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Got up early to finish up the packing and Annie got hers all done and left
to go for breakfast with her friends and then debark and visit Tokyo. I decided
to stay onboard as excursions no matter how nice are extremely tiring to me,
sometimes with a lot of walking and standing just to get out to the bus.
I went to the buffet for my muesli and fruit breakfast and then started
walking without a plan in mind. I walked through the pool area outside and it’s
quite warm and humid outside. Spoke to some people who said the fog/smog or
whatever it is hanging over the city of Tokyo will burn off as the sun dries it up.
Bumped into Margaret from Australia as she was on her way to the hair
salon. I had forgotten that she’ll be onboard until Singapore too. So nice to
know i’ll have my Aussie friend onboard and we made plans to meet for tea at O'Sheehans
at 6p.m.
I took pics of the empty card room, the library and the gym where i weighed
myself.....oh oh....their scales must be wrong!
Wandered into Spinnakers to have the entire place to myself so i crashed in
one of the big comfy loungers that are always taken during the day by the
voracious readers onboard. I think I put the pic of the blue lounger on yesterdays post. I watched the crew washing the outside of the windows, omg,they are
so brave to do that job!
The last group of those debarking has just been called. Now the new
passengers will start to arrive so i’ll walk around and find places to sit and
watch the action. It's fun and nice to watch the reactions of new cruisers onboard. Soon our new cabin will be ready with all our stuff
transferred there and i’ll be curious and go check it out ASAP.
Ok so i checked out the new room at 10:30 and our stuff still hasn’t
arrived so i made my way back to the buffet stopping for pics along the way.
There’s very few passengers around, i saw maybe 4 people but lots of crew
members doing their cleaning and shining up everything for the new people, oh
ya, and for us too. It feels really weird being on a near empty ship. I also
figured out that it isn’t going to be fun for me having to walk the entire
length of the ship for my meals. Yes, there’s a dining room as well as Chin Chins and
sushi along the way as well as several pay restaurants. But i like the buffet
best not only for the muesli breakfast but for the large selection of foods
for lunch and dinner. My husband would be elated if he saw the huge vat of well done bacon every day which i don't eat. I think a lot of cruisers like this Freestyle dining where
you don’t have to be all dressy and formal unless you want to. Shorts are allowed in the
buffet now a days but not swimsuits hence the NCL tag of "freestyle cruising"
It’s 11:30 a.m. now and still no new passenger sightings. I guess they won't open the gate until noon at least. I am alone in the
Garden Cafe buffet and that just seems crazy. I feel like walking to the aft to
see if our stuff has arrived in the new room yet but holy crap it’s such a long
walk. I already think i’m not going to like our room location. Well, ok, i’ll
like it in the evenings for it’s proximity to the showroom and the casino but
what will i do during the day about walking to the buffet?
So i sat around and talked with some friendly crew members. One told me his
favourite place in the whole world is Ketchikan Alaska. I think everyone loves
Ketchikan and will want to return there over and over as i do because somehow it gets
into you. He said Seward was also real nice which made me regret not getting on
the bus to go there when the two ladies at the dock gave me postage stamps and
mailed my letter for me. Next time i will make it a point to visit Seward and maybe even Anchorage which is about an hours drive away from Seward.
Now 12:30 and i’m still in the buffet. I spotted Annie already back from her visit
to Tokyo and enjoying her lunch. I’m going to go back to our new cabin on 5 deck
and see if our clothes and things have arrived yet from 9 deck, then i don’t
know what else. On a previous back to back cruise we had to attend the muster
drill again but i heard they don’t make you do it on this cruise. Either way, i don't mind doing it as I know the crew does every single one so all passengers should too as you always learn something new.
I found Annie at our new cabin with our new steward Eduardo organizing and figuring out if all was ok or if anything was missing. I saw our big brown bags had arrived and our suitcases but didn’t notice that my clothes that i had been told to simply leave on the hangers in the closet weren’t here until after he had left. It seems that all our stuff had been taken to the wrong cabin and possibly nobody had looked in the closet of that room and saw my clothes in there once they found the mistake and so they just brought our bags. Whatever, Eduardo had a lot of running around to do but he cheerfully did it, found my clothes and brought them down.
Now we’ve finished organizing and putting everything away. This cabin appears larger than the balcony cabin but really isn't. It looks very similar but our beds are several feet apart instead of like 6 or 8 inches apart. There’s no couch like the last room but everything is spread further apart and in a better design. The large porthole window has about a 12 inch sill and then a drop to another 12 inch sort of window sill so very handy to put stuff on.
One problem we have right now that’s been ongoing for a few hours already is the noise. Annie phoned to complain and was told they were bunkering, whatever that is. It’s a loud racket, like drilling, vibrating machinery that’s used to break up cement. Someone called back to say to hold tight it would end tonight at 6 pm. Annie thinks it’s possibly workers working on the refit already. I don’t know anything about refitting and dry docking but i know if it starts on a cruise then that’s wrong.
It’s annoying as hell with a racket that’s headache worthy. Somebody told Annie that the reason this cruise is sold out is because a lot of the inside cabins are the sleeping quarters for a lot of workers who have come onboard. If it turns out that it’s started already and there’s going to be noise and inconveniences we’ll be really choked. What a welcome to our new cabin that we were upgraded to from an inside cabin that made us feel good to get the upgrade only to find out they had another reason for doing it. It’s starting to look like the cruise from hell like those passengers on the NCL Sun had to deal with a year or so ago and they started a mutiny. Annie is very assertive and has phoned several times already regarding the noise and she’s determined to find out wth is happening and we both want it to stop. Well, i’m sure everyone on this side wants it to stop because it’s real annoying to not even be able to hear each other talking.
So we went to Spinnakers to meet the new people who were members of Cruise Critic and 7 or 8 newbies showed up. We chatted for awhile and the NCL hostess came and she had a few bottles of wine to share with us. From there we walked the length of the ship to Tzars Palace restaurant in the fwd area and got 2 round tables which is nice for chatting. Some of the people at our table were almost constantly cruising and they spoke of really awesome itineraries, sailing around the world and getting off a ship and staying a couple days before transferring to another ship for a continuous cruising life. One man in our group said he is homeless and this is the way he lives. It sounds like he has timeshares all over the place and he plans for his stay in one before moving onto another ship. It’s not a joke anymore, people actually live on cruises year round. I like the idea of it especially the part about going from one cruise line or ship to another. I don’t think i’d want to stay on the same ship for a year though but you never know; a little variety is the spice of life.
After dinner we took the elevator up to the Stardust theatre for a nice show featuring the NCL singers and dancers and the Russian husband and wife acrobats. When the show was over i said goodbye to my new friend Bridgid and walked down one floor and then in 15 or so steps i was home for the first night in our new cabin.
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