Fort Lauderdale to Copenhagen Transatlantic Cruise – 2016

We awoke to much cooler weather today as we head in a Northeastern direction toward Cherbourg, France.  We will have today and tomorrow at sea before we start with three consecutive port days.

We had another one hour time change last night, and the last hour change will be tonight.  It seems tone the conversation on the ship, even the assistant cruise directors who announce for the various activities were making statements about it, so we think it is having an effect on everyone.

We slept in until about 10:00 AM on the revised time, which was really only 9:00 AM in our minds.  Even so, it was almost 11:00 AM until we were heading out of the cabin for some breakfast.  Since it was so late, we did not want to have a large breakfast, so we headed to the International Cafe to get a couple of yogurt parfaits, whisk is some plain yogurt along with raspberry yogurt, topped with a granola mix.  It is good, and fairly filling for a lighter breakfast.  I also got a cappuccino coffee from the coffee bar there.  Although I had pretty much given of coffee several months ago, it has been nice every once and a while to get a little lift from the caffeine.

Afterward, we sat in one of the lounges and I worked on the blog some while Stephanie read her book.  We will have considerably more “inside” time today since it is much cooler out on the decks.  It was not terrible, but with the wind, it was a little chilly.  The weather forecast for today was for a high temperature of around 59 degrees, so it only took a little wind to make it quite cold.

Other than the cooler temperatures, the weather was not bad, partly sunny skies, and moderate seas.  The noon weather report indicated winds of about 25 mph.

We went to the buffet for some lunch around 1:30 PM, and they actually had some good boiled shrimp and grilled seafood skewers.  For some reason there was a limited supply of what appeared to be tiger shrimp out along with the normal shrimp.  They were much larger, and split in half.  The larger shrimp did not last long before they were gone.  We passed by looking at our food options there and in some of the other buffet lines, and when we got back to the shrimp a few minutes later, they were almost gone, and were not being replaced.  They must have been left over from one of the dinners, and needed to be cooked and eaten today.  They were quite good, as were the grilled seafood skewers which consisted of shrimp, scallops, salmon and some other white fish.

Stephanie Relaxing In A Lounge Chair

After lunch, we headed up to the pool deck area, and actually found that if we were in protected areas, out of the wind, the sun was warm enough to sit in the lounge chairs.  It was not warm enough to bathing suits, but the sunshine felt good, and er relaxed in the lounge chairs for about 30 minutes.  On the way back to the room, we ran into Nigel, our bartender form last year’s Pacific Coast Cruise.  We had seen him before, but his schedule at the pool bar was limited, and we had not had much of a chance to catch up.

Working On The Travel Blog

Then, went back to the room where I worked on pictures and posts from yesterday in the Azores.  We have uploaded some additional photos in the Ponta Delgado Photo Album.  Stephanie took a short nap.

We then went out to the Atrium to visit some of the stores to try and determine how we will use some of the shipboard credit we have that will be left over, and since it in nonrefundable, we are trying to figure out what we could spend it on.  Stephanie purchased some additional Clinique makeup, and we looked at other possibilities in the stores.  We project that we will have about $400 to spend after all of the other expenses such as tips, and two more nights of specialty restaurant upcharges.  We went to the photo shop to see if they had any memory chips, but to was being set up for tonights formal pictures.

Tonight is the second and last formal night of the cruise, and we have 6:30 PM reservation to eat in Sabatinis once again.  We had about an hour before we needed to get ready for dinner, so we stopped by the Crooners Bar had had a refreshment.  It was much more crowded inside the Atrium area today since it was too cool for many people to be outside.

The early dining crowd started to show up in their formal clothes, so we decided it was time to go back to the cabin and get cleaned up and dressed for dinner.

Once we were dressed, we had a few minutes before we needed to go to dinner, so of course, we stopped by Vines for a glass of wine.  Since Sabatinis is next to Vines, we did not have far to go for dinner.

When we arrived at Sabatinis, we tried to get a seat by the windows, but they were already full.  We sat in a different area from our last visit here, and so, we were served by a different waiter.  There were not as many people in his area since it was more in the middle of the restaurant, and it was actually more pleasant than the other night, he was much more attentive.

Striped Bass Dinner Entree From Sabatini’s

We almost had the identical meal as last time, but Stephanie ordered stripped bass instead of the chicken dish.  Of course, I had the lobster.  They also brought us a serving of tonight’s special, but we could hardly pronounce it, much less spell if, so we can’t tell you what it was other than it was some roasted veal, served on a bed of polenta.

It was way more than a “sample” size, and we were already full from the antipasto appetizer of calamari, and pasta that we had before our main courses showed up.  We enjoyed the entrees but it was just too much food.  I ordered a tiramisu  for dessert, but Stephanie was too full to have a dessert.

Polenta And Veal Dish At Sabatini’s

The ship’s Commodore, Guisseppe Romano came through the restaurant with the Head waiter, and stopped by each table to talk with the passengers.  We also spoke with him some on the way out, there was an electric scooter at the entrance to the restaurant, and they had placed a fake “parking ticket” on it, and were waiting for the passengers to leave and see their reaction.

There are many more walkers and rental scooters showing up and I am sure we will see many more as we start all of the port visits.  This is pretty typical of these cruises, the longer the cruise, the more assisted walking devices we see as the days pass by.  This is probably due to all of the food being consumed, people are now having to support extra weight.  We have also seen several new casts of people, mostly on wrists, so there have been some trips and falls along the way.

After dinner, we headed up to the Crooners Bar to visit.  There is a balloon drop at 10:00 PM tonight in the Atrium, and it got quite crowded in the Atrium by the time that event occurred.  In past cruises, there were prizes in some of the balloons, but apparently, that was no longer the practice, just empty golden balloons were dropped onto the dance floor as people were dancing to the live music.  It was sort of like hearing popcorn cos in the microwave, lots of balloons popping at first, and then fewer and fewer until it was done.

We did not stay out late, as we are trying to get more acclimated to getting up early in preparation for our port days.  We also have the last time adjustment tonight.  Back on the room, we started the movie the Martian once again, and watched a little more of it this time before we started falling asleep and turned it off.  Hopefully we will be able to finish it before the cruise ends.