We woke up to another gloomy day this morning, there was lightning and heavy rain. With the time difference, and the stormy weather, it stayed dark until about 8:45 AM. It did not look like we were going to have any better weather for the rest of the day. We are apparently close to a tropical disturbance in the Bahamas, and are getting the wind and rain from that system.
We had our usual breakfast sandwiches in the room and watched the storm outside through our balcony sliding glass door. We got ready and headed out to do some computer work and read. We picked Crooner’s Lounge for our destination and found some isolated and quiet seats on the side. After about 15 minutes, some other people came and sat beside us. The quiet and peaceful seats soon turned to one lady trying to solve the trivia questions for the day, out loud and by herself. None of the other people in the group were answering her questions or talking, it was just her asking questions out loud to herself, those bothersome extroverted people! Unfortunately, we were now involved in the trivia by proximity, but not by choice. The she started sneezing, and that was when we decided to move.
We found some other quiet seats by the Bellini’s Bar and resumed our quiet computer work and reading. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter they started an event in the Atrium, some type of dance lesson, and that ended any hope we had of peace and quiet anywhere in this area.
We went up to the Seaview Bar to visit with Rommel and Franz, and after a couple of bottles of water, we ordered our morning refreshments. We ran into Cassandra from Greece, who we had met earlier on the cruise at Bellini’s, and she stopped by to have a refreshment with us. We talked a lot about how to visit the various islands in Greece and about hotels and prices. Greece is somewhere we have always wanted to visit, but since you have to visit several islands, the logistics are more difficult. We talked about ferries and rental cars and the pros and cons and costs of taking rental cars on the ferries versus just being passengers on the ferries and using local transportation on each island.
At noon, we got the weather report from the Captain and he confirmed that we were going to have stormy weather all day from the tropical disturbance. The forecast for tomorrow sounded better, so we hoped we had some sun on our last sea day before arriving in Ft. Lauderdale.
We ate some lunch in the buffet and headed back to the cabin to drop off the computer and Stephanie’s book. We headed up to Bellini’s and visited with Nemo for a good portion of the afternoon. Since the weather was bad, we decided to go back to the cabin and start our packing effort early so that we have less to do tomorrow and can spend more time enjoying the day, hopefully a sunny day at sea.
We packed all of our dirty clothes in one suitcase, and other items that we knew we would not need, some of the heavier clothes we had for the cooler weather in Europe. Tonight is the last formal night, and we needed to keep out formal clothes for that, as well as the clothes for tomorrow, and our travel day on Saturday. Most of what we could pack went into a single side of one suitcase. We know we will be wearing lighter clothes on the way home since it will be warm, so we are a little concerned about the overall weight of the suitcases since they were within a pound of the limit when we flew to Rome, wearing our heavier cooler weather clothes. We are already planning on putting back some of the items I normally carry in the camera bag, but had initially packed in the suitcases this time so the camera bag would be lighter on the first day in Rome. We were worried we would not be able to check in when we arrived that first morning, and would have to keep the camera bag and valuables with us.
It had been so pleasant to actually get our Rome hotel room early, and not have to carry the camera bag while we went out touring. We will not have to worry about that going home, so we hope transferring some weight back to the camera bag will help lighten the suitcases. Time will tell.
After packing, we went ahead and showered and got dressed for the formal night. We had already decided not to go to the dining room, even though lobster and prawns were on the menu. The lobster had been so disappointing the other night, so we were just skipping it all together tonight.
At about 6:45 PM we headed down to Vines for a glass of wine. The Captain’s Reception Party was scheduled to begin at 7:15 PM in the Atrium, and we were thankful we were at Vines early enough to gt a table and “attend” the even from Vines, which is right off of the Atrium area. We got there just in time, there were only a couple of tables left, and it quickly became crowded in the Atrium for the reception. They served free drinks, the typical selections of boxed red wine, some champagne, and a couple of other types of pre mixed drinks.
We enjoyed having premium wine in Vines with the beverage package, although the selection of available wines was shrinking every night, especially for the red wines. We were perplexed about the experience we had in the dining room the other night when they had told us the Zen of Zens Zinfandel had run out. We have seen many bottle of it at most all of the bars, so there must have been a miscommunication to the wait staff that night, it was and is still seems to be available.
After the Captain’s reception was over, and the crowds dispersed, we headed up one floor to Bellini’s. We wanted to see what wines they had left since our plan was to head to the Alfredo’s Pizzeria right next to Bellini’s, and we could order wines from Bellini’s in the Pizzeria. Luckily, they still had some of the Malbec left that we like and we ordered that to go.
We really enjoyed our dinner, Stephanie tried a pasta dish that was similar to a ravioli, which was really good. I had the Calzone again, mixing up some of the inside “toppings” and it was also really good. After dinner we headed back over to Bellini’s and the “gang” of usual folks were all there. We exchanged some contact information and I had a long talk about some of the areas we want to visit on our next land trip to Italy with the port lecturer, Hutch.
At 11:00 PM, there was a balloon drop and dance party in the Atrium, and it was pretty well attended. After that, several of the group left Bellinis but we stayed a while longer talking with Julio and Rey, the bar staff.
We then headed to the International Cafe on Deck 6, one deck down for a late night snack and talked with one of the bar staff we had met last April on The Regal Princess, Harris from Croatia. We had seen him around, but had not had the chance to talk with him. We visited for a while and then headed back to the cabin. It was pretty late, but thankfully, we gained another hour tonight. The weather had cleared some late in the evening, but the wind had really picked up, so we spent a few minutes out on our balcony watching the rough seas before retiring for the night.