Third installment

On day 9 we opted to go to our dining room for open breakfast seating.  Big mistake, it was not that good !  The Eggs Benedict was very disappointing and the place was too bloody formal.  But one always meets interesting people tho.  We have a head wind this morning and are only moving at a speed of 17 kts.  The early afternoon air temp was 73°F or 23°C.  Perfect !!  The sea depth is 5,110 feet under the ship and it's draft is only about a mere 30' !!  You can get all this and more info about the ship from Wikipedia.  

Since after a couple of nights in Barcelona, we need to go to Civitavecchia (Rome) and since this ship, after Barcelona continues on to Civitavecchia as part of a 5 day cruise in the Mediterranean before it goes for upgrade in Holland, we thought we could perhaps stay on and take it over to Italy, but NO, you have to take the whole 5 day cruise, cost: $1,800. for two !!! Haha !

Right now we are about a day and a half away from the Straight of Gibraltar and we are docking at Malaga early in the morning on Thursday September 11th.

It's getting more difficult to write things about and from the ship because once you have written stuff, it's all the same the next day except the people we talk to and what we are doing.  Tonight after dinner we are going to a show called, "Come fly with me", don't know exactly what it is but we'll see.  

All the crew, Stewards, waiters and our room attendant lady are so nice and super helpful, they remember your name and in the b'fast buffet, since you can only handle one thing, your plate, they'll bring you anything you want, OJ, coffee, extra this and extra that.  

More later.

END OF THIRD AND MAYBE LAST PUBLISHING FROM THE SHIP, done on 9-9-14

This morning, on the 10th day at sea, 9-10-14, it was quite dark walking along "Central Park" on my way from the front to the "Windjammer" and b'fast in the back.  But I saw the full moon, because a couple of nights ago was Super Moon !  The ocean, for all intents and purposes, is flat, not one little white comb in sight.  I would say the waves are a 'sea' of 2 footers !  

Tomorrow morning it's Malaga and this, the over 236,000 brtons "Oasis of the Sea" will squeeze itself into the harbor of Malaga.   And it's all without tugboats, because it has build-in thrusters in front and two huge swivel power pods, one on each side, in the rear, it could turn on a dime.  It's been said that this boat can lean 45+° and it will right itself !!!  (But I would not want to be on it).  It only has a 30 foot draft!!!   

This morning again, I woke Geneva up by phone at 9, then a half hour later our waiter somehow finds her at the b'fast buffet entrance door and brings her to me, where I am sitting.  Not that he has to because I told her where I would be sitting, but he does it just for fun and surprise of it.  We walked a distance on the "walking deck" to get to the very back of the ship to see the churning of the water making it turquoise from the skews.  

In the area of food, the complimentary pizza place, Sorrento's, is not especially good, the red cabbage in the Solarium buffet is terrible and the Eggs Benedict in the main dining room is quite bad.  Now you guys have heard all of my three complaints.  The rest is 100% fantastic.

Geneva wants to do the "Zipp-line yet, crossing the "Boardwalk", deep below, diagonally.  No thanks.  (Somebody told us that there are two natural fears, one is heights and the other is loud noises, all other fears are learned).  Interesting, but I don't know if it is true).

There are a hell of a lot of people here on this ship that cruise a lot, and I mean a LOT !!!  We talked to a couple where this is their 62nd. cruise in their lives !!!  Some of them 8th, 10th. and 20th and more.  It includes mainly short, one week cruises, thru the Panama Canal, in the Mediterranean and the Caribbeans.  Also Northern Europe and River Cruises in Europe.  

The weather has turned overcast and we sailed thru some rain squalls and it is considerably cooler compared to a few days ago.  

We are looking forward to see land, first Portugal then Spain, more exactly the Strait of Gibraltar.  Unfortunately it will occur around midnight, so all we will be able to see are the lights of . . . .

At the moment we are sitting in the Solarium, in the very front of the ship, deck 15, and having a late lunch.  Then I fell asleep for a while in a deck chair near there.  I went down to deck 5, where Geneva said she would be, there a bunch of people were doing the Mob Dance, under leadership.  It seems to  have been inspired by the dancing in the movie called:  "Friends with Benefits" or something like that.  Very bouncy music and everybody was making body with hand movements in unison.  The dancing part of it was purportedly being shot in NYs Grand Central Station.   

Darn it, it's 5:30pm, ship's time, that means that it's time to get ready to go to dinner and more Foooooooood !!!  And you don't want to not go because it's fun to eat with people you have gotten to know.  Well, here we go.  Great dinner, I had lamb chops with mashed potatoes and fresh veggies, Geneva had Quiche with a cold soup appetizer and baked Alaska for desert. 

Geneva made reservation for the ice show, 'Frozen in time', based on stories by Hans Christian Anderson.  It was very enjoyable !   

After the show I went up on the top deck, deck 16 at about 2am to view the moon and to see some signs of land, namely the very southern tip of Portugal !  And yes, there was a light house blinking its little heart out, near what looked like a number of ships, could also be land installations, not sure.  Our ship has slowed down a lot in order to adjust arrival time.  Cruise ships alway make it to port early in the morning.  We are supposed to pass thru the the Strait of Gibraltar at about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning in order to  get into Malaga at about 6 am.  We are going off the ship to take a shuttle bus to the center of town, we are not going on any tours, too expensive.  After Malaga, it will take a night, day and another night to reach Barcelona where we get off.   I went up to deck 16 again at 3am, but no Rock of Gibraltar visible but some real bright lights on the starboard side of the ship . . . Morocco !  Then I went back to bed for about a couple of hours and about 5:30am there was land on the port side, we were approaching Malaga, Spain.  I watched the getting in the harbor and the tying up of this enormous vessel.  The weather was sunny and it was getting warm, with just some Spanish clouds hanging out.

Breakfast was started a little earlier this morning because of people wanting to get off and visit the town.  I thing I told you guys that the Eggs Benedict wasn't so hot the other morning and I had told that to the head dinning room dude, so he said he wanted a chance to make it good again and gave me his card I needed to show to the front people when we got in the next morning, which was this morning.  So I did, and you should have seen the way they served me a proper Eggs Benedict, wow !!!  That manager and two waiters made it right, they were all over me !!!

We decided to not go ashore, too hot, too crowded and too much walking involved, my legs can't take those long walks anymore.   So we enjoyed a day when the ship was in port and really wasn't moving, which didn't feel a hell of a lot different from when we were at sea.  

We heard from a German, that a Jewish guy bought a ticket for this passage on an Israeli website or thru an agent there, for $500.  That German fellow said, trust the Jews with a long history of 'diamond trading', to find the cheapest price.   

We were sitting in the Promenade Cafe and Geneva wanted to download an ebook, when she found out that she couldn't do it with our last little time we had left on our ship's wifi we bought for $20.  Geneva was beside herself.  Then we heard that in the port building a lot of people are getting wifi and are on line there.  So we went out and down to just the building and bought for 2€ (Euros), one hours worth of wifi time.  Now Geneva could get books again onto her iPad, whew !!!  Crisis averted.  

Malaga looks nice from the ship, hilly, rather barren and hot.  We watched the ship getting untied and backing out from the small harbor at sunset, about 8pm.  Several people boarded the ship here in Malaga to go on the Mediterranean Cruise which it continues on with, after Barcelona.  Hundreds of Malaganiens  were on the dock to send it off.  It was the first time the Oasis of the Seas visited Malaga.  

Oops, here it is again, almost 6pm and dinner time !!!  Tonight it's casual dress code, so straight from the poop deck into the dining room.  Hahaha.  

I was doing some more writing before I went to bed at 2am, but finally broke down and opened a can of Spite from the fridge, $2.25 a can.  'Cause I forgot to get me some ice before coming to the cabin to make some ice water in my thermos.  I'm always thirsty for cold drinks but have to monitor my intake, and I can tell you that I have visited almost all of the available public toilet on most decks.  

(Times are quite mixed up here on board ship, people do a lot of things differently at a lot of different times).    

Today is day 12, it's seven thirty in the morning, I am in the Windjammer b'fast buffet having a wonderful b'fast, the sky is blue, not a cloud in sight, Spain visible on the port side, the temperature is a perfect 77°F, the sea is flat, and we are rounding the Iberian Peninsular, traveling at a slow 9 kts. to make Barcelona in time to arrive there early in the morning.

One can see much more ship activity here now that we are in the Mediterranean, sail boats when there are towns, and small freighters doing their thing.  It's strange to see such a cloudless blue sky.  

We have this funny thing going here, I get to the buffet about 7:30am, have my b'fast, then do some writing and at 9 I call and wake up Geneva and when she gets here about a half hour later, this one waiter of ours somehow finds her near the buffet entrance door and leads her to me by her hand.  It's funny, we laugh about it every time !!  

I have finally learned how to get to our cabin almost blind folded and, to eat a normal breakfast, 2 eggs over easy, potato wedges, 2 British-type pork sausages, a little corned beef hash and a couple of slices of tomato.  Also a bowl of sweet watermelon chunks for fruit.  The other day they actually ran out of American bacon so they are now serving English bacon instead, haha.  By the way, there are very few kids on this trip so a minimal screaming or strange kids noises.  Aaaaaah.

Every person has a story . . . . and every freighter has a cargo to deliver . . . 

We just talked to couple, they booked their trip in June with 'Vacation to Go' and for the same price ($700.) they got an outside cabin with balcony PLUS a $200 on board credit !!!  

So prices are all over the place depending on when you book, where you book and with whom.

People are also getting good deals by flying one way and going by Royal Caribbean in the  other direction. 

Of course the ship is not full, only 4,200 sold, and there is room for 6,500  !!  But the outside balcony cabins fill up first, even with the cheap fares.  The inside balcony staterooms, that look out onto Central Park, are mostly empty.  (We wouldn't have minded those).  Most useful information about all ship cruising comes mainly from other cruising passengers.

Sitting here at the Central Park venue, one feels like sitting in a large shady open air shopping center with trees and restaurants and people mingling around, not like a ship.  Of course this may be good or bad depending on your likes and dislikes.  

Geneva's activities are mostly reading her e-books, when she is not eating dinner, talking to other passengers or when we go to shows.

So this will be enough for the forth and last installment from the ship, oops no,  this will have to wait and go tomorrow from our hotel in Barcelona, our ship's wifi time has run out.

More from Barcelona.

Well we are off the ship and getting our first taste of Barcelona.  Getting off is always a hassle, packing the night before, putting the bags out in the hallway, gathering all our small stuff, going for b'fast for the last time, waiting for a wheel chair, yes, we have gotten the hang of that because of our very good friends Chuck and Diane, they turned us on to it.  A €11. Taxi ride took us right next to where we needed to be, the Hostel/Opera/Rambla.  It's a place we have been a couple of time before when we were traveling the all hostel route.  It's on a side street right off the Rambla, a walking only thoroughfare with a one street on either side, it's very famous, it goes on for a couple of miles.  Right next to the Opera.

The hostel/hotel has done a very nice upgrade two months ago and the new section we're in is very nice and modern.  Geneva just said tho, that the beds are hard and so is that one and only plastic form-fit-like chair.  But it has a row of horizontal plugs, one for European type, one for all the others like British and American plugs and the third . . . . bingo a USB !!  Direct from the wall.    I took a little snooze, I was tired, yah, getting wheeled, and taxi driven, yah, I was tired.

Back on board ship, Geneva broke her adapter for charging her iPad mini, so as soon as we checked in, she went to a nearby Apple Store, yes, Apple Store, and got an all new cord just for her Mini for €19. it works great in that UBS wall outlet in our room !  

When we are going to be eating out here in Barcelona,  and other places, we will eat wisely, unlike on the ship where food was everywhere at any time, and you thought you'd walk off the extra pounds and where the food actually almost always won.  

It's 4:30 now and the temperature feels like in the mid to hi 70s.  And I feel the difference in my legs when walking, from our trip just two years ago.  

Now that we have fast internet, at least here at the Hostel/Hotel, I will also send some pictures now and then.  Enough for now, we are off to the Rambla and later fishing for some light dinner.  Yes we found a table right in the Rambla, pizza for two, (actually more like 1 1/2), a glass of sangria and a couple of tapas, €21., $27. well it's right up there.  Restaurants are not exactly cheap in Barcelona, on the Rambla anyway.

>>>>>published on Sun am 9-14-14 fr.  Barc. hotel.