Steve and Cathy's Blog

As we sleep, our ship heads north through the Irish Sea between Ireland and Scotland, then into the Atlantic. Cathy awakens early (it’s already getting light very early), [four AM! Couldn’t get back to sleep so went up to Horizons for a cappuccino and croissant, very nice way to start the day, so peaceful] and Steve follows around 7:00am or so. The ship is traversing the Inner Seas that run between the Inner Hebrides Islands and the Outer Hebrides Islands. We see the Isle of Skye that we visited a few years ago and some other islands that we plan to visit … someday.

Today is a Sea Day, the first of seven that we will have on this cruise. We are feeling some “motion of the ocean,” but the waves are only 5 feet high, so it isn’t a big deal. Today our intention is to get our bearings, attend lectures, eat well, blog and read and eat some more.

Let start with breakfast. The temperature is in the 50s with a 10-15mph breeze. Normally, we would go up to Waves Grill and have breakfast, but it is exposed to the elements so forget that. Cathy really wants to go to the Grand Dining Room, which is way preferable to the Terrace Café on Deck 9, our other indoor choice. Terrace Café is a buffet, a great buffet. The biggest hitch is that all of us dottering seniors are up there wandering around in confusion, getting in other’s way, looking blankly at the food trying to decide what we want, bumping into each other, and then trying to get past each other to reach our table with our food. We just don’t like that cattle pen atmosphere, so the quiet Grand Dining Room where you sit at a table and are waited on hand and foot by highly trained and ultra-polite young people from many lands is far preferable.

Steve has Swedish pancakes and bacon; Cathy has – I am guessing here – salmon in some form. I’ll let her tell: [salmon and goat cheese omelet, with bakery special of the day: donut, just like the ones in Amish country: fabulous.] We meet another staff member from the previous cruise: Putu from Indonesia. Great sense of humor, always in a good mood Putu. It is so much fun to run into staff that we know. Brings back wonderful memories. Cappuccino for both of us – another habit we developed last year. All in all, a great start to the day.

The daily Currentsbrochure lists, among other things, the daily schedule of events. This includes several lectures we would like to attend. The first on the list is Sherry Hutt, who will introduce us to Bergen in particular and Norwegian history in general, whose first lecture is at 10am.

We arrive at Nautica Lounge at 9:50 and the place is packed, so we end up sitting in the very back of the room. She starts promptly, and we are soon aware that she is something special. Her resume is unbelievable, her delivery fast but informal, her command of facts     amazing, and her enthusiasm for her subject infectious. Steve is taking notes madly, but within a few minutes, Cathy has to excuse herself because she is so sleepy – not because of our lecturer or her subject matter, but as a result of the previous three days. But Steve stays and is thoroughly fascinated. 

The lectures are all 45 minutes long. Utilizing the vast experience with the demographic element that they serve, Oceania Cruises has determined that this is the optimum attention span of most of the guests. It always leaves us wanting more, most of us are still conscious, and we will also have the chance to listen to the lectures again on the television in our stateroom.

Steve returns to our stateroom to see that Cathy is indeed napping. Around 12:00pm, we both head for the Terrace Café for lunch because Steve sees that they are featuring a Mexican buffet. Indeed it is everything he had hoped, especially the mole short ribs, green sauce grilled fish and the cheese quesadias. 

After lunch, it is our intention to attend Sherry Hutt’s 1pm lecture furthering the history of Norway and two of our Norway stops, Alesund and Trondheim. But somehow we just can’t seem to muster the energy. We hang around the stateroom, promising to watch it on television later. In fact, that’s how we spend the afternoon, also missing the 3pm lecture by Dan Benedict that we had intended to go to about the Northern Sky. We actually do listen to some of that, and learn two important facts: 1) it will not get completely dark from today until we drop below 60 degrees latitude (there is twilight until the sun drops to 6 degrees below the horizon, which it won’t for another two weeks); and 2) obviously, we won’t be seeing any stars during this period because it’s light out!

We wile away the afternoon napping and reading. At 5:45pm, at Cathy’s request, we make our way to Deck 5 to listen to the Darsem String Quartet, who are performing in the Upper Hall, which is an open space adjacent to the shops in a ship-wide hallway that runs from Nautica Lounge in the bow to the Grand Dining Room in the stern. Not only is it a pleasant experience before dinner, but it is an opportunity to see some unbelievably talented musicians up close.  

At 6:30, we get into line at the Grand Dining Room. We had learned on our previous trip that dinner at the end of the first full day at sea is the most extravagant menu, and indeed tonight’s is as well.  Here’s Cathy to describe it: Steve had prime rib with horseradish sauce, Cathy had cheese souffle with Mornay sauce, and entrée size portion of Serrano ham with grilled artichokes and romano cheese.

You would think that, at this point, Steve and Cathy had had such a quiet day that they would be rarin’ to go and take in some entertainment. You would be wrong. It’s back to the room. 

This would be a good time to discuss the room a bit more. It’s the same size – 226 square feet – as the other one was. When we arrived the other day and met our stewardess (her term) Bernadel (from the Philippines), we told her two things: 1) we like our room cold at night, so leave the temperature at a maximum of 25 degrees Celsius; and 2) we are early risers, so she will always have an early opportunity to make up our stateroom early.

Both of these statements, as concerns this cruise, are outright fabrications. Yes, we like the room cold at night, but, because the outdoor temperature has yet to reach 65 degrees Farenheit and has hovered mostly between 48 and 57 degrees, the room is alwayscold. We suspect that these ships were designed to sail in significantly warmer climates, and thus the glass windows and door to the veranda aren’t that well insulated. So the HVAC is fighting to keep the room warm, and losing that battle.

Now about Steve and Cathy the “early risers.” This first morning at sea, Cathy did indeed arise early, early – so early that she went up to the Horizons Lounge at 6:00am, leaving Steve to snooze until 7:15am. But because the sun rises around 4am (at the latest) and sets around 10pm (at the earliest), we have pulled these blackout curtains shut when we sack out in order to get a good night’s sleep. As much as we have been looking forward to experiencing such long days, these curtains are necessary to maintain any circadian rhythm to our lives. So … we self-proclaimed early risers find ourselves sleeping 10 to 11 hours a night, awakening at 7:00 to 8:00am. There is no middle ground. It’s either not nearly enough sleep by leaving these curtains open, or too much leaving them closed and us in a cave. We have chosen the latter.

I think we have discussed sleep enough for this entire trip, and we will thoughtfully drop the subject before a reader of these posts thinks “Enough already, you two!” See you tomorrow for our day in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands.