It was a restless night. Somewhere below us a door kept slamming shut and that continued even until we woke up around 8am.
Nobody showed up for the devotional at 9am, so we headed up to the Lido for breakfast. We shared a table with a brother & sister from Manhattan and enjoyed a lot of pleasant conversation. It turned out they were related to the duet piano player. The seas were still rough and the ship was pitching (porpoising) pretty significantly. The was fortunately no rolling action.
Now that we have been on the ship a bit, I can begin to see the differences between this short 7 day cruise compared to the 30-50 day cruises we typically take. The biggest difference is that there is a LOT of selling of goods, services, and shore excursions and virtually no enrichment lectures.
As far as the ship layout goes, three things standout to me. First, the music walk on deck 2 is new with its offering of Billboard Online with the dueling Pianos, BBKing blues club, and Lincoln Center Stage plus the Gallery Bar. It's terrific for us as we enjoy live music. Second is the Lido Market redo of the Lido buffet area. It simply feels much more elegant. Third, the Main Stage seems to have had its decor freshened up. Adagio (classical piano & violin duo) is not on this ship.
When the captain gave his noon PA briefing, he commented that we had outrun the storm. And the seas definitely calmed as we sailed inside Moresby Island.
Our principal afternoon entertainment was watching the Disneynature film 'Bears' and attending the Ask the the Captain. The sea certainly calmed down and we were able to walk a few miles around the Promenade deck.
It was gala night in the Main Dining Room. We had great table mates, but the service was really lacking. It took 5 requests to get sweetener and general the service was quite slow. We arrived for dinner at 5:10pm and didn't leave until 7:30pm. The food was quite good, fortunately. I guess we'll go back to the Lido for dinner except for the one night we'll do a Pinnacle Grill dinner, but we miss the conversations.
At the Captain's toast there was no introduction of the senior officers other than Erin Duffy- CD. It's sort of disappointing to see this depersonalization of cruising.
The cast show of 'One World' was okay in my estimation. It certainly wouldn't be in my top ten list, but perhaps it's will grow on me as we see it performed more. We enjoyed a country segment performed by the dueling piano duo and even returned for their 80's set after watching BBKing's performers do most of one set.
Our clocks get set back one hour so we will be on Alaska time for our port calls. So we get an 'extra' bit of sleep.
It's worth noting a couple things. First, the average age demographic for this HAL cruise is about 20 years younger (late 50's) than the long cruises we typically take. There are many families and younger couples. Also the casino over the past two nights has had more partipants than we saw in 44 days on the Volendam earlier this year.
Tomorrow we doing some scenic cruising as we sail into Juneau which i spent my early childhood years. Until later, stay tuned.
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