April 21-24 Azores and Cruising to barcelona

Saturday 21 Azores

Lost another hour last night. Brekky then walking the mile as we watched the Azores get closer (actually the island of San Miguel). Very green and very hilly, with sharp drop offs that hint at the volcanic origin. We docked at 10 and went ashore with no formalities or queuing. The Azores are part of Portugal. Ponta Delgada is a pretty little town with smoothly cobbled streets and parks. The whole town has wifi but it was windy outside and lightly dusted with rain. Somebody told us that one of the large buildings had free wifi so we settled there.  J had a bit of a wander round the fort and squares while I ploughed through junkmail.

Very neat little place

It seems Courtney has some more modelling assignments – it will be strange to see her on TV – that’s my role J We have exactly 2 months till we get home, which is a pleasant thought but frightening how fast 7 months have gone. Didn’t have time to scan the news but we have kept an occasional eye on BBC news on the boat.

Back for lunch and afternoon trivia then I shot back to finish emailing and get a fridge magnet. Sailed at 6pm. Watched the island recede from a window near water level in the restaurant. Had intended to go for the shuffleboard tournament but succumbed to the urge for a quiet evening in. Vanessa had excelled herself and left us a monkey hanging from the overhead vent made out of a folded towel.

So cute

So beautiful

22/4

A good sleep that extended through the stretch session.  Brekky benedict then walked the deck until darts/shuffleboard respectively. The darts game just needed a score of 301, not necessarily to end with a double. A couple of us had had a go at closing then the old lady with a limp who had jagged a few random doubles and trebles to get close tottered up, needing 34 to win. To everybody’s astonishment, not least her own, she tossed her first dart into the double 17!! Stunned silence than the men quietly snuck away.

The ship shop had a $5 Tshirt sale which attracted a mob of elbowing bargain hunters. We had lunch and then shared a lift with a woman in one of the blue Tshirts. I asked her if she had just bought it and she said yes. J asked what the rest were like and I said . . . “OK but they were mostly in extra large sizes”. It got quiet in there for a while and the doors didn’t open quickly enough.

Look who I got to hang out with.  Dora was also sighted.

Now its time for the music quiz, which is popular  because DJ Fly gives 3 participation points, followed by the daily cumulative trivia. Better still if you win and get 5 points J The progressive trivia was about beers, which we won. The travel and places trivia was a doddle and we went happily off to dinner at the buffet with the rest of the team. The main dining room somehow got flooded and is closed until Barcelona.

Dieter came to the Close Up magic show with us, which was very good, and then we went for dessert. He led us astray with his favourite crepes, which the chef makes for you according to your taste. We each got a HUGE crepe laden with fruit and cream and then with another huge dollop of cream and chocolate on top. Luckily, J tried to inhale hers and went off on a coughing spree so she didn’t finish hers and I ducked out the last bit of mine too.

We bounced back at 11pm for the adult version of the Improv comedy team. Mildly amusing but it has reinforced my conviction that I would never spend money to watch this form of comedy. They come from the Second City school of Improv which has been around for 50 years and produced a handful of people that you would recognise on TV, such as the big salesman Norm from Cheers and Tina Fey.

Monday 23^rd

Struggled up at 9am for brekky and trivia. The participation prizes were available and generally disappointing. The Tshirts were white and lacklustre and nothing else really appealed. We took a bag, a couple of pens, some schtuff and kept half the points for later.

J sat in on the hypnotist’s session on Weight Loss, which is aimed at selling his CDs although he did give them a sample of a relaxation with motivating thoughts. We might just buy one because we haven’t spent the cabin credit yet.

Predictably we won the cumulative trivia and won another  pair of bags, which we can trade for other merchandise. I went up to the gym, which had an excellent view of the passing traffic as we merged into the bottleneck heading towards Gibraltar. We were on the inner edge of the eastbound stream and a procession of ships headed the other way or turned north. They were mostly tankers but the big passenger boat turned out to be Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth.

There is a room behind the bridge with a viewing window and a copy of the navigation screen, including the radar. This has a range of about 100 miles and makes the ships look very close together. You can only see a very few at any one time.

They produced lobster for dinner again, which we ate as we watched the North African coast go by, after which we rushed up to see Gibraltar. We then rugged up and went to the stern to see The Rock recede as the sun set, to the music of Rhapsody in Blue.

 We spent the evening watching a variety of musical acts, including one named “Janine and Reid, love songs”. One final hour to go tonight, leaving us 7 hours behind Perth.

Tuesday 24 Last day at sea

Woke at 6 feeling ready to go but snoozed instead and woke at 9 feeling sluggish. Couldnt face spinach so I just had egg and salmon on a muffin – no yoghourt. Trivia, darts, cancelled service charge fees, darts, lunch, trivia, the crew show (very good). At the end they brought up about 100 crew members, 30 chefs and all the officers and they all sung a song about Norwegian staff working hard to make perfect holidays. No doubt – they were all totally genuine and when the Captain spoke they all beamed with genuine affection and respect. That’s a very good team of 1700 representing 75 countries. Typically, they work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, every week, for 8 months.

We cashed in our remaining cabin credit, redeemed our participation points, I finally made it to the Total Body Conditioning session and realised just how necessary such exercise is to round off a heap of aerobic training.

The Entertainment Director had invited 28 Aussies to attend free drinks to meet and celebrate Anzac Day (which was current in Aus at the time). About 12 turned up, plus 2 Kiwis from the band. It was an interesting gathering with an unobtrusive Lest We Forget and a minute silence. Quite a few of us have been to Gallipoli. Straight to dinner, where we redeemed J’s champagne voucher and met a pair of right wing Canadians. I suddenly realised that dinner was going very slowly and it was almost time for the raffle draw at the ship shop for people who had spent $50 there today. I left J looking after my half-eaten steak (which had gone when I returned L) and trotted upstairs and along to the jewellery shop.

There were only 20 or so people there but I did notice one man with about 8 red tickets. It was only 8.29 and almost immediately the manager brought in a small bag of matching red ticket stubbs, welcomed everybody, asked if we were keen to win a prize and pulled out a ticket. OK . . who has got ticket 30465 . . . . . (fine so far) . . . . 0 (yes looking good . . if he says 7 we are SOOO INNN) 7!!!!!!!! I did my maniacal cackle and danced up to the front and popped my ticket on the counter. He checked and confirmed we had won. I was standing there thinking hey J has been saying how she is fully ready to go wild with $500 . . . and he says . . hang on I will fetch your prize. He goes behind the desk and comes back with a large bag . . half the size of a suitcase. He unzips it and there are a couple of caps inside on top of a whole heap of schtuff.  Oooh bugger . . its not a $500 voucher its $500 “worth” of merchandise.

I wheeled it back to the dining room and we had a micro peek inside and pulled out 2 large teddy bears, one of which is a pirate with bird on shoulder who both sing when you squeeze his hand. The rest had to wait until later to be examined. Shit . . this really is exactly what we don’t need . . another suitcase full of junk.

We decided to catch the final show by the camp comic/magician, which we enjoyed most of all. Then it was just a matter of sifting through the extra baggage to decide what to take home and what to donate to the cabin maid.

We really enjoyed this cruise and will look favourably on any Norwegian cruises that are going our way at our price in the future. Having said that, Celebrity are very good too (we cruised on Mercury in NZ in 2007) and we will be boarding them on 5/5 for 13 nights round the Greek islands.