Somewhere West Of Ireland
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2007
1
11
20
Trip End
Sep 29, 2007
Atlantic Ocean,
Ireland
Thursday, September 20, 2007
It was a sleep-in day, finally, and we woke around 8:30 local time. We'd been changing time zones daily since we started so who's knows for sure! Unfortunately I woke up with a terrible migraine which was soon overridden by a bad case of what my Mom refers to as the "pew-nies". John left for breakfast and I attempted to shower and get dressed. But with the ship bouncing on the waves and the rocking motion, I got pretty green around the gills. The cabin steward brought some Medi-Meclizine which soon took away the nausea and dizziness. But it also put me to sleep for another hour. We missed the Cruise Critic party at 10am which made me very unhappy. We've been participating in a roll call thread for our cruise with perhaps 230+ other passengers on www.cruisecritic.com for over a year and this was the chance to finally be able to put faces with now familiar screen names and personalities.
Before noon I decided it'd be OK to venture out for some lunch so we headed upstairs. John got 2 hamburgers and I had some salad. After some searching I finally found the fish 'n chips counter and ate a little of that. Fish 'n chips tasted much better in England & Ireland - sorry Celebrity!
At noon we attended the lecture by Dick Underwood who was the Technical Monitor for the photographic experiments of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and Space Shuttle expeditions until he retired in 1986. He showed his collection of space photos and shared stores from all of these missions. While the topic and pictures were fascinating, I found his delivery to be on the dull side.
We had planned on an afternoon nap, but CCer Phil left a voicemail that his door was open so we opted to visit him instead. He had a corner aft balcony (9197) so we took note of the larger room and wraparound balcony for a future cruise. John got the Thames River bobby helmet he had purchased online and had delivered to Phil. Needless to say he was very pleased and eager to add it to his collection. Phil's friend Helen soon joined us and we enjoyed chatting with both of them for a while.
At one point I saw a flock of bird skimming the ocean surface. As soon as we all looked, we saw a school of dolphin or porpoise leaping alongside the ship. They looked small from our vantage of point, almost like little fish. What fun that must be. Unfortunately, I was without my camera!
Late in the afternoon we tried to catch a movie at the cinema but most of the seats were already taken by the senior set so we returned to the room until dinner. After a short nap we dressed for dinner and headed for the Martini Bar to meet up with fellow CC cruisers for a pre-dinner drink. We chatted with Phil, Helen, Garry, Karyn & Bill, and Joanie & George. A Cosmopolitan for me, Classic Martini for Phil, and Jack & Coke for John set us back $31! At least the martinis were served in big glasses with plenty of alcohol. Ni Putu was our cocktail waitress and she was awesome.
Dinner choices for John were a Caesar Salad, Filet Mignon with Twice-Baked Potato, Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Syrup for dessert. I chose the Spring Roll, Salad, Filet Mignon and Twice-Baked Potato, and a strawberry dessert like a Napoleon. Our waiter made an origami sculpture of a flying bird for the gentlemen of our table. For the second night in a row, I swear that Ed Beagley Jr.
Bathroom 1
is seated at the table behind us. Our table mates said that Leslie Nielsen was aboard one of their previous cruises. Later on I searched the internet, found a photo of Mr. Beagley with his wife, and decided the cruise passenger was just a look-alike.After taking another pill to counteract the sea sickness and eating a good dinner, I was pretty sleepy so we skipped the after-dinner show and retired for the night.
