5.09.2019 update from the Azores

05.09.2019

We are aboard the Emerald Princess, sailing from Ft Lauderdale to Rome with ten stops in between. We left home on Wednesday, May 1^st, and stayed that night in an airport hotel by Sea Tac airport so we could fly out at 8:30 Thursday morning, with at 6:30 check in.  We spent Thursday night in a Ft Lauderdale hotel before boarding the ship Friday around noon.  It was a very easy embarkation.

At dinner, we are at a table for six, our preference.  Conversation is easy with four others, while at a table for eight there are often two conversations at one time.  And hearing is more difficult with the larger table.  Only one couple joined us the first night.  A delightful couple from South Dakota.  Jim and Debby are very easy to talk with.  The other couple never made it, our waiter call them Mr. and Mrs. Casper, the ghosts.

On Sunday night, at trivia, we reconnected with a couple that we met last year.  Pat and Jan are from Texas and we got to know them through trivia, when we were on the South Pacific cruise.  We spent two hours getting caught up, and they are another delightful couple which we are looking forward to spending more time with on this cruise.  He is a retired pediatrician, so they really understand the need for gloves and masks, which John uses in crowds.

We also reconnected, on Sunday, with the ship’s bar manager, who we also met on the South Pacific cruise last year.  He took such good care of us then, locating a bottle of wine which we had the same ,in the steak house, but were unable to find in any of the other bars or restaurants.  Over a year later, he knew what bottle we requested, such a memory.  Thank you, Sandeep!  He brought us another bottle.

We are in the mid Atlantic, and internet is very iffy.  We may not be able to post this until we get to our first port of Ponta Delgata, Portugal in the Azores Islands on Friday.  Saturday we were able to text, but that was it. 

The ship has been in dry dock for a few weeks, since our South Pacific cruise last year.  It is fresh with new carpets, huge flat screen screens in the cabin. It is very nice.

John & Colleen