Sea Day Shenanigans and a Port Call at Falmouth, UK

Here's some of the activities of the last few sea days designed to keep the passengers entertained.

Cake Day:

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

Towel Animal Day, where one could learn how to craft said creatures.  We didn't attend, just viewed the results.

Picture by Martha

Design and build your ship day, Martha attended the showing:

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

I know, I know, pretty exciting stuff right.  But given the Gray Tsunami demographics for this cruise line....it's what you get.  Much more preferable to the frenetic fun seeking action on Carnival Cruise Lines I'm sure.

Today, Wednesday, April 16

Our first port call in the UK, and the only one where one has to take a ship's tender to get to shore.  Falmouth's harbor, while the third deepest in the world would not accommodate our ship.  Probably due to her large size.

Pendennis Castle from our ship cabin

Ship's Tenders

Immigration checks by the UK Border Force progressed quite smoothly under the ship's management as was the shuttling of passengers onto the ship's tenders.  I believe the ship launched at least five of its tenders and hired a couple more commercial ones to ferry people to/from the ship.

The immigration checks were only for passengers, not the crew.

I was feeling a bit crabby due to an annoying passenger we were next to while awaiting immigration, so Martha steered us to a pub soon after we got off the shuttle bus from the port.

It also probably didn't help we were packed into the ship tenders like sardines for the 30 minute ride to the city from the ship.

Re-centering my Qi

Yep, I was day drinking but I checked with 

the bartender and he said it was fine.  :)

Picture by Martha

Though there was public wifi provided by the city of Falmouth, it was a bit spotty.  So we used the wifi at the pub to catch up on texts and resolve some banking glitches we'd experienced aboard ship.

We wandered about the city's main or High Street.  Some of the things that caught our eyes:

This Landing Ship Dock "Cardigan Bay"

We ate lunch (Fish and Chips) by the water

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

We checked out the Parish Church.  Martha spotted this print on cloth picture of the church from back in the day.  

Then we went and found the same view:

I mentioned we had Fish and Chips for lunch, the shop we got it at claimed Best in the Country honors for their Fish and Chips.  We found the fish good but couldn't eat more than say half of the enormous amount of fries or "chips" that were included!

After lunch and some light shopping by Martha, we returned to the dock where we caught a returning tender with minimal waiting.

Inside Tender #20

A look under the pier....

One more view of the Pendennis Castle from the window of the ship's tender that returned us back to the ship:

 

I'm happy to report the return trip back to the ship was in a barely half filled ship's tender.  

We spent the rest of the afternoon resting up.  The city had gotten quite crowded with people in the later morning.  It was apparently a school break week so there were families out enjoying the sunny weather.  Add them to the crowds from the cruise ship and I'm sure we got on the nerves of the locals.

Tomorrow, we have a port call in Weymouth, UK.

Note:  Took me a while but finally connected the fact that so many English towns' name end in mouth because they are sited at the mouth of a river.  The river Fal runs into the bay at Falmouth, Weymouth is at the mouth of the Wey River and so on.

Over Half Way to The U.K.

Still at sea, yesterday we crossed the halfway point in the cruise from Bermuda to Falmouth, UK.  Falmouth is the first port call, it's on the southwestern-most portion of England.  

The weather, up till today, has been pretty nice and warm.  Today we woke to more active waves and a more noticeable (but still pretty mild) wave action.  Gray overcast skies and temperatures in the high 50s.

One walks with care, like when you've had a couple of drinks but not fully drunk yet.  There's enough ship motion that when we checked after Brunch, the entry points to the Promenade Deck were closed off.  I guess they didn't want passengers careening on the deck or perhaps getting splashed by the sea spray coming off the waves.

Some of the stuff we've done the last few days since the last post.

We keep changing time zones of course as we cross the Atlantic, which has affected (along with laziness and some cloudy evenings) my luck in terms of sunset pics:

Lots of stair climbing as you might imagine to different eating and entertainment venues in this large ship.  We're in a cabin on the Mozart Deck which is the sixth deck.  The main dining room is on Deck 2 and the Lido Market and pools are on Deck 9.

Most of the artwork is out of my appreciation range but I did like this one:

Rennaissance Surf Board?

In my wanderings, I did find a more secluded spot for laying out in the sun instead of the crowded conditions of the pool areas.  This was on Deck 14 or the Sky Deck.

One evening, we returned to our cabin after dinner and found this on the bed:

Speaking of Dinner, Thursday was our first of two "Specialty Dining" dinners.  The Pinnacle Grill is a steak place with a very nice appetizer:  The Bacon Clothesline!

 

Here I am in my waiter's uniform, patiently awaiting the chance to eat bacon while Martha took food pics:

Waiter uniform you ask?  It turned out, my blue shirt and vest was a close match to the shirt/vest uniform of the wait staff at the Pinnacle Grill!  We had quite the laugh when we realized this and I wonder how many of the other diners though I was a waiter "slacking" on the job.  

The steak I got was very good by the way, all 15 ounces of it.  I was quite bloated by the end, I hope my kidneys forgive me.

An example of the fancy desserts onboard ship:  The Chocolate Tulip:

There is, of course, Afternoon Tea to bridge the gap between one's massive lunch and even bigger dinner:

I thought this pic fitting, taken this morning after the Scandinavian Brunch.  The pitching ship model went well with the motion of the ship.

This was a couple of days ago as we enjoyed warm sunny conditions.  The Nap Monster caught Martha:

That's about it for now, will probably post again after our day trip into Falmouth, England.  We'll be taking a Boat Tender as the harbor is too shallow for the cruise ship.  It'll be interesting to see how British Customs process all about ship through immigration.

I thought it'd be a matter of people debarking to check the town out in terms of such things but nope, we're talking the whole ship.  

Out to Sea to See What We Can See

 We left the Fort Lauderdale Cruise Ship Terminal three hours late on Saturday; apparently some medical paperwork issue relating to a crewman who'd come down with appendicitis earlier and had to be taken ashore.

There were also rumors of a delayed flight delaying the ship, as the cruise line had booked/managed the flight and so guaranteed the ship wouldn't leave.

Regardless, soon enough we were off into the Atlantic!  A bit windy at times depending on how the wind is blowing, but warm enough.  Sometimes, it was even very hot.

Our accomodations for the next two weeks:

We walked a lot, exploring the ship and finding where the restaurants and bars were located.  There's entertainment venues of course, but more Martha's thing than mine since you know....people.

I explored and got to enjoy room service, for those mornings when you just don't want to get out of the complimentary bathrobe:

You have to actually put on pants to go to the main dining room for the Full English Breakfast:

Photo by Martha

Martha, did some more wandering of the ship and said: I've found my people:

Photo by Martha

Some early morning wandering produced less crowded conditions for her:

Photo by Martha

The food so far has been good, no Michelin stars but good.  My "cut down on the sodium intake" diet has been put on hold for now.  But the doctor said "live life" so who am I to argue?

After dinner one evening, I ventured out to the ship's stern for this sunset shot:

No serious effect from sea-sickness so far for either of us but an afternoon expresso proved too acidic for me, causing some queasiness.

On Monday, we put into the docks at the Royal Wharf area of Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory.   Hot and humid though quite windy was the order of the day.

After a short wandering near the visitor center, we walked to the Commissioner's House, the large building on the right in the picture above.  It houses the National Bermuda Museum, with many well curated exhibits.

View of Royal Wharf from the Commish's House

Photo by Martha

There were, of course, several large cannon around the perimeter of the Fort which historically guarded the port and channels of the area.

Photo by Martha

Photo by Martha

Within the fort's walls, there's a tourist attraction called Dolphin Quest.  Apparently you can swim with them when the water is warm enough.  

Here you can see the morning staff meeting underway before they opened things up for the public:

Some of the stuff that caught my eye among the many exhibits in the museum:

Bermuda was for some time a penal colony for the British.  "Prisoners in Paradise" was the motif used in the museum.  When they ran out of room, they used ship hulks to keep the prisoners.  

Prison Hulks:

The last POWs of WWII, I knew the story of the capture U-Boat, just hadn't realized the Bermuda connection:

Invasive species and legends:

In case you've ever wondered about the ship parts that are yelled out by a sailing ship's officers in the movies:

Nice and cool portion of the museum's basement exhibits.  The upstairs were kept "cool" by the stiff breezes that blew in through strategically open doors.

The historical looking church spires below had caught my eye from aboard ship but we discovered upon wandering to them that it was just a shopping mall!

Having walked over 14000 steps, yep another death march, we returned to the ship:

We'll now be back at sea for the next seven days I believe.  Next land we step on will be in England.  More to come.  If you're curious about parts of the ship that we've not shown, drop me a line.  The parts open to the public that is, no tours of the working parts of the ship have been announced.

Waiting for our Ship to Come in.....

 Martha and I are in Fort Lauderdale, FL since Wednesday this week.

We're waiting to board the cruise ship we'll be taking over to Dover, England, UK on Saturday.  

From Dover, we'll take a puddle jumper to Bilbao, Spain.  More on that in a couple of weeks.  It's going to take just about that to cross the North Atlantic onboard the Holland America Nieuw Statendam:

In the meantime though, we're killing time in the city of Fort Lauderdale.  The area we're in is close to the cruise ship port for obvious reasons.  

We called for a Lyft and we tried the Stranahan Museum near the city's downtown area on Thursday.  Located in the home of Frank and Ivy Stranahan.  Considered the founding father of Fort Lauderdale, he originally came down to run a ferry crossing across the New River in 1901.

Here's a pic of the family home a few years later:

Things have gotten a bit more "built up" since 1906:

Typical museum of someone's home, I'll not bore you with pics of the rooms' furnishings and such.  In the office section, though, there was a display  of items traded by the native Seminole tribe.  I found the small baby gator interesting....

We didn't spend a lot of time in the museum.  There's really not much to it after all and we decided to walk a portion of the Riverwalk.  Basically, a path along both sides of the New River.  

Here's one of the neighborhood yachts making its way under one of the several bridges crossing the river:

This part of the city was definitely designed and oriented towards boat owners as you can see.  Pricey too.

Lunch was at one the main tourist drag, a place called Voodoo Bayou.  Pricey but tasty lunch specials were had by us.

The bar sported the following theme....I'm guessing they were emulating the quasi-religious aspects of Voodoo?

After lunch the crowds had thickened on the streets and the heat and humidity had gotten to us.  After a quick stop for snacks at a nearby Publix grocery store, we called a Lyft ride and returned to the hotel.

There's a dearth of "attractions" which are of interest to both of us, so we'll hang out here at the hotel today.  We board ship tomorrow afternoon.