United States to Canada….By Sea

 

FRIDAY  August 4th – United states to Canada – by Sea

 

 

The Plan:

 

Since we are members of the Cruise Critic Roll Call,  we will be meeting with over 165 other members for a meet and mingle/greet at 10 am, after that Barbara will participate in a “Cabin Crawl” whereby certain members of our group have offered to host their staterooms to show  “how the other half lives”.

 

The Reality:

 

We woke this morning to the distant sound of the ships horn as we gently sailed through the morning fog along the southeastern coast of Nova Scotia. The horn is heralding the way to our next destination, tomorrow, Sydney, Nova Scotia.

 

After our scheduled Cruise Critic meeting, our Cruise Specialists hosts, Steve and Wendy Brodenheiner, are hosting a similar meet and greet  at 11:30 am.  Then at 1 pm I will join my Trivia Team, whilst Barbara will head for a presentation of what we can expect in the next three ports of call.  Such is the pace of life onboard.  I guess people with “idle hands” expect to be distracted with activities. There is no such “Law on the bounding main” that dictates what you  must be available for, one exception is, the law of survival – just don’t miss a meal.

 

Barbara and I always enjoy the daily interaction with our dinner table mates, so you can imagine our disappointment when our initial seating assignment was a table for ten! So Barbara made her pitch to the dinning room manager for a change. Soon after, and before our next diner, we received a card notifying us of our requested change – fixed seating – table for six – perfect. Last evening we met our new “family” and they literally are a family – Frank and Fay, Carol, Fay’s sister and her niece Karen, sailing together. Carol and Karen missed the initial sailing from Boston because of an extended flight delay out of Baltimore and had to drive through the night in a rented mini-van to Bar Harbor. We are pleased that they accepted us into their “sailing” family for this cruise

 

In the months preceding our cruise we became quite concerned that our favorite cruise line had been making changes that some perceived as a downward trend in the services offered. From the minute we came onboard at the Black Hawk Cruise terminal, we have observed no such trend, as a matter of fact, it seems like the service is going the other way.

 

It is always a bonus on a port intensive cruise such as the VOV, when we get to enjoy a day at sea to catch up on “housekeeping”. Afternoon tea in the main dining room tends to slow the pace, although it is hard to resist the calories in the tidbits served with the tea.

 

So far our sailing to Canada has been incident free as the seas have been uncommonly  smooth. At his welcome speech this evening before the show, the captain did report that on his previous sailing through the waters farther north that they encountered a heavy ice pack that prohibited entering scheduled ports. Such is life on the high seas.

 

We always enjoy the high energy performances of the ships singers and dancers, and tonight was no exception – the troop consisting of two male and two female featured vocalists and three male and three female dancers –  were all fantastic.

 

Well its off to bed for me, I’ll need my rest for tomorrows walking adventure in Sydney.

 

Sorry –  no images to share.

 

Jack W Cummings VOV 2017 – At Sea off the coast of Nova Scotia