Blogs from Atlantic, Oceans and Seas - page 70

Geo: 45.5008, -73.525818,000 RPM - that's how fast F1 engines rev. They are LOUD, up to 140 dB in the cockpit!!! Eating breakfast this morning, we could hear the F1 cars doing practice runs, even though the B&B is a good 5 km from the track. It definitely cranked up the anticipation several levels, as if it wasn't already high enough! The only thing keeping me from immediately running out the door and heading to the track was the yummy breakfast from Marche St. Jacques, highlighted by some truly stellar bread. Though busy, I expected a larger crowd at the metro station but it is only qualifying, after all - it'll probably be chaos on race day. The atmosphere wasn't quite like I had expected - definitely busy, but there wasn't the real buzz in the ... read more

One more day at sea before docking in Southampton and yet another fine cruise has come to an end. In our 6 days aboard the Grand Princess, we have now solved the mystery of the 'missing bong'!! A few days ago I wrote about the lift ‘binging' but not ‘bonging' when it arrived at a deck. I was premature when suggesting that this was another slight defect in the refitting of the ship a month or so ago. This is an ingenious idea to assist visually impaired people who struggle to see the red ‘LED' directional arrow at the side of each individual lift door. A ‘bing' means the lift is on the way up whereas a ‘bing bong' means the lift is on its way down. Fantastic IF you know what this means in the ... read more

Today there were gentle rolling seas, with a temperature of 58 degrees. It is a little cool with a moderate breeze when you are outside. However the pools were open again – just nobody in them. It is our last full day of sailing without a shore excursion, so we took advantage of the opportunity to replenish our clean clothes supply. There was no shortage today, but we just didn’t want to try do washing on a day when we were off the ship much of the day. We should have enough things to wear until we get off the ship. We hope Sue and Mike don’t mind if we show up with a lot of dirty clothes. This morning was a demonstration in the Princess Theater (not the kitchen) by the Master Chef of the ... read more

Yeah! We made it to the Azores – on schedule despite the delays which occurred along the way. That meant that we had an early morning (wake-up call for 6:30). We had everything laid out so we would be able to get started quickly and not leave anything behind accidentally. We got dressed and had a reasonably quick buffet breakfast, so we actually had a few extra minutes to sit on the deck and drink tea while the ship finished docking. Then it was down to the main theater to be ready for disembarking. Our tour had 3 buses going to the same places, so we were fortunate to be in the first bus and therefore ahead of the crowds at each place. Our guide was named Manuel and he spoke English very well (good vocabulary ... read more

Good morning. For those who think that Monday is a workday, be advised that this was a sleep-in morning on the ship. Last night was a late night for us and then we lost an hour in time zones, so we slept until about 9:00 (that would be 6:00 AM in St Louis). It was very restful. But then it was time to get a meal and make a plan for today. We attended the presentation on Greenock Scotland, which also included Glasgow, Edinburgh, and much of the Scottish lochs and terrain. We are learning that there will be much that we miss each time we go on an excursion, so maybe someday we will need to visit again but spend more time in each place. The captain announced that we had past the midpoint on ... read more