It was really nice to sleep in this morning on a sea day. It had been really rough last night, but we never have had a problem with the ship’s movement, especially when we are sleeping.
I went out to get our regular breakfast, and we enjoyed it in the room before getting ready for the day. We had no plan for today other than to relax. We did have to go through a passport inspection for the United Kingdom in the Vista lounge at 9:40 AM, but after that, we were free to relax and enjoy the day. The inspection was really fast, it only took about 5 minutes, and it was completed.
It was crowded inside the ship today because it was too windy and cool to be outside. It was still rough and the Captain informed us that the relative winds outside were over 55 knots on the decks. We tried to find somewhere to sit for me to work on the blog, and for Stephanie to read. We had found a nice table, but it was next to the Wheelhouse Bar, and they were having a Pub Lunch today. With the people walking by heading to the the passport inspection in the nearby Vista Lounge, coupled with the line forming for the Pub Lunch at the Wheelhouse Bar, we were over run with people and had to leave. We headed to Crooners and had a couple of beverages sitting at the uncrowded bar.
Rougher Sea Conditions Today
The Captain came on the loudspeaker and informed us that due to the longer route we had to take after missing our tide slot through the narrow channel at the north end of Scotland, caused by the delay in leaving Kristiansand, coupled with the strong headwinds and rougher seas, the ship could not go as fast as we needed to make the port call in Greenock tomorrow on time. We are now scheduled to arrive at 11:00 AM, three hours after our scheduled 8:00 AM arrival time.
Greenock was already one of the shortened port calls from the original itinerary, and we were told by the Captain today that he was not able to extend the stay in Greenock past our scheduled 5:30 PM departure in order to maintain our 3:30 AM scheduled arrival in Dublin on the following day. We have to arrive at the port entrance channel in Dublin at high tide because of the deep draft of the ship, and high tide was at 3:30 AM.
There were obviously a lot of unhappy passengers. The ship’s staff was constantly making announcements about the shore excursion cancellations, and also for some revised shore excursion timeframes. They offered to assist people with private excursions, but I am not sure what they could do. Obviously, we will be changing our plans, we were already on a tight schedule for our visit to the Sterling Castle via train and local bus, so now we will have to abandon that plan and just go ashore and explore Greenock. We might try and go to Glasgow, it is only about 45 minutes away by train, but we will just make that call tomorrow, based on when we arrive and actually get off of the ship.
Based on our past cruises with delayed port arrivals, it is difficult to get off of the ship in an expedient manner, everyone is lined up all at once, not in staggered time slots like normally occurs with scheduled ship’s tours. Everyone is impatient ready to get off of the ship as fast as possible to maximize the short time in port, and as a result, disembarkation becomes a slow and tedious process.
A Little Sunnier, But Still Rough
Stephanie napped while I worked on processing photos and completing some of the blog posts from earlier port calls.
We did not do much for the rest of the day, actually enjoying the day off from shore excursions. We already knew we won’t need to get up early tomorrow because of the delayed arrival, so we stayed out a little later tonight, enjoying time at Vines and at Crooners.