT to get started on there. Then, BAM! I got an email from the MTN office that I wasn't going after all.
:sigh:
I am trying to cheer up - trying to focus on positive things and on my favorite quote that I tell everyone *else* when they are bummed about something ... "Everything happens for a reason"
So I am back to the waiting game. Hope I will get something soon! Keep your fingers crossed for me and wish me good luck.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
My Next Ship!! YAY
Well here we go .. I got my next ship!!! I was assigned (instead of getting to pick) but whatever, its ok with me anyway. So I will only be home till the 26th of July. I need to have this contract shortened due to needing to be off for the week surrounding my brothers wedding, so I will do whatever they need me to.
http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/kp/index.html
Here is the itinerary I found online: Baltic till Sept, then over to Canada and NY, then Ft Lauderdale becomes our home port in Oct and we do the caribbean! NICE!!!
Crown Princess
Rostock, Warnemunde, Berlin, Germany
7-27-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
7-28-2008
Crown Princess
Helsingor, Denmark
7-28-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
7-29-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
7-30-2008
Crown Princess
Stockholm, Sweden
7-31-2008
Crown Princess
Helsinki, Finland
8-1-2008
Crown Princess
St Petersburg, Russia
8-2-2008
Crown Princess
St Petersburg, Russia
8-3-2008
Crown Princess
Muuga, Tallinn, Estonia
8-4-2008
Crown Princess
Gdynia, Poland
8-5-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
8-6-2008
Crown Princess
Oslo, Norway
8-7-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
8-8-2008
Crown Princess
London, Dover, England
9-19-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-20-2008
Crown Princess
Dublin, Ireland
9-21-2008
Crown Princess
Belfast, Northern Ireland
9-22-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-23-2008
Crown Princess
Reykjavik, Iceland
9-24-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-25-2008
Crown Princess
Qaqortoq, Greenland
9-26-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-27-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-28-2008
Crown Princess
St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
9-29-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-30-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-1-2008
Crown Princess
New York City, New York, United States
10-2-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-3-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-4-2008
Crown Princess
Fort Lauderdale - Port Everglades, Florida
10-5-2008
Crown Princess
Princess Cays, Bahamas
10-6-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-7-2008
Crown Princess
Philipsburg, St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles (St. Martin)
10-8-2008
Crown Princess
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
10-9-2008
Crown Princess
Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos
10-10-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-11-2008
Crown Princess
Fort Lauderdale - Port Everglades, Florida
10-12-2008
Here is the link to some of the public areas: http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/kp/amenities_publicrooms/index.html
http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/kp/index.html
Here is the itinerary I found online: Baltic till Sept, then over to Canada and NY, then Ft Lauderdale becomes our home port in Oct and we do the caribbean! NICE!!!
Crown Princess
Rostock, Warnemunde, Berlin, Germany
7-27-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
7-28-2008
Crown Princess
Helsingor, Denmark
7-28-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
7-29-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
7-30-2008
Crown Princess
Stockholm, Sweden
7-31-2008
Crown Princess
Helsinki, Finland
8-1-2008
Crown Princess
St Petersburg, Russia
8-2-2008
Crown Princess
St Petersburg, Russia
8-3-2008
Crown Princess
Muuga, Tallinn, Estonia
8-4-2008
Crown Princess
Gdynia, Poland
8-5-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
8-6-2008
Crown Princess
Oslo, Norway
8-7-2008
Crown Princess
Copenhagen, Denmark
8-8-2008
Crown Princess
London, Dover, England
9-19-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-20-2008
Crown Princess
Dublin, Ireland
9-21-2008
Crown Princess
Belfast, Northern Ireland
9-22-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-23-2008
Crown Princess
Reykjavik, Iceland
9-24-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-25-2008
Crown Princess
Qaqortoq, Greenland
9-26-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-27-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-28-2008
Crown Princess
St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada
9-29-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
9-30-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-1-2008
Crown Princess
New York City, New York, United States
10-2-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-3-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-4-2008
Crown Princess
Fort Lauderdale - Port Everglades, Florida
10-5-2008
Crown Princess
Princess Cays, Bahamas
10-6-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-7-2008
Crown Princess
Philipsburg, St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles (St. Martin)
10-8-2008
Crown Princess
St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
10-9-2008
Crown Princess
Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos
10-10-2008
Crown Princess
At Sea
10-11-2008
Crown Princess
Fort Lauderdale - Port Everglades, Florida
10-12-2008
Here is the link to some of the public areas: http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/kp/amenities_publicrooms/index.html
Oh! What A Night!
18 June 08
At Sea; heading back to So’ton
Bergen was really nice yesterday; Amie, Pierre and I walked around town. Amie was on the search for a troll ornament for her Mum. I was looking for a whale tee shirt for that evening’s disco (more on that later). There were lots of shops and all of it was right across from the harbor, which then becomes this inlet that everything is along side of. We walked to the top of the inlet where the fish market was; it was neat! Lots of fresh fish booths, as well as fruit, meat and then the normal souvenirs. I almost bought a beautiful jacket; one of those thin ones but has the fleece lining and isn’t bulky or anything. It was a lime green one with just a little Norway flag on the left lapel. But they only had up to a Large .. darn! Oh well ..
After walking around for a while, we found our favorite restaurant – McDonalds! It’s the only place we will eat since it is the cheapest. Especially after the most expensive pizza ever in Tromso!! After our cheap lunch (LOL yeah right, it still cost me like $15 for a few cheeseburgers, fries and a milkshake!) we started walking back to the ship. Pierre and Amie had to be at work for 14.45 to take on a delivery they were getting. So they wanted to rest for a half hour before that. That was fine for me .. you know I needed my nap!
Bergen Norway pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.bs34v60z&x=0&y=-5gfs74&localeid=en_US
So .. last night was another disco. The Theme was “What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?” It was the first one that 1) I actually wanted to dress up (in costume for) and 2) one that I thought I could get away with it for. I am supposed to wear my work clothes to the crew bar .. I have been pushing the envelope lately and wearing jeans and tees. But I wasn’t sure if I could get away with it. However, Lizzie (the PSM) overheard me asking for a whistle for my outfit and when I told her what it was for (when she asked) she told me where to get one! So I figured if she didn’t tell me I couldn’t dress up, I knew it would be ok.
I decided I wanted to go as a Marine Animal Trainer. Those of you know me and know how I love that kind of thing; and I truly did want to be that when I was a kid. I wasn’t able to put it together the best way, but I think I did a pretty decent job considering we only had about 24hrs notice to get ideas and a costume together.
Here are the pics from the disco:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.85ww1r4j&x=0&y=3pkzf9&localeid=en_US
Shame was, the disco itself sucked!!! It was really empty as you will see in the pics .. and then the DJ machine kept cutting out, so we didn’t get a lot of music …
I was not feeling my best (I was a bit down in the dumps about some things) and so Amie and I decided it would be best to just get pissed and drink the sadness away. LOL Well we drank ourselves silly!!! Oh my .. it is now 19.30 the next day and I am STILL hung over. I was telling my Dad and he said “Is it from being in the northern areas?” I said, “No, it is from the vodka” LMAO!!!!
We were in Eidfjord today; we were supposed to be tendering in .. And it was only a half-day, so none of us bothered to go ashore. I knew I would be without a sat connection (it’s a dead spot) so I tried to sleep in, but I couldn’t. (the vodka) So I am completely shattered tonight. I will be going right to my bed after work. Will not be passing the crew bar, or collecting any money .. LOL (Monopoly reference)
So now we are back out to sea, heading back to So’ton for Friday’s turnaround. My last one!!! WOW … looking back it seems that almost 6 months has gone by pretty quickly. So as of Friday, I have one more cruise left. Just 2 weeks. Cat is coming down to visit me on Friday so I have to pack up my box (or 2) that she is going to post back home for me. Just random things; fridge magnets, stuffed animals, gifts, etc. Once my handover comes on around the 25th, I will be able to have a little more free time to get packing!!
At Sea; heading back to So’ton
Bergen was really nice yesterday; Amie, Pierre and I walked around town. Amie was on the search for a troll ornament for her Mum. I was looking for a whale tee shirt for that evening’s disco (more on that later). There were lots of shops and all of it was right across from the harbor, which then becomes this inlet that everything is along side of. We walked to the top of the inlet where the fish market was; it was neat! Lots of fresh fish booths, as well as fruit, meat and then the normal souvenirs. I almost bought a beautiful jacket; one of those thin ones but has the fleece lining and isn’t bulky or anything. It was a lime green one with just a little Norway flag on the left lapel. But they only had up to a Large .. darn! Oh well ..
After walking around for a while, we found our favorite restaurant – McDonalds! It’s the only place we will eat since it is the cheapest. Especially after the most expensive pizza ever in Tromso!! After our cheap lunch (LOL yeah right, it still cost me like $15 for a few cheeseburgers, fries and a milkshake!) we started walking back to the ship. Pierre and Amie had to be at work for 14.45 to take on a delivery they were getting. So they wanted to rest for a half hour before that. That was fine for me .. you know I needed my nap!
Bergen Norway pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.bs34v60z&x=0&y=-5gfs74&localeid=en_US
So .. last night was another disco. The Theme was “What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?” It was the first one that 1) I actually wanted to dress up (in costume for) and 2) one that I thought I could get away with it for. I am supposed to wear my work clothes to the crew bar .. I have been pushing the envelope lately and wearing jeans and tees. But I wasn’t sure if I could get away with it. However, Lizzie (the PSM) overheard me asking for a whistle for my outfit and when I told her what it was for (when she asked) she told me where to get one! So I figured if she didn’t tell me I couldn’t dress up, I knew it would be ok.
I decided I wanted to go as a Marine Animal Trainer. Those of you know me and know how I love that kind of thing; and I truly did want to be that when I was a kid. I wasn’t able to put it together the best way, but I think I did a pretty decent job considering we only had about 24hrs notice to get ideas and a costume together.
Here are the pics from the disco:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.85ww1r4j&x=0&y=3pkzf9&localeid=en_US
Shame was, the disco itself sucked!!! It was really empty as you will see in the pics .. and then the DJ machine kept cutting out, so we didn’t get a lot of music …
I was not feeling my best (I was a bit down in the dumps about some things) and so Amie and I decided it would be best to just get pissed and drink the sadness away. LOL Well we drank ourselves silly!!! Oh my .. it is now 19.30 the next day and I am STILL hung over. I was telling my Dad and he said “Is it from being in the northern areas?” I said, “No, it is from the vodka” LMAO!!!!
We were in Eidfjord today; we were supposed to be tendering in .. And it was only a half-day, so none of us bothered to go ashore. I knew I would be without a sat connection (it’s a dead spot) so I tried to sleep in, but I couldn’t. (the vodka) So I am completely shattered tonight. I will be going right to my bed after work. Will not be passing the crew bar, or collecting any money .. LOL (Monopoly reference)
So now we are back out to sea, heading back to So’ton for Friday’s turnaround. My last one!!! WOW … looking back it seems that almost 6 months has gone by pretty quickly. So as of Friday, I have one more cruise left. Just 2 weeks. Cat is coming down to visit me on Friday so I have to pack up my box (or 2) that she is going to post back home for me. Just random things; fridge magnets, stuffed animals, gifts, etc. Once my handover comes on around the 25th, I will be able to have a little more free time to get packing!!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Land of the Midnight Sun
16 June 08
At Sea; heading to Bergen, Norway
Yesterday we were in the Lofoten Islands of Norway; but I was on IPM. However, it worked out to my advantage, since due to the engine issues, we were late coming to port; then it as a tender port anyway and by the time they granted shore leave for crew – it was 3.45! So I wouldn’t have bothered to go ashore anyway. I did go up on decks and take some pics. It was pretty there – but all from a distance
Lofoten Islands:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.7i2m17yr&x=0&y=-i7at71&localeid=en_US
However, it has always been my treat that if I am on a full day of IPM (I don’t do it often – mostly it is half days) that I will go up to the spa. We get a 40% discount on port days .. so it is nice! I got a hot stone massage (though it wasn’t as good as the one I had in Arizona all those years ago) as well as a mani and a pedi. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but I finally got away from wearing tips. The ones on board are crap (they use gel) so I gave up and have been letting my nails grow. They won’t ever be long, but they are in good condition now. Anyhoo, so I spent my afternoon in the spa. It was lovely – but unfortunately, it took a while and I got so relaxed I wanted to nap but I didn’t have time! So needless to say I am VERY tired today. Got to bed around 1am, after being up on decks for a bit taking pics. The skies were clear and the sun was perfect for taking pics after midnight, so I couldn’t resist.
The first pics are from about 11pm, right before I left the cyber for the night. Then you will see the clock and from then on those were the pics at that time. Some of the pics are “off” as I had to play with exposure, shutter speed and all to try to really get a good one. A few of them are bad – but I left them in because the sun looks like a giant explosion on the horizon! LOL A few of my friends said it looked like a nuclear explosion and I should photoshop the ship into the pic … since you never know what is going to happen LMAO!!! :P But you really get to see what it is like in the middle of the night from these pics. My roomie and I need to shut the curtains completely because our brains get confused and want to stay awake!!
Midnight sun:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.2oz11j83&x=0&y=pdyflw&localeid=en_US
As far as the ship, nothing really new onboard. Disco tomorrow night; So’ton is on Friday. Cat is coming down to visit me for the day. Still trying to talk with Ash about why he went to Aurora without mentioning it to me or telling me ahead of time. But he has been lax in either checking his emails, or emailing me back. Which makes me more confused because I thought this guy really cared for me. :sigh: So we will see – I am upset, angry and completely frustrated about how this is right now. I will just have to see how things go. In the meantime, I am getting nutty because I only get emails from him every few days and I don’t understand why. You all know me – when I need an answer, I won’t stop thinking about it, worrying about it or stressing about it till I get it. :/
At Sea; heading to Bergen, Norway
Yesterday we were in the Lofoten Islands of Norway; but I was on IPM. However, it worked out to my advantage, since due to the engine issues, we were late coming to port; then it as a tender port anyway and by the time they granted shore leave for crew – it was 3.45! So I wouldn’t have bothered to go ashore anyway. I did go up on decks and take some pics. It was pretty there – but all from a distance
Lofoten Islands:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.7i2m17yr&x=0&y=-i7at71&localeid=en_US
However, it has always been my treat that if I am on a full day of IPM (I don’t do it often – mostly it is half days) that I will go up to the spa. We get a 40% discount on port days .. so it is nice! I got a hot stone massage (though it wasn’t as good as the one I had in Arizona all those years ago) as well as a mani and a pedi. I don’t know if I have mentioned it, but I finally got away from wearing tips. The ones on board are crap (they use gel) so I gave up and have been letting my nails grow. They won’t ever be long, but they are in good condition now. Anyhoo, so I spent my afternoon in the spa. It was lovely – but unfortunately, it took a while and I got so relaxed I wanted to nap but I didn’t have time! So needless to say I am VERY tired today. Got to bed around 1am, after being up on decks for a bit taking pics. The skies were clear and the sun was perfect for taking pics after midnight, so I couldn’t resist.
The first pics are from about 11pm, right before I left the cyber for the night. Then you will see the clock and from then on those were the pics at that time. Some of the pics are “off” as I had to play with exposure, shutter speed and all to try to really get a good one. A few of them are bad – but I left them in because the sun looks like a giant explosion on the horizon! LOL A few of my friends said it looked like a nuclear explosion and I should photoshop the ship into the pic … since you never know what is going to happen LMAO!!! :P But you really get to see what it is like in the middle of the night from these pics. My roomie and I need to shut the curtains completely because our brains get confused and want to stay awake!!
Midnight sun:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.2oz11j83&x=0&y=pdyflw&localeid=en_US
As far as the ship, nothing really new onboard. Disco tomorrow night; So’ton is on Friday. Cat is coming down to visit me for the day. Still trying to talk with Ash about why he went to Aurora without mentioning it to me or telling me ahead of time. But he has been lax in either checking his emails, or emailing me back. Which makes me more confused because I thought this guy really cared for me. :sigh: So we will see – I am upset, angry and completely frustrated about how this is right now. I will just have to see how things go. In the meantime, I am getting nutty because I only get emails from him every few days and I don’t understand why. You all know me – when I need an answer, I won’t stop thinking about it, worrying about it or stressing about it till I get it. :/
Saturday, June 14, 2008
We're Back Online!!
14 June 08
Tromso, Norway
Its 8.30am and we are in port; and OMG – we still don’t have a connection!!! Talk about feeling isolated from the world! Thank goodness my phone works and I was able to send a text to the parentals to let them know I would be without a sat; otherwise I think my Mom might have sent out CSI: Norway to look for me! LOL
Now I am really starting to get antsy myself; I mean it has been days without Facebook!! And the Pax, forget it. They are getting nutty. Now I am really starting to get the complaints in; and unfortunately they are so thick that they don’t understand how the satellite works and just think they are at home with a broadband connection. One woman wanted to know why we couldn’t “plug in” when we were in port! OMG – RME!!!
So I am going to put up my new signage and get the hell out of here; otherwise I am only going to go batty listening to the pax say stupid things!
Going to go to breakfast with Amie after we have Safety Training at 10.30 ~ then a few of us will hopefully go ashore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, back and its now 6.45pm. The 2ndETO had paged me about 15 mins ago that it was up, so I ran up here as fast as I could get dressed and guess what? It went down again :( So he said he will be trying again at 8pm when we get on our next course. In the meantime, I am going to put up a new sign and go down to get some dinner – since I didn’t even stop for any before!
Anyway – back to today; Gemma, Pierre, Tanya and I went into Tromso; we had to pay for the bus again, but since we all got paid yesterday, we figured we could afford it :) We wandered about; it was a bit cold today so we didn’t wander long. It was a cute town with lots of little markets and such. Cunard’s Queen Victoria was in with us, so there were a lot of cruise ship pax about. We decided to splurge on lunch and went for pizza at Peppe’s Pizza (think Pizza Hut for Europe). We won’t do that again!!! It cost us 750 for 4 of us – with pizzas and sodas/beers! Holy crap! That is 75 quid, which is $150 US!! OMFG!! So back to 15 kroner cheeseburgers from McDonalds! LOL
After our extremely expensive lunch, we headed back to the ship .. we couldn’t afford anything else today! Ha ha. Pierre, Tanya and I headed up to Deck 9 ½ to take some pictures as some of the snow covered mountains were beautiful.
Its a little after 8pm ~ We are back up!!! Hooray!!! So at the moment I am trying to download emails, keep pax happy and all the while the ship has been spooky all day! We had a power outage twice, a brown out after that .. and then one of the engines wouldn’t fire up! Oy vey! She’s not a happy ship for some reason today. So because of that, Capt decided to take the longer, safer route to our next port. So we wont be getting into our next port until 1pm tomorrow. Oh well. I overheard the Staff Captain say at dinner that he wasn’t sure what was up and made a comment that he wasn’t going to be drinking tonight. Ummmm, hello?!?! That is freaking scary! (meaning we could have a problem overnight and need to go to crew alert! ACK!!) So I passed the word to the group and we all agreed, no booze tonight. Just a snack and a soda in the crew bar. We are going to all bring our laptops and have a pic swapping party instead.
Here are the pics from Tromso as well as pics from the windows by the Cyber: (once we left port this evening)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.bus7ehs3&x=0&y=unxnic&localeid=en_US
And and by the way, its official ~ I'm coming home! I got my flight info via email .. I land at JFK at 7.45pm on the 4th of July. Good day to come home if you ask me :)
Tromso, Norway
Its 8.30am and we are in port; and OMG – we still don’t have a connection!!! Talk about feeling isolated from the world! Thank goodness my phone works and I was able to send a text to the parentals to let them know I would be without a sat; otherwise I think my Mom might have sent out CSI: Norway to look for me! LOL
Now I am really starting to get antsy myself; I mean it has been days without Facebook!! And the Pax, forget it. They are getting nutty. Now I am really starting to get the complaints in; and unfortunately they are so thick that they don’t understand how the satellite works and just think they are at home with a broadband connection. One woman wanted to know why we couldn’t “plug in” when we were in port! OMG – RME!!!
So I am going to put up my new signage and get the hell out of here; otherwise I am only going to go batty listening to the pax say stupid things!
Going to go to breakfast with Amie after we have Safety Training at 10.30 ~ then a few of us will hopefully go ashore.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ok, back and its now 6.45pm. The 2ndETO had paged me about 15 mins ago that it was up, so I ran up here as fast as I could get dressed and guess what? It went down again :( So he said he will be trying again at 8pm when we get on our next course. In the meantime, I am going to put up a new sign and go down to get some dinner – since I didn’t even stop for any before!
Anyway – back to today; Gemma, Pierre, Tanya and I went into Tromso; we had to pay for the bus again, but since we all got paid yesterday, we figured we could afford it :) We wandered about; it was a bit cold today so we didn’t wander long. It was a cute town with lots of little markets and such. Cunard’s Queen Victoria was in with us, so there were a lot of cruise ship pax about. We decided to splurge on lunch and went for pizza at Peppe’s Pizza (think Pizza Hut for Europe). We won’t do that again!!! It cost us 750 for 4 of us – with pizzas and sodas/beers! Holy crap! That is 75 quid, which is $150 US!! OMFG!! So back to 15 kroner cheeseburgers from McDonalds! LOL
After our extremely expensive lunch, we headed back to the ship .. we couldn’t afford anything else today! Ha ha. Pierre, Tanya and I headed up to Deck 9 ½ to take some pictures as some of the snow covered mountains were beautiful.
Its a little after 8pm ~ We are back up!!! Hooray!!! So at the moment I am trying to download emails, keep pax happy and all the while the ship has been spooky all day! We had a power outage twice, a brown out after that .. and then one of the engines wouldn’t fire up! Oy vey! She’s not a happy ship for some reason today. So because of that, Capt decided to take the longer, safer route to our next port. So we wont be getting into our next port until 1pm tomorrow. Oh well. I overheard the Staff Captain say at dinner that he wasn’t sure what was up and made a comment that he wasn’t going to be drinking tonight. Ummmm, hello?!?! That is freaking scary! (meaning we could have a problem overnight and need to go to crew alert! ACK!!) So I passed the word to the group and we all agreed, no booze tonight. Just a snack and a soda in the crew bar. We are going to all bring our laptops and have a pic swapping party instead.
Here are the pics from Tromso as well as pics from the windows by the Cyber: (once we left port this evening)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.bus7ehs3&x=0&y=unxnic&localeid=en_US
And and by the way, its official ~ I'm coming home! I got my flight info via email .. I land at JFK at 7.45pm on the 4th of July. Good day to come home if you ask me :)
Friday the 13th
13 June 08
Hammerfest, Norway
Well after a VERY late night … I got to sleep around 5am, but it was nice to not have to get up! However, someone was banging around in the hallway around 9am, so I ended up waking up. Which was ok since I knew Amie was going to page me around 9.30 for breakfast before we went ashore. We were all in quite the state … all of us had a very good time at the Filipino party and the after parties as well. LOL So we grabbed breakfast and decided we better go ashore right after or else we were never going to make it ashore later on.
Here are a few pics from the Filipino party: (again from a few of our cameras)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.c4zo0rwj&x=0&y=tcw0gf&localeid=en_US
According to the Port Guide onboard (I don’t have access to my cruise critic!! Grrr I love that site for all the port info) there was a small town not far from the berth, so we figured we would just go for a wander and see what was around. However, it turns out we were not in the berth as was assumed when the port guides were made. Of course we had walked all around the port area before realizing all of this. We finally asked a shop owner and he told us it was a 20 min walk to town. Hmmm. We were already struggling to wander around right there, so I didn’t know that we were going to make it the 20 mins. We walked back to the ship and there was a shuttle bus to the town, but it was 50krn ($10) to go. Forget it. I think I only had 50krn left anyway. So Amie and Gemma went straight back to their cabins; however, Pierre and I went up to deck 9 ½ to look at the views and take some pics. I got some nice shots of a small cruise ship coming in. It was nice and warm standing on the one side of the ship as the wind was on the other side. So we stayed on the sunny side LOL
We headed back to our cabins around noon-ish. I decided to read for a while; but I fell asleep. I woke a little later only to turn off the light and roll over J I woke around 3 and had a little snack, as I was hungry. I watched a little TV but there wasn’t much on, so I decided to read more. Either I am reading a very boring book or I am sleep-deprived, because I fell asleep again! I woke up at 6 when my alarm went off (I have my phone set for 6pm everyday in case I nap, I can still get up on time for work)
Needed to get back to the land of the living; so I got showered, dressed and went to dinner. Then came up to the cyber about 7.15 to see if we were getting any signal at all. We weren’t, so I checked my ship email, put the pics from last night and today on my laptop and of course, had to start fielding complaints from the pax who are starting to get itchy about not having access to the Internet. Hell, I think they are more uptight about it than I am and you all know how I am very connected and always online! I had one pax tell me she had no idea if everything was ok at home; I told her that her mobile probably worked in port yesterday and today and she said .. ready? “Oh no, that’s too expensive to use”. Well do you care what is going on at home or not??? Isn’t it worth a few bucks??? Jeezus these people can be so GD cheap sometimes!!! Unfortunately, they were annoying me, so when they left I closed the cyber door and took a break; I went into the shops for a chat with the girls. It’s now a little after 9pm and we still don’t have anything. I had hoped by now it would be up again. As now this will be Day 2 of NO revenue. Null, nada, zero, zilch, nil. Crap! The good thing is that I might get a big influx tomorrow and it might actually end up being more than if I had a connection the whole time J Here’s to hoping! Fingers crossed!!
Oh, I didn’t take any pics last night when we had the “Cruise By” on the North Cape. The sun didn’t come out and it was overcast. So the scenery and mountains looked the same as pics I had already taken ~ so I didn’t bother.
Just got off the phone with the Bridge ~ the 8-12 watch keepers are the nicest (In my opinion) so I called and asked if they could rattle off some coordinates for me; basically, I was trying to see where we were when we lost the signal (roughly 69 1”N, 14 18”E) on the evening of the 11th and then where we are now (not close yet) and then where Tromso (our port tomorrow) is. They are approximately the same coordinates (69 40.5”N, 18 58.7”E) So I am hoping that either en route to port in the early AM, or by the time we get there, I will have the connection back.
Hammerfest, Norway pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8xchvt6r&x=0&y=-95l82e&localeid=en_US
Hammerfest, Norway
Well after a VERY late night … I got to sleep around 5am, but it was nice to not have to get up! However, someone was banging around in the hallway around 9am, so I ended up waking up. Which was ok since I knew Amie was going to page me around 9.30 for breakfast before we went ashore. We were all in quite the state … all of us had a very good time at the Filipino party and the after parties as well. LOL So we grabbed breakfast and decided we better go ashore right after or else we were never going to make it ashore later on.
Here are a few pics from the Filipino party: (again from a few of our cameras)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.c4zo0rwj&x=0&y=tcw0gf&localeid=en_US
According to the Port Guide onboard (I don’t have access to my cruise critic!! Grrr I love that site for all the port info) there was a small town not far from the berth, so we figured we would just go for a wander and see what was around. However, it turns out we were not in the berth as was assumed when the port guides were made. Of course we had walked all around the port area before realizing all of this. We finally asked a shop owner and he told us it was a 20 min walk to town. Hmmm. We were already struggling to wander around right there, so I didn’t know that we were going to make it the 20 mins. We walked back to the ship and there was a shuttle bus to the town, but it was 50krn ($10) to go. Forget it. I think I only had 50krn left anyway. So Amie and Gemma went straight back to their cabins; however, Pierre and I went up to deck 9 ½ to look at the views and take some pics. I got some nice shots of a small cruise ship coming in. It was nice and warm standing on the one side of the ship as the wind was on the other side. So we stayed on the sunny side LOL
We headed back to our cabins around noon-ish. I decided to read for a while; but I fell asleep. I woke a little later only to turn off the light and roll over J I woke around 3 and had a little snack, as I was hungry. I watched a little TV but there wasn’t much on, so I decided to read more. Either I am reading a very boring book or I am sleep-deprived, because I fell asleep again! I woke up at 6 when my alarm went off (I have my phone set for 6pm everyday in case I nap, I can still get up on time for work)
Needed to get back to the land of the living; so I got showered, dressed and went to dinner. Then came up to the cyber about 7.15 to see if we were getting any signal at all. We weren’t, so I checked my ship email, put the pics from last night and today on my laptop and of course, had to start fielding complaints from the pax who are starting to get itchy about not having access to the Internet. Hell, I think they are more uptight about it than I am and you all know how I am very connected and always online! I had one pax tell me she had no idea if everything was ok at home; I told her that her mobile probably worked in port yesterday and today and she said .. ready? “Oh no, that’s too expensive to use”. Well do you care what is going on at home or not??? Isn’t it worth a few bucks??? Jeezus these people can be so GD cheap sometimes!!! Unfortunately, they were annoying me, so when they left I closed the cyber door and took a break; I went into the shops for a chat with the girls. It’s now a little after 9pm and we still don’t have anything. I had hoped by now it would be up again. As now this will be Day 2 of NO revenue. Null, nada, zero, zilch, nil. Crap! The good thing is that I might get a big influx tomorrow and it might actually end up being more than if I had a connection the whole time J Here’s to hoping! Fingers crossed!!
Oh, I didn’t take any pics last night when we had the “Cruise By” on the North Cape. The sun didn’t come out and it was overcast. So the scenery and mountains looked the same as pics I had already taken ~ so I didn’t bother.
Just got off the phone with the Bridge ~ the 8-12 watch keepers are the nicest (In my opinion) so I called and asked if they could rattle off some coordinates for me; basically, I was trying to see where we were when we lost the signal (roughly 69 1”N, 14 18”E) on the evening of the 11th and then where we are now (not close yet) and then where Tromso (our port tomorrow) is. They are approximately the same coordinates (69 40.5”N, 18 58.7”E) So I am hoping that either en route to port in the early AM, or by the time we get there, I will have the connection back.
Hammerfest, Norway pics:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8xchvt6r&x=0&y=-95l82e&localeid=en_US
June 12th
12 June 08
Honningsvaag, North Cape; Norway
So I am writing this all offline for now as we lost our satellite connection last night (the 11th) around 6pm and were told this morning we won’t have it back till later in the evening after we sail from Hammerfest tomorrow.
I started off the day at 1.15am this morning when I was still up having a drink in the Wardie, when the sun came out from behind the clouds. I had gone back to my cabin a short time later, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep knowing the sun was out and I wasn’t taking pictures. So I dressed quick and grabbed the camera and went up on Deck 9 ½. Man alive ~ it was freaking cold!! Colder than Antarctica, since there is a strong, icy wind that smacks you right in the face. I was outside for a total of about 3 mins LOL
These are the pics from 1.15am:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.coaqeo8z&x=0&y=-o8pauz&localeid=en_US
So I got to sleep in a little today since we had a “sea day” morning and wouldn’t be arriving in Honningsvaag until 12.30 ~ I didn’t have to rush to the Cyber either since I knew the sat was still out. But I went up, checked my P&O email and made up some signs for the Pax and Crew cafes about the outages and then about 10am I was back in my cabin sorting out some laundry and reading J
Amie and Clare had to work till 12 so we were going to all go grab lunch onboard when they were done, before we went ashore. There didn’t seem to be much to do, but it was the top of the world and it wasn’t like it was raining (had it been ~ I would have been taking pics from the inside of the ship!) Actually I am sure it would be snow since it was so cold .. Which may have prompted us out after all. Anyway, Amie beeped me (and woke me up LOL) and then we went to get some lunch … needed soup to keep me warm when we went out side!
We headed ashore a little after 1; like I said there wasn’t much to do but we wandered in and out of the shops and had some “fun with trolls”. We were in a shop and it turned out they had an Ice Bar! I had heard about them, but never seen one or anything. It was 10e for crew so we said why not. Its not like there was much else to do. We donned parkas and off into the “fridge” we went. We were the only ones in there, but we had a great laugh taking pics and playing in the Igloo. I think we were only in there about 20 mins or so .. It was soo cold and there are only so many pics we could take. We were delighted to get back out into the sunshine! It was so nice and warm in comparison. So we walked around the town some more, sat in the sunshine for a bit and wondered what on earth these people do in this small town; there was another smaller cruise ship in with us, I mean what this town must be like when there isn’t a ship in!
After deciding there was nothing else to do, we headed back to the ship for tea. We went to my cabin to watch a little Jeff Dunham and chill out. The three of us were all getting sleepy, so after the DVD ended, Amie and Clare went to their cabins and I headed off for a nap. Not worrying about having to get back up at 6 for work was NICE! I woke up around 7.45 and got showered and dressed before I headed up to the Wardie for Indian dinner and to take pics. It was neat to see the town as we pulled out. Not to mention the sun was streaking through in the distance on this one set of mountains. But it was getting breezy since the ship was moving out (we didn’t leave till 9pm) and I was only able to stand being out there for a few minutes at a time.
Tonight is a Filipino party in the crew mess; it is the 110th Independence Day or something. So I am waiting for the group to finish up in the shop while I download my pics to my laptop and write this; then we will go over there after.
We are doing a cruise by the North Cape tonight at midnight ~ I am really hoping the sun comes out. You have to see how amazing it is to have the sun out in the middle of the night! These Norwegians that live up here must all have black curtains to block out the sun “at night” so they can sleep!
Tomorrow we will be in Hammerfest ~ which is still on the North Cape of Norway.
Here are all the pics from today in port as well as the sail away: (some are from Amie’s camera and Clare’s camera as well) Sorry they are out of order, the net is playing up so it is only uploading every other pic, so I keep having to go back and add in the ones that didn't go the first time.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.9y7o2dvn&x=0&y=-9yfr45&localeid=en_US
Honningsvaag, North Cape; Norway
So I am writing this all offline for now as we lost our satellite connection last night (the 11th) around 6pm and were told this morning we won’t have it back till later in the evening after we sail from Hammerfest tomorrow.
I started off the day at 1.15am this morning when I was still up having a drink in the Wardie, when the sun came out from behind the clouds. I had gone back to my cabin a short time later, but there was no way I was going to be able to sleep knowing the sun was out and I wasn’t taking pictures. So I dressed quick and grabbed the camera and went up on Deck 9 ½. Man alive ~ it was freaking cold!! Colder than Antarctica, since there is a strong, icy wind that smacks you right in the face. I was outside for a total of about 3 mins LOL
These are the pics from 1.15am:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.coaqeo8z&x=0&y=-o8pauz&localeid=en_US
So I got to sleep in a little today since we had a “sea day” morning and wouldn’t be arriving in Honningsvaag until 12.30 ~ I didn’t have to rush to the Cyber either since I knew the sat was still out. But I went up, checked my P&O email and made up some signs for the Pax and Crew cafes about the outages and then about 10am I was back in my cabin sorting out some laundry and reading J
Amie and Clare had to work till 12 so we were going to all go grab lunch onboard when they were done, before we went ashore. There didn’t seem to be much to do, but it was the top of the world and it wasn’t like it was raining (had it been ~ I would have been taking pics from the inside of the ship!) Actually I am sure it would be snow since it was so cold .. Which may have prompted us out after all. Anyway, Amie beeped me (and woke me up LOL) and then we went to get some lunch … needed soup to keep me warm when we went out side!
We headed ashore a little after 1; like I said there wasn’t much to do but we wandered in and out of the shops and had some “fun with trolls”. We were in a shop and it turned out they had an Ice Bar! I had heard about them, but never seen one or anything. It was 10e for crew so we said why not. Its not like there was much else to do. We donned parkas and off into the “fridge” we went. We were the only ones in there, but we had a great laugh taking pics and playing in the Igloo. I think we were only in there about 20 mins or so .. It was soo cold and there are only so many pics we could take. We were delighted to get back out into the sunshine! It was so nice and warm in comparison. So we walked around the town some more, sat in the sunshine for a bit and wondered what on earth these people do in this small town; there was another smaller cruise ship in with us, I mean what this town must be like when there isn’t a ship in!
After deciding there was nothing else to do, we headed back to the ship for tea. We went to my cabin to watch a little Jeff Dunham and chill out. The three of us were all getting sleepy, so after the DVD ended, Amie and Clare went to their cabins and I headed off for a nap. Not worrying about having to get back up at 6 for work was NICE! I woke up around 7.45 and got showered and dressed before I headed up to the Wardie for Indian dinner and to take pics. It was neat to see the town as we pulled out. Not to mention the sun was streaking through in the distance on this one set of mountains. But it was getting breezy since the ship was moving out (we didn’t leave till 9pm) and I was only able to stand being out there for a few minutes at a time.
Tonight is a Filipino party in the crew mess; it is the 110th Independence Day or something. So I am waiting for the group to finish up in the shop while I download my pics to my laptop and write this; then we will go over there after.
We are doing a cruise by the North Cape tonight at midnight ~ I am really hoping the sun comes out. You have to see how amazing it is to have the sun out in the middle of the night! These Norwegians that live up here must all have black curtains to block out the sun “at night” so they can sleep!
Tomorrow we will be in Hammerfest ~ which is still on the North Cape of Norway.
Here are all the pics from today in port as well as the sail away: (some are from Amie’s camera and Clare’s camera as well) Sorry they are out of order, the net is playing up so it is only uploading every other pic, so I keep having to go back and add in the ones that didn't go the first time.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.9y7o2dvn&x=0&y=-9yfr45&localeid=en_US
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Deja Vu
10 June 08
Cruising up to the North Cape
(from Trondheim, Norway)
Well I don't know where the hell the sun is ... no "midnight sun" seen here!! We have been in the "land of wind and rain" for the last 3 ports ... it has been awful! :( Didn't go ashore in our first port, Stavanger as it was raining, windy and cold.
Went ashore in Alesund - but didn't do anything more than go to McDonalds. It was rainy and chilly .. things are too expensive in Norway to really "do" anything. McDonalds alone for me and Pierre was 200 Kroner .. which is 20 quid ... which is FORTY FREAKING DOLLARS. Yes my friends, for McDonalds for 2 ppl. And no, we didn't get anything out of the ordinary. A Big Mac combo for me, plus a cheeseburger and a Qtr Pounder combo for Pierre plus a cheese burger. That should be like $10 bucks back home. *Maybe* $12!
Anyway ... so we are pretty much not spending money on lunch anymore!
Today we were in Trondheim .. woke up, hey - look! Its rainy, windy and cold! Its like the movie Groundhog Day! So after spending ridiculous money yesterday .. and with the weather so crappy, we all went up for a nice brunch after drills then decided to stay onboard and watch a movie. We ended up in my cabin (I have the biggest cabin - go figure!) watching Jeff Dunham and then The Sweetest Thing. Good laughs and lots of fun. Much better (and cheaper) than going ashore anyway. After that everyone went for a nice nap :) Of course the weather started to clear just as the ship was pulling out of port .. RME!!
We are now cruising up the coast of Norway and heading into the Arctic Circle. Pretty cool, eh? We have a sea day tomorrow and then won't arrive in our next port of Honningsvaag until 12.30 on Thursday. If you get a chance, go to Google Maps and look where Honningsvaag is - its at the TOP of Norway .. pretty damn close to Santa up at the North Pole if you ask me! This really will be the "Land of The Midnight Sun" (if the sun ever comes out!) I am going to try to take pics late one night so you all can see how light out it really is up there - if you thought the pics I had from before were light, these should actually have sunshine (from what I am told). It is probably going to be cold as crap up there; but I hope it at least will be clear and sunny; though a little snow would be fun as well! As of now the temp is going to be about 39 degrees the day we get there. Brrrrrrr ... I want to go back to the caribbean!! LOL The good news is it should be mostly sunny! YAY
The other night was our Joiners Disco - which we renamed "Amie's Re-Joining Disco" LOL
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.9kl5uvar&x=0&y=-s3adqk&localeid=en_US
Cruising up to the North Cape
(from Trondheim, Norway)
Well I don't know where the hell the sun is ... no "midnight sun" seen here!! We have been in the "land of wind and rain" for the last 3 ports ... it has been awful! :( Didn't go ashore in our first port, Stavanger as it was raining, windy and cold.
Went ashore in Alesund - but didn't do anything more than go to McDonalds. It was rainy and chilly .. things are too expensive in Norway to really "do" anything. McDonalds alone for me and Pierre was 200 Kroner .. which is 20 quid ... which is FORTY FREAKING DOLLARS. Yes my friends, for McDonalds for 2 ppl. And no, we didn't get anything out of the ordinary. A Big Mac combo for me, plus a cheeseburger and a Qtr Pounder combo for Pierre plus a cheese burger. That should be like $10 bucks back home. *Maybe* $12!
Anyway ... so we are pretty much not spending money on lunch anymore!
Today we were in Trondheim .. woke up, hey - look! Its rainy, windy and cold! Its like the movie Groundhog Day! So after spending ridiculous money yesterday .. and with the weather so crappy, we all went up for a nice brunch after drills then decided to stay onboard and watch a movie. We ended up in my cabin (I have the biggest cabin - go figure!) watching Jeff Dunham and then The Sweetest Thing. Good laughs and lots of fun. Much better (and cheaper) than going ashore anyway. After that everyone went for a nice nap :) Of course the weather started to clear just as the ship was pulling out of port .. RME!!
We are now cruising up the coast of Norway and heading into the Arctic Circle. Pretty cool, eh? We have a sea day tomorrow and then won't arrive in our next port of Honningsvaag until 12.30 on Thursday. If you get a chance, go to Google Maps and look where Honningsvaag is - its at the TOP of Norway .. pretty damn close to Santa up at the North Pole if you ask me! This really will be the "Land of The Midnight Sun" (if the sun ever comes out!) I am going to try to take pics late one night so you all can see how light out it really is up there - if you thought the pics I had from before were light, these should actually have sunshine (from what I am told). It is probably going to be cold as crap up there; but I hope it at least will be clear and sunny; though a little snow would be fun as well! As of now the temp is going to be about 39 degrees the day we get there. Brrrrrrr ... I want to go back to the caribbean!! LOL The good news is it should be mostly sunny! YAY
The other night was our Joiners Disco - which we renamed "Amie's Re-Joining Disco" LOL
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.9kl5uvar&x=0&y=-s3adqk&localeid=en_US
Saturday, June 7, 2008
On The Road Again ...
7 June 08
almost back to the "land of the midnight sun"
We are on our way back to Norway ... left on-time yesterday and will be in port tomorrow.
So that means today was a sea day ... it was a looooooooong day. Tomorrow we will be in Stavanger (again) I think we even go there one more time before I leave. Hmmmph!
Anyway, yesterday Sam came down to visit me in Southampton. I was so excited .. I (obviously) never have visitors there .. when everyone else does. So it was good. I showed her just about every inch of the ship .. just about every where I ever spend any time .. from my cabin, to the cyber, to the laundry to the aft mooring deck .. and of course the crew bar!! LOL
Took some cool pics on the sail away; its becoming tradition to go up on the Wardie porch and watch the sail away with Brooke, Debbie and whom ever else. Then we all bring up a handful of Coronas and enjoy sailing out. Its actually nice and since I don't have a satellite connection sailing out, I don't have to be in the cyber anyway :)
Here are some pics I took:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.2b5c2lpf&x=0&y=-w81jrg&localeid=en_US
I got some upsetting news yesterday - seems Ash decided to go back to P&O after all. I don't know why as he hasn't returned my last email and I hadn't talked to him in a little while since we were taking some space. I am really gutted about it. I thought we would end up on a ship together .. I mean I tell everyone here that if he was still here, we would still be together. The only reason I broke things off was because he was in India while I was here, and said he wasn't coming back to P&O. So I wanted to wait to see what would happen with my next ship and where he went on NCL. Hmmmm :( So I have been really distraught about that since yesterday. I actually found out from another crew member who had gone over to Aurora that day and had seen him. (Oh yeah, I didn't mention - we were in port with his ship, Aurora, all day yesterday!) He did email me to let me know he was over there .. I emailed him back but haven't heard from him yet.
almost back to the "land of the midnight sun"
We are on our way back to Norway ... left on-time yesterday and will be in port tomorrow.
So that means today was a sea day ... it was a looooooooong day. Tomorrow we will be in Stavanger (again) I think we even go there one more time before I leave. Hmmmph!
Anyway, yesterday Sam came down to visit me in Southampton. I was so excited .. I (obviously) never have visitors there .. when everyone else does. So it was good. I showed her just about every inch of the ship .. just about every where I ever spend any time .. from my cabin, to the cyber, to the laundry to the aft mooring deck .. and of course the crew bar!! LOL
Took some cool pics on the sail away; its becoming tradition to go up on the Wardie porch and watch the sail away with Brooke, Debbie and whom ever else. Then we all bring up a handful of Coronas and enjoy sailing out. Its actually nice and since I don't have a satellite connection sailing out, I don't have to be in the cyber anyway :)
Here are some pics I took:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.2b5c2lpf&x=0&y=-w81jrg&localeid=en_US
I got some upsetting news yesterday - seems Ash decided to go back to P&O after all. I don't know why as he hasn't returned my last email and I hadn't talked to him in a little while since we were taking some space. I am really gutted about it. I thought we would end up on a ship together .. I mean I tell everyone here that if he was still here, we would still be together. The only reason I broke things off was because he was in India while I was here, and said he wasn't coming back to P&O. So I wanted to wait to see what would happen with my next ship and where he went on NCL. Hmmmm :( So I have been really distraught about that since yesterday. I actually found out from another crew member who had gone over to Aurora that day and had seen him. (Oh yeah, I didn't mention - we were in port with his ship, Aurora, all day yesterday!) He did email me to let me know he was over there .. I emailed him back but haven't heard from him yet.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
A Reason To Celebrate!
5 June 08
almost to So'ton
OMG - had to post .. first of all, I will say "Told You So, Amie!!!"
Amie is coming back ... Miss I-Am-Not-Coming-Back-To-Ships-Ever .... tomorrow!!!! She called Hardings and they have an opening here tomorrow since Steph is leaving. So they gave her a month contract .. till the 4th of July. Which is perfect as that is when Clare and I are leaving!
Amie just posted a message to me on Facebook - I had to read it 3 times before it sunk in! Then I took off skipping down the hall to the shops and ran in and yelled it at Clare and Pierre "Amie's coming tomorrow!!" Which they said "we know - she had made plans for lunch with us last week" (she was coming on for a visit tomorrow) And I said "noooo, she is coming back to work .. TOMORROW!" Clare and I did some sort of a Happy Dance/Jig .. then ran down and told Gemma!
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
almost to So'ton
OMG - had to post .. first of all, I will say "Told You So, Amie!!!"
Amie is coming back ... Miss I-Am-Not-Coming-Back-To-Ships-Ever .... tomorrow!!!! She called Hardings and they have an opening here tomorrow since Steph is leaving. So they gave her a month contract .. till the 4th of July. Which is perfect as that is when Clare and I are leaving!
Amie just posted a message to me on Facebook - I had to read it 3 times before it sunk in! Then I took off skipping down the hall to the shops and ran in and yelled it at Clare and Pierre "Amie's coming tomorrow!!" Which they said "we know - she had made plans for lunch with us last week" (she was coming on for a visit tomorrow) And I said "noooo, she is coming back to work .. TOMORROW!" Clare and I did some sort of a Happy Dance/Jig .. then ran down and told Gemma!
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
De-Brief'ing
5 June 08
At sea - heading back to So'ton
Not too much going on today - its a sea day and the last day of the cruise before turnaround tomorrow. Yesterday we were in Stavanger, Norway; I didn't go ashore though. First of all we were completely all knackered after being up until the wee hours of the morning .. and the shoppies had to receive a delivery and do a stock take, so they weren't going ashore. So without them or Cat to make me go .. off to bed I went :-) We are back in Stavanger 2 more times over the next two cruises, so it wasn't a big deal at all. Instead caught up on laundry and much needed SLEEP
The night before we had the Leavers/Joiners Disco and it was a GREAT time .. I don't know why, but everyone was in a party mood that night. Seemed by the time I got there at 11.30 half of the crew bar was already pissed! The disco itself was good ... Amie and Cat were sorely missed though :(
After the disco, a bunch of us all went to the crew deck on deck 4 .. since it was still going to be somewhat light out. It was weird!! I mean it was dark - but the sun was still off in the distance (under the horizon) so it was trying to come up already or something. Wacky if you ask me. There was lots of silliness going on; was quite the party as more people kept showing up. I don't know how we didn't get in trouble .. since that deck is right on the bow and is completely overlooked by the bridge above. Guess the guys on watch thought it was more funny than annoying, so no one from Security was called on us :-)
Once we were too cold to be out there any more .. we headed back downstairs. The crew bar had cleared out, bar a few of the guys playing pool. So we went to Clare's cabin and then across the hall to Jack's cabin (one of the guys from Stores) they had a bigger cabin, so we all hung out in there for a while. Then of course the "Mad Midnight Munchies" attacked .. so off to the crew mess we went ... got some cool pics through the porthole of the sun really trying to come up - this was like 3.30am!
Anyway - here are the pics from the Disco and the aftermath:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.5i3x6poj&x=0&y=thblyc&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are back in So'ton and I am getting a vistor .. Sam is driving down from London to spend the day with me !!! YAY .. I am so excited .. it has been ages since I have seen her; and I am having my first visitor on turnaround day! LOL So I will give her the Grand Tour, have some lunch, etc. Should be a good day (now I need to get Alice to clean up her stuff in the cabin - haha!)
Next cruise is the Baltic and a few of our Norwegian ports are repeated .. so I will get off to see the ones I didn't and if the weather is as nice as it was in Eidfjord again, I will surely be going ashore to enjoy a beer with the beautiful scenery.
At sea - heading back to So'ton
Not too much going on today - its a sea day and the last day of the cruise before turnaround tomorrow. Yesterday we were in Stavanger, Norway; I didn't go ashore though. First of all we were completely all knackered after being up until the wee hours of the morning .. and the shoppies had to receive a delivery and do a stock take, so they weren't going ashore. So without them or Cat to make me go .. off to bed I went :-) We are back in Stavanger 2 more times over the next two cruises, so it wasn't a big deal at all. Instead caught up on laundry and much needed SLEEP
The night before we had the Leavers/Joiners Disco and it was a GREAT time .. I don't know why, but everyone was in a party mood that night. Seemed by the time I got there at 11.30 half of the crew bar was already pissed! The disco itself was good ... Amie and Cat were sorely missed though :(
After the disco, a bunch of us all went to the crew deck on deck 4 .. since it was still going to be somewhat light out. It was weird!! I mean it was dark - but the sun was still off in the distance (under the horizon) so it was trying to come up already or something. Wacky if you ask me. There was lots of silliness going on; was quite the party as more people kept showing up. I don't know how we didn't get in trouble .. since that deck is right on the bow and is completely overlooked by the bridge above. Guess the guys on watch thought it was more funny than annoying, so no one from Security was called on us :-)
Once we were too cold to be out there any more .. we headed back downstairs. The crew bar had cleared out, bar a few of the guys playing pool. So we went to Clare's cabin and then across the hall to Jack's cabin (one of the guys from Stores) they had a bigger cabin, so we all hung out in there for a while. Then of course the "Mad Midnight Munchies" attacked .. so off to the crew mess we went ... got some cool pics through the porthole of the sun really trying to come up - this was like 3.30am!
Anyway - here are the pics from the Disco and the aftermath:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.5i3x6poj&x=0&y=thblyc&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are back in So'ton and I am getting a vistor .. Sam is driving down from London to spend the day with me !!! YAY .. I am so excited .. it has been ages since I have seen her; and I am having my first visitor on turnaround day! LOL So I will give her the Grand Tour, have some lunch, etc. Should be a good day (now I need to get Alice to clean up her stuff in the cabin - haha!)
Next cruise is the Baltic and a few of our Norwegian ports are repeated .. so I will get off to see the ones I didn't and if the weather is as nice as it was in Eidfjord again, I will surely be going ashore to enjoy a beer with the beautiful scenery.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
First time for Artemis
3 June 08
Skjolden, Norway
This was a SMALL village .. not even considered a town in my opinion. It was quaint and tiny; not much to *do* per say .. but I enjoyed it as well. Gemma and I were on our own today; Pierre was on IPM and we couldn't get Clare out of bed :-)
Artemis had never been to this "port" before .. so they were very happy to have us. It is a new area for cruise ships and they only get about 6 per year right now; we were the first of the year!
It was a tender port, so once we got ashore we took a look at a little map of the village. We wandered around mostly .. down to the "beach" and up the trail to the waterfalls. Stopped for an ice cream at a little supermarket (and when I say little, it was *tiny*) and walked some more. The good thing about Norway is all the walking and "hiking" as it were. Nothing is flat, that is for sure!
Got some great pictures of the larger of the waterfalls .. reflecting onto a pond that was so still, it was like glass! Also had some nice shots of the ship with the mountains and falls (and snow) in the back drop.
Not sure what the sign "Spill Her" actually means in Norwegian .. but it was a good giggle for Gemma and I so I had to snap a pic
Skjolden, Norway
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.4np9s383&x=0&y=-jrcrq4&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are back out of the fjords and onto the coast, to Stavanger, Norway. Then off we go back to the UK for another turnaround. Tonight we have a disco; its going to be soo strange without Cat and Amie there! :(
Skjolden, Norway
This was a SMALL village .. not even considered a town in my opinion. It was quaint and tiny; not much to *do* per say .. but I enjoyed it as well. Gemma and I were on our own today; Pierre was on IPM and we couldn't get Clare out of bed :-)
Artemis had never been to this "port" before .. so they were very happy to have us. It is a new area for cruise ships and they only get about 6 per year right now; we were the first of the year!
It was a tender port, so once we got ashore we took a look at a little map of the village. We wandered around mostly .. down to the "beach" and up the trail to the waterfalls. Stopped for an ice cream at a little supermarket (and when I say little, it was *tiny*) and walked some more. The good thing about Norway is all the walking and "hiking" as it were. Nothing is flat, that is for sure!
Got some great pictures of the larger of the waterfalls .. reflecting onto a pond that was so still, it was like glass! Also had some nice shots of the ship with the mountains and falls (and snow) in the back drop.
Not sure what the sign "Spill Her" actually means in Norwegian .. but it was a good giggle for Gemma and I so I had to snap a pic
Skjolden, Norway
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.4np9s383&x=0&y=-jrcrq4&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are back out of the fjords and onto the coast, to Stavanger, Norway. Then off we go back to the UK for another turnaround. Tonight we have a disco; its going to be soo strange without Cat and Amie there! :(
Nighttime in Norway
Just wanted to show you real pics of what nighttime looks like up here in Norway
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3kvym5zn&x=0&y=ywap35&localeid=en_US
First pics of the sunset were taken at about 9.30pm
Then the pics after were taken at 12.15am!
The last pic of my port hole is from when I got into my cabin at 2am!!! OMG!
Craziness :-)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.3kvym5zn&x=0&y=ywap35&localeid=en_US
First pics of the sunset were taken at about 9.30pm
Then the pics after were taken at 12.15am!
The last pic of my port hole is from when I got into my cabin at 2am!!! OMG!
Craziness :-)
Monday, June 2, 2008
A Happy Place
2 June 08
Norwegian Fjords
Holy moly .. so I finally found the places they make those cool IMAX movies of beautiful rivers, snow capped mountains and tranquil scenery ... its Norway!
Firstly, my satellite connection went out as we pulled into the berth; so I didn't have much to do. While I was doing bits and bobs, I waited for the shoppies to finish their drill and then we were all going for breakfast. I had seen out the windows that it was really pretty - so I of course had the camera. However, I wasn't prepared for what was really outside. The ship was docked right up against these beautiful snow capped mountains .. and there were even some waterfalls starting because it was so warm! We sat out on the Conservatory deck to eat ... it was like I was watching the IMAX movie while having breakfast; it was surreal.
After breakfast, we went to go get ready(changed out of work clothes and we put on shorts!); then Pierre, Gemma, Cat (shoppie Cat - not my Cat), Steph and me and headed out. There wasn't a lot to do, but it was such a nice day (a high of 29c - so that is 85!) so we knew we were just going to wander around (and I was going to take lots of pics!!) The town was so cute .. but not much to do .. so we followed a foot path that took us along the river .. soo pretty.
There isn't much to explain .. so I will leave you to the pics. They explain more than I ever could
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.469k455f&x=0&y=-ws05md&localeid=en_US
Remember to check our webcam - last night it didn't get dark till midnight !!! So if it is dinner time by you, add 6 hrs and that is the time here. I want to go out and take some pics tonight after work to prove it :-)
Tomorrow we are in Skjolden - another city inside the fjords. Probably won't have a connection until we sail again in the evening.
Norwegian Fjords
Holy moly .. so I finally found the places they make those cool IMAX movies of beautiful rivers, snow capped mountains and tranquil scenery ... its Norway!
Firstly, my satellite connection went out as we pulled into the berth; so I didn't have much to do. While I was doing bits and bobs, I waited for the shoppies to finish their drill and then we were all going for breakfast. I had seen out the windows that it was really pretty - so I of course had the camera. However, I wasn't prepared for what was really outside. The ship was docked right up against these beautiful snow capped mountains .. and there were even some waterfalls starting because it was so warm! We sat out on the Conservatory deck to eat ... it was like I was watching the IMAX movie while having breakfast; it was surreal.
After breakfast, we went to go get ready(changed out of work clothes and we put on shorts!); then Pierre, Gemma, Cat (shoppie Cat - not my Cat), Steph and me and headed out. There wasn't a lot to do, but it was such a nice day (a high of 29c - so that is 85!) so we knew we were just going to wander around (and I was going to take lots of pics!!) The town was so cute .. but not much to do .. so we followed a foot path that took us along the river .. soo pretty.
There isn't much to explain .. so I will leave you to the pics. They explain more than I ever could
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.469k455f&x=0&y=-ws05md&localeid=en_US
Remember to check our webcam - last night it didn't get dark till midnight !!! So if it is dinner time by you, add 6 hrs and that is the time here. I want to go out and take some pics tonight after work to prove it :-)
Tomorrow we are in Skjolden - another city inside the fjords. Probably won't have a connection until we sail again in the evening.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Bridge Tour and Sail Away
1 June 08
Bergen, Norway
Why don't I get lucky enough to get In Port Tanning on nice days anymore?? Or why does the sun come out and its gets nice at the END of the day?? Oy!
I didn't go ashore today b/c I only had a few hours between IPM and going back to work .. so I decided since it was yucky and chilly out, and we were coming back here in less than 2 weeks, I would just relax today. Had a great day of just that.
Went back to work at 4 and then at 5.45 went to meet Zak, the Exec Purser, who was going to take me up to the bridge for the sailaway, as well as give me a tour!
It was really cool .. got to see all the neat stuff (in its older days since the ship is 26 yrs old!) and though I have been up to a bridge before (first Carnival ship I was on - they still allowed Bridge tours) I had never been up there while we were MOVING! It was awesome .. got to watch the officers pull her out of her berth, back her up, turn her 'bow to starboard' and get on our way. All along watching the controls; the engines firing up, the thrusters turning us, our direction changing and the speed moving up .. then sailing along the channel alone was amazing!!
The weather had cleared up about an hour before I went up to the bridge; it got all sunny out and actually really warm! It was lovely really. So anyway, I got to stand on the Port Bridge Wing while we sailed out. I took a ton of pics, as it was so beautiful. Zak had to go about 45 mins later, but Captain invited me to stay on without him. The first officer, Richard, said it was a really neat sail along the channel and to keep my camera close. I got to see some Navigation charts - both the electronic as well as the hand written one (they still map it out in pencil - ALWAYS) Sooo cool! (I know - I sound like a guy .. but I like this stuff!)
So I didn't take any pics inside - I felt it disrespectful because they were actually working. I took a few from inside looking out (you can tell by where the mast on the bow is in the pic) But the rest were from the bridge wing.
Bergen Sail Away:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.akiqxpj7&x=0&y=-97o5op&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are in Eidfjord, Norway. Supposed to be a beautiful sail in - but its early :( However, the sail out will be just as good - so for now, I am keeping my camera locked in the cyber so it is always on hand! No one is on IPM tomorrow - so off we go into port. (Though we wont be eating out much - it is expensive as HELL .. about 70 Krone for a beer! Which is about 7 pounds .. holy crap!) So mostly, wandering around it will be! (Heck, I heard McDonalds even is expensive)
Oh and the P&O site has changed .. they now use Google Earth to track the ships .. its very cool. Check it out when you have a second. Also, if you check it when it is late at night for us, notice how light it is!! 11pm here looks like about 7pm elsewhere. (and we are currently 6 hrs ahead of the East Coast FYI)
http://www.pocruises.com/Ships/WebcamsAndTracking.axd
Bergen, Norway
Why don't I get lucky enough to get In Port Tanning on nice days anymore?? Or why does the sun come out and its gets nice at the END of the day?? Oy!
I didn't go ashore today b/c I only had a few hours between IPM and going back to work .. so I decided since it was yucky and chilly out, and we were coming back here in less than 2 weeks, I would just relax today. Had a great day of just that.
Went back to work at 4 and then at 5.45 went to meet Zak, the Exec Purser, who was going to take me up to the bridge for the sailaway, as well as give me a tour!
It was really cool .. got to see all the neat stuff (in its older days since the ship is 26 yrs old!) and though I have been up to a bridge before (first Carnival ship I was on - they still allowed Bridge tours) I had never been up there while we were MOVING! It was awesome .. got to watch the officers pull her out of her berth, back her up, turn her 'bow to starboard' and get on our way. All along watching the controls; the engines firing up, the thrusters turning us, our direction changing and the speed moving up .. then sailing along the channel alone was amazing!!
The weather had cleared up about an hour before I went up to the bridge; it got all sunny out and actually really warm! It was lovely really. So anyway, I got to stand on the Port Bridge Wing while we sailed out. I took a ton of pics, as it was so beautiful. Zak had to go about 45 mins later, but Captain invited me to stay on without him. The first officer, Richard, said it was a really neat sail along the channel and to keep my camera close. I got to see some Navigation charts - both the electronic as well as the hand written one (they still map it out in pencil - ALWAYS) Sooo cool! (I know - I sound like a guy .. but I like this stuff!)
So I didn't take any pics inside - I felt it disrespectful because they were actually working. I took a few from inside looking out (you can tell by where the mast on the bow is in the pic) But the rest were from the bridge wing.
Bergen Sail Away:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.akiqxpj7&x=0&y=-97o5op&localeid=en_US
Tomorrow we are in Eidfjord, Norway. Supposed to be a beautiful sail in - but its early :( However, the sail out will be just as good - so for now, I am keeping my camera locked in the cyber so it is always on hand! No one is on IPM tomorrow - so off we go into port. (Though we wont be eating out much - it is expensive as HELL .. about 70 Krone for a beer! Which is about 7 pounds .. holy crap!) So mostly, wandering around it will be! (Heck, I heard McDonalds even is expensive)
Oh and the P&O site has changed .. they now use Google Earth to track the ships .. its very cool. Check it out when you have a second. Also, if you check it when it is late at night for us, notice how light it is!! 11pm here looks like about 7pm elsewhere. (and we are currently 6 hrs ahead of the East Coast FYI)
http://www.pocruises.com/Ships/WebcamsAndTracking.axd
Amie's Last Hoorah
1 June 08
Whooops, somehow I forgot to post the pics from Amie's last night on the ship .. what good fun we had! Since no one had to be up too early, we had a rockin' night .. we ended up getting Amie a cake 1) because she was leaving and 2) because the day after was her birthday.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8u7sqpmr&x=0&y=wje41u&localeid=en_US
The IPM card; its what we have to carry when we are on In Port Manning. (or as we call it, In Port Tanning LOL) Amie hates IPM and is always trying to figure out 3 cruises from now who is on what day. Its hilarious.
We ended up with my new best boys .. Charlie and Vasil .. and Pav came along for the fun too. What a hoot we had .. it was like our own private party! What a laugh!!! :) Good times!!
Whooops, somehow I forgot to post the pics from Amie's last night on the ship .. what good fun we had! Since no one had to be up too early, we had a rockin' night .. we ended up getting Amie a cake 1) because she was leaving and 2) because the day after was her birthday.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8u7sqpmr&x=0&y=wje41u&localeid=en_US
The IPM card; its what we have to carry when we are on In Port Manning. (or as we call it, In Port Tanning LOL) Amie hates IPM and is always trying to figure out 3 cruises from now who is on what day. Its hilarious.
We ended up with my new best boys .. Charlie and Vasil .. and Pav came along for the fun too. What a hoot we had .. it was like our own private party! What a laugh!!! :) Good times!!
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