The Easy Life

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Geo: 57.4568, 0.911865

The first full day on the cruise and the first full day with absolutely no obligations! We slept late and spent the day reading and relaxing and visiting the spa. It is so nice to have no obligations in front of us more important than getting to a tour on time for more than two weeks.

Our first visit to the spa was successful for both of us with good massages to rub away the stress of usual life. My achy shoulder is starting to feel better. We each have two more treatments scheduled later in the cruise. The pricing for spa services is much better than expected. We scheduled six services for less than six hundred Euros. That sounded like a good deal to us, but we had to book and charge them all in advance to get that price. We will be back for more relaxation on two of the other sea days.

For dinner tonight, we went to the buffet again missing our time for dining room entry. It is okay and there are some choices that are served from behind the counter so I feel like I can get a decent meal without having to eat from a traditional buffet line. I am still not ready to do buffets. The worry that I developed during treatment that they are minefields littered with germs persists. This ship is not the kind with 24-hour buffets. They are open only slightly longer than the dining room hours so we have another good reason to stick with the dining room for the most part.

Addendum to today's comments: When you enter a new country with a cell phone turned on, you get a message from their cell service welcoming you. We both received that message "Welcome to Germany" on Sunday. During the night while we were at sea somewhere between Hamburg and northern Scotland, Philip's phone gave a beep. He checked it to find a text “Welcome to Malta.” What's that about? Malta is hundreds of miles away in the Mediterranean. I will have to check sometime to see if they control any of the islands in this area. Philip has promised to turn his phone off at night now so random messages will not awaken us.

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