Day 4 - Oh so much fog - Shipboard life

This was pretty much our sea day. Fog, fog and more fog. 

We had a scenic cruise day where we were supposed to see Wager Island and learn about the history of the shipwreck there as one of the day's highlights. We heard about Wager Island, but could not even see the shoreline. They never did guarantee us the weather; instead they have made a point to highlight the possibilities. 

So a little bit about our days at sea. We usually arise sometime before breakfast, served in the dining room. While occasionally we use the buffet, we really prefer the dining room. Then a quick review of the happenings on ship. The kinds of offerings are lectures, cooking demonstrations, all kinds of ways they can part cruiser with their money, games of various sorts, trivia contests, shopping things, casino, art things (seems to be a big part of this ship with it's own art room), and music. We generally gravitate to the lectures (there have been some good ones on the places we will visit, history, today's was about global warming and the arctic), and hanging out in our cabin. 

The cabin is spacious (yes, we splurged and upgraded when we could get it reasonably), and for the first few days we practically lived on our aft and port facing veranda. Now it's a bit cold. We had a meeting with 8 other people and there was room for everyone to sit. Our cabin steward, Mas, and his helper, Yaz, make it up when we go out to breakfast and again at night when we are out at dinner. 

View of balcony from the room.  

The veranda/balcony from the corner facing toward starboard.

And facing toward the bow.

We have a little office area that we both fight over. 

The rest of the room. Lots of closet space, couch, chairs and you can see a little bar area at the back.

The bathroom with two sinks, shower and whirlpool bath/shower. The shower winds up spraying water onto the floor reaching every corner of the room (ask me how I know).

So we putter, doing things like this, I do some needlework, we both read, I like puzzles and we keep ourselves entertained throughout the day. That is something that you need to be prepared for as there will be some down time even if you go on excursions. This cruise has a lot of sea days, but most of those have visual cruise highlights. 

We usually don't eat lunch or even snack. It's our secret for not needing new clothes by the time we leave ship. That and so many steps each day. I've been averaging about 5,000 ... more on excursion days. 

We have an early dinner reservation. What having a reservation means is that you are always at the same table and have the same waiter and assistant, in our case Jeffrey and Yasy.  They get to know your likes and dislikes. Dinner is three courses, an appetizer, a main, and a dessert. Menus are available in advance. We usually have wine with dinner, although Arch sometimes gets Diet Coke instead. 

After dinner, we frequently go the the main stage venue called One World Stage on this ship. They have a resident troupe of dancers, but then bring on comedians, musicians, and singers to provide some variety. Shows are about 45 minutes and are repeated at 7:30 and 9:00 pm. Outside of that, there are some music venues which play throughout the night. We usually don't do those as they haven't really appealed. 

So why is there an elephant outside of the One World Stage? Who knows, but you do find quirky sculptures throughout the ship. 

We have found the room to be quiet. So far, not much rocking and rolling of the ship although that may change as we start to head down toward Antarctica.