What a difference a day makes, as the song goes. The temperature was at least 10 degrees warmer as we sail north towards the Equator once again. We were wishing for it to warm up a little, but perhaps we wished too hard. In the days to come, we will be missing some of those cooler days in Cape Town and Namibia.
After breakfast, we stopped by our room to find 2 gifts had been left on the bed. They were two duffel bags ( folded and zipped in an attached pouch) with a card saying a grand farewell gift for you. The Captain and crew wish you many happy returns. These are similar to the one gifted last year, but these are better because they have wheels. They are too large for a carry-on piece of luggage for the airplane, but would work for a medium size suitcase. Shiv mentioned that besides the duffels, we would be receiving the commemorative plates next week. It will be interesting to see the ports written on them since the itinerary had changed so much.
We decided today was a good one to do some future cruise bookings to get the extra credit for booking onboard. So with what looked to be a very interesting lecture at 10am all about diamonds, smugglers, and spices of Namibia, perhaps many guests would attend that. Wrong. There was a line of folks that had signed the list, but the good thing was that there were two people doing the bookings…..Melanie and Justin. The wait was about 40 minutes, but we were comfortable in the over-stuffed chairs across from their desks. Since we knew exactly what we wanted to book, it did not take Justin long to put it together. We specifically told him not to apply any future cruise credits to those cruises and he said fine. We wanted it on the GWV for 2025. Our travel agent received the bookings within an hour, and she warned us that he had applied the credit to the Alaska cruises. She will be able to fix it before all is set in stone. And thanks to her, she will continue to keep an eye out for any and all special deals that will pop up with these trips. Like getting complimentary gratuities or HIA perks or better pricing.
Now that the days are sliding by rapidly, we thought we had better do a quick check with the airlines for our flight home. Back in January, our HAL-booked air had been changed with times that did not work for us. No one likes to get home at midnight. Michelle, our girl Friday, had worked to get a better flight time and did just that. The most important thing was to secure a straight-through flight with no stop-over on the way. We had that confirmation in printing in January and thought all was correct.
Well…..paying a visit to the guest relations this morning, the confirmation I showed was not the same as the info on their computer. Now they said the flight was leaving a 7am with a stop in Texas, followed by a later flight to SF getting us in after 10pm. Where did that come from? And why had no one informed us of this change? They promised to contact Seattle and have the air/sea department investigate. That put a lot of stress on a day that was meant for relaxing. Finally, at 5pm, we got a call from Michelle who said the flight number had changed and the time out of Ft. Lauderdale was at 7am. The stop in Texas was gone. That much was good, however, looking closer at a message sent directly to us from the airline, we discovered our seats were not together. The form that Michelle sent to our room had the correct seat numbers. Crazy, huh? We shall pay another visit to Michelle tomorrow and hope she can secure the original seats….aisle and middle in the same row. The lesson here was not to wait until the last minute to double check what was originally correct. Truthfully, we are learning not to trust anything anymore.
Going to the Seaview Pool by noontime, we found several more passengers back there taking advantage of the warm sun. It did not last too long, since the clouds moved in and blocked he sun. We spent the remainder of the day working online and catching up on the next couple of ports to write about. There aren't many left…. Ghana, The Gambia, Cape Verde, and Puerto Rico. Where has the time gone we all ask?
The theme for tonight's "dressy" dinner was "An Evening in Paris". Why we don't know as France was never on the itinerary. But it was an opportunity to add some French cuisine to the menu…namely escargots (not our favorite) and surf and turf. Starters were the everyday shrimp cocktails, which we get five now and not four. They are smaller, but still tasty. Salads were one Caesar and one nicoise without the tuna. Mains were Coq Au Vin and the everyday chicken alternate. Both were just fine. The little bananas are still good, so one of us ordered a sliced one.
Tomorrow will be the third day at sea, and we do expect it to warm up even more.
Bill & Mary Ann
No Pictures
