Cruise Day 5 - Akureyri

We had a late start today. With the ship scheduled to dock at 10 am, we decided to venture out into town after lunch. Turned out to be a miscalculation. The ship arrived earlier and when we eventually got into town, it started raining. We should have gone in the morning...

We were at the northern part of Iceland today but I was surprised to learn that Iceland is not all that cold, not even as cold as Toronto in the winter. The ship's information says it will be 4 to 6 degrees with sun/cloud/rain. So it is a day of cold everything. We did get all of that but only a tiny bit of sun and a fair bit of rain. We still had breakfast at more and less the regular time and spent the morning walking and playing games. The games were nothing at all but we managed to win an id badge, a couple of hats and a mouse pad which we have given away promptly. Who is still using mouse pad these days? 

The day got better when our friends unexpectedly received their luggage from Heathrow. That was a BIG win! Really did not expect British Airways would pick up the itinerary of the ship and send the luggage forward. Funny that the first thing we saw about the city is the runway jutting out into the lake. Just didn't make the connection of what it can do for us.

When we were in town, we took a Free City Bus with the longest route so we can see more of the city. Like every city bus in the world, it took us to many of the nondescript, normal areas. This one started downtown, went through industrial areas and many residential neighbourhoods. We were on a loop covering most of the length of the city. It was quite interesting although not overly exciting. There are many more townhouse type clusters than single family homes that we are used to in North America. Many of them are modular blocks with flat roofs which I found a little surprising. Isn't there a lot of snow in this area? Will find that out when I have internet again.

We stopped back in downtown, visited the church that sits prominently above the city and the main tourist strip with shops. We would have been more adventurous if not for the rain dampening the spirit. 

All in all, it is a nice simple day spent with friends, once again with plenty of food. We might regret the food part but that is for later.

Black Jack!

Waiting for the bus in the rain

There he is again

Cruise Day 4 - Sea Day

We have another sea day before we reach Iceland. Had a fuller night of sleep. Obviously getting up with full daylight again. Found out later in the day that there will be around 30 minutes of non-daylight this time of the year.

Did not have a very active day because is the miserable weather. Couldn't stay on the upper deck too long. So the day becomes one of food, shopping and games. Joined two different sessions of games. The first one was on guessing country by banknotes. Did not do so well other than the obvious ones. There was one on pesos with Spanish words so that is impossible is you don't know it already, with so many Latin American countries. The other one in Arabic, pretty much the same thing. People are friendly​ however. My new friend got admonished for colluding with me.

The other games was histories of the countries of the world. It would have been disastrous for me if not for the French lady helping me out. With a couple of misguided guesses when both of us didn't know the answers,  I ended up with 8 of 10 with the winner getting 9 of 10. Missed out on the dinner for three prize. Wouldn't feel right anyway if I had won knowing that on my own, it would have been 5 of 10 at best.

Funny how people are much friendlier at these games compared to the general population on the ship. Hmmm...

Polar Party

This guy is the life of the ship.

DIY crafts

Cruise Day 3 - Invergordon, Scotland

Today we visited Invergordon, Scotland. After a sea day, we want to stretch our legs and go some places. I am still not sleeping through the night, first waking up at 430 am to bright lights outside, going back to sleep and waking up again at 6 am. By that time, we could see land outside the window. Obviously we are pretty much on schedule to arrive at Invergordon at 7 am. Always interesting to watch the ship dock.

Another thing we notice about the ship is that there is hardly any announcements about things that are important. We were supposed to turn the clock back one hour going to Scotland from Hamburg. But other than a box in the daily newsletter, there was no announcement. 

We are so used to the phone telling us time, many of us never had to change the clock. It becomes a problem when we are on a cruise across several time zones with no cellular network. The is no network to tell us what the time is!  Some phone would automatically adjust the time when they have some sort of signals even though that is not their network. Some others would not adjust the time at all. Something to study after I come back.

Amid the confusion, one of the group members missed the meeting time to leave the ship. Good thing this is not an excursion day for us. We had plenty of time and the day went smoothly despite that. 

Most people, according to the cruise port info, would go to Inverness, visit the castles or pay a visit to Nessie when they came to Invergordon.  We decided to have a much simpler day doing some sight seeing in town. We tried and successfully tracked down all 11 murals in the town. 

Invergordon is very small town, perhaps 20 blocks by 3 blocks. It only took us two hours to traverse most of the town slowly tracking down all the murals. We can also sense that they want simple lives. Although it is obvious that the town is not all touristy, there​ are local arts and crafts and souvenir shops. No point turning the tourists and their money away. Local crafts and clothings are well made and  prices are very reasonable.  Quite a few of us got something at the souvenir shops. Soon we were back on the ship for lunch. 

We caught sunset after our late seating of dinner, at around 10 pm!!

Late night game.

Cruise Day 2 - Sea Day

Lots of stories about our adventures and experiences the first day on the ship. Unfortunately most of them not good.

There are good stuffs, however. Nancy invited us to check out her cabin and it was amazing, amazingly large that is. Turned out that when all of us got upgraded to outside cabins with balconies, Nancy did not get upgraded. Of course she is the most deserving among all of us. After contacting the agent, eventually she got upgraded to a cabin that is normally for handicaps; enough room for wheelchairs, I presume. It is so big that last night, we got all 18 of us in the group to go to her room and have a group picture taken. Can you imagine fitting 18 people in a normal cruise ship cabin? True to the theme with the MSC experience so far, they need to work on the little things like giving people a bigger TV when the room is humongous.

Our food experience is also getting a little better. We ran into a manager in the ship dealing with problems with English speaking guests when we doing immigration for Scotland. We met up with her for a complaint session and got to know why things are how they are in this ship. Not totally satisfactory but feeling better having complained and getting some answers. Had lunch at the restaurant which was a bit better than the buffet the day before. The dinner was also better. Let's hope for continued improvement.

The show needs improvement

We will always remember this act

No kidding, this was how it was served

Taken from the balcony, late at night

Hamburg - Day 3 / Cruise Day 1

Hamburg

Our last day in Hamburg began with a mission. With our friends arrived from getting stuck in London for two days without their luggage, they have to go on a shopping spree in order to survive the next ten days on the cruise. Unlike in the city where you can replace items as they become necessary, there will be nowhere to get many of the basic necessities. One can argue that you can get anything on the cruise ship, you would have to pay heavily for them.

We asked for help at the hotel to give us some ideas about where to get stuff. Thankfully they sent us to the shopping mall next to Rathaus. Thankful because that is a place that we have gone to using public transportation. Thankful because that is an area that I have checked out on the internet before the trip and so I can go with some confidence that that we should be able to get what we need. Also thankful that it is a tourist attraction so our friends can at least visit one important point of interest while in Hamburg before going aboard the cruise ship. 

Before we reached Rathaus, we stopped by Rindermarkthalle, the market with a few supermarkets. One of them is like a drugstore at home that sells necessity like toothpastes and shaving needs, etc. There we got most of the simple items and left clothings to the downtown mall. 

We went downtown via the U-Bahn (subway is always an experience in any city), spent a couple of hours for enough clothes. With a little of time before we have to get to the ship, we did our touristy thing by visiting the Rathaus, going inside the building which we did not get to do the day before. 

We also took a side trip on our way back to visit Landungsbrucken (the piers), had a look at the harbour and even took a short hop on the ferry as our impromptu brief boat tour. All these were made so easy by Hamburg's group transit ticket that costs 11. 8 Euro for unlimited travel on public transportation for up to 5 persons. Back to the hotel, it is a short taxi ride to the cruise terminal. 

Cruise

A few surprises​ await us on the cruise ship. The check-in process went through smoothly until when we have our pictures taken. I noticed that they scan my ticket when they took Gigi's picture and told them so. They hesitated and then said that it didn't matter. As it turns out, it did matter. With the primary function of the pictures being the identification of the person when they scan the cruise card coming on and off the ship, my face shows up when they scan Gigi's card and vice versa. Good thing we found out during the immigration process for Scotland, otherwise we would have trouble leaving the ship when we reach port.

The other surprise is the level of service on board. There are so many things that we didn't like it would take too long to write. The most annoying one is the fact that no beverage is provided during dinner unless you buy a beverage package. Not even tap water. And no coffee or tea after dinner. More on that saga later...