Wednesday, May 13, 2015
We enjoyed the One for the Road JAR show, but not as much I
think as Backstage Pass. It was a very similarly formatted show, just different
songs and costumes obviously. It was good. The boutiques were open to 11pm last
night and it was the first time we had seen them open. They said they had 50%
off selected clothing. We only went in the shop with the clothes since it
looked like the other 2 were jewelry or perfume. The selection was abysmal unless
you had lost your luggage. I didn’t see any undergarments, but you could buy
all the rest of what you needed to cruise from sport coats to dresses, trousers
to shorts and very little of a souvenir or Oceania Marina logo nature. It was what
you might see for sale in a boutique clothier in Naples, FL for example. There
didn’t seem to be much interest last night. The shop was full of people
browsing, especially the sale racks, after the show but I didn’t see anyone
really shopping and no one buying and the 2 sales people completely ignored all
of us and carried on a loud personal conversation between themselves as they
folded and rearranged things around us. Strange.
The fog horn stopped blowing sometime during the night,
though I couldn’t say when. I woke up to lights through the curtain gap around
6:30am. I saw us approaching land, but didn’t watch it and neither did Clay. A
local man ashore told us when we are in sight of land around here at this time
we should watch closely for puffins because they are nesting now and stay close
to shore. We’ll be watching on the way out I guess. Except that we sail at 6pm and
we have a Red Ginger reservation at 6:30pm so it is not clear how much time we’ll
have to see shore with binoculars. Oh well. At one of these Canadian ports at
some point we have a bird watching catamaran tour scheduled so I’ll hope to
definitely spot a puffin then.
Today the captain spun the ship around and backed into our
berth in Sydney. As far as we can remember that was a first. We have been just pulling
up and then backing out later to leave, or pushing straight off sideways and the
pivoting around to head out forward when we leave. Something new. We were
docked on our starboard side again. So we could watch everything.
We had an email from our travel agent today offering us a
discount to extend our cruise back from Stockholm to London. I don’t know how
much of a discount it was as it would still be a very expensive cruise and it
sounded like we would mostly eat our lost deviated airfare if we did it. But
since we have the Great Lakes cruise the 1st of August we can’t book
any O cruises adjoining those we already booked.
Clay walked on the treadmill again today. We went to Terrace
for breakfast again. Clay had his usual and I had vanilla Greek yogurt with
raspberries and remarkable blackberries. Today I also tried the muesli. I liked
it and might get it again if it is still there by the yogurt and fruit. I had
seen it before but it was by some stuff I didn’t want so I didn’t ask for it
then. We’ll see.
Marina was cleared on time as scheduled as we had docked about
40 minutes early. They finally put out 2 gangways this morning and said that we
could exit from deck 4 or deck 5. When we came back, the deck 4 gangway had a
crew gangway sign on it. I don’t suppose I need to explain how that cleared up
all the delays and congestion of disembarkation from the 8th through
the 12th. It can’t be the first time anyone running Marina’s
onboard/shore operations has done this before! Anyway… Today was a vast
improvement.
Sydney, like the rest of our ports since Portland, was glad
to see us. Everyone we’ve met ashore since Portland was very friendly and welcoming
and helpful and happy to see us. It is very cold and windy here today, so were
not in a hurry to get out. The high was predicted to be 55F, but it would feel
much colder with the wind. I can’t believe it actually got anywhere near that
warm. After it finally got sunny this
afternoon, I checked weather.com about 4:30pm and it was 39F and felt like 29F.
We swore we felt some sleet around 9am this morning!
Anyway, the cruise port is right at the down town and
historic areas. I had gone online and printed a couple of maps and had some
things I wanted to do here. We did all that plus some by midafternoon! Oh!
Except the first thing! The world’s tallest fiddle at 60 feet is supposed to be
at the cruise terminal. There was a large plastic-encased scaffolding and when
I asked all the people at the port if that was the fiddle, they said it was
being refurbished and they had all expected it to be uncovered by now. They all
predicted it would be uncovered when we return on May 24. I hope so because
seeing the giant fiddle was the first thing on my list of things to do in
Sydney. I had the Cosset House Museum and walking Old Sydney and the Cape Breton
Center for Heritage and Science. We did all of that plus the Jost House Museum,
and St. Patrick’s Church Museum. We sat in a Tim Hortons by the casino between
Old Sydney and walking the commercial district. We got Clay a t-shirt on Charlotte
St. I am building a collection of patches for this trip. We bought a Cape
Breton lap blanket for $10C at the cruise terminal’s Big Fiddle Market as well
as got our passports stamped. (I had intended to pack Clay’s American Cruise
Line souvenir blanket since O does not provide a lap blanket in cabins as low
as ours! I forget to pack it and we both felt the need for a lap blanket,
though I have yet to get a nap.) Since Oceania did not take our passports when
we checked in for this cruise and we were only required to carry them ashore in
Portland, ME so thus far we had no new passport stamps. Today a passport was
not required, but we each got one next to 2012’s Peggy’s Cove.
At the Cape Breton Center for Heritage which was a bit of a
disappointment with its Abbass Photography exhibit, we picked up some brochures
for other things to do and got warm and used the restrooms. There we met a very
nice and helpful young woman, whose name I am sorry to say we never got. We met
her again in the afternoon at the St. Patrick’s Church Museum. Anyway, we asked
her advice about what to do on our return visit since we would have fully
covered Sydney today. I had been interested since seeing a ship’s tour for it
early on (that by the way later vanished, there were only 4 ship’s tours run
today) in the Coal Miner’s Museum. It is 20 miles or so from here and includes an
actual former coal miner guiding you in an underground mine. She thought it was
most worthwhile since we had done most of the other highlights around here in 2012.
She called a cab company and learned that the fare should be about $25 out and the
same back and gave us 2 local cab company phone numbers to call. She said the
cabs from inside the port would charge more and charge us to wait for us on return.
She advised having the museum desk personnel call us a cab when we are ready to
come back. The entry fee is about $12. That sounds reasonable because the Visitor’s
desk in the cruise terminal was selling this trip to the Coal Mine Museum for I
think $150 or $138 or something with 3 digits. It struck me as O tour prices
when I saw their tour menu as we picked up a map. So we are set with a plan on
our return and looking for to seeing the big fiddle!
We were back onboard for good by about 3pm. I guess all the restaurants
except outdoor Waves had closed by 2pm and we ran into a bunch of crabby upset
people about then. We were skipping lunch because of our Tim Hortons stop at
noon. Anyway, Clay reminded me that we had still never been to Baristas when it
was open so we went there. It turns out they have a small buffet area so they
were very busy since people didn’t want to eat out in the cold wind at Waves.
Clay had some little cold sandwiches, madeleines, and juices. I had a really
piping hot and excellent cappuccino and a plate of excellent canneles. There
were still some burned ones but nothing like the scorched ones from Jacques the
other night.
We were looking for Red Ginger’s menu since we have
reservations there tonight. Finally I asked a guy changing the one posted
outside Terrace and he told me to ask at the Dining Reservations desk on deck
5. We went down and found out that she had a giveaway paper copy of the menus
for all 4 specialty restaurants. Bonus!
We change the clocks back an hour tonight, so that will be
good to get an extra hour of sleep. But tomorrow is a sea day anway! Or rather
a St. Lawrence River sailing day. Tonight our CD, Julie James is singing
classic jazz, so I expect we’ll skip that anyway and that means early to bed on
an hour-longer night with nowhere to go all day tomorrow anyway! It is like the
relaxation trifecta.
The day after tomorrow we are in Saguenay. We booked a tour
with Tours Aventure Fjord et Monde. I can’t recommend them already. They
require prepayment by PayPal and I am pretty sure they had a no money back
cancellation policy. I just looked and that is true unless the boat cannot come
to the port area. But the real kicker is that they keep emailing with changes
to the time of the tour. I don’t know if anyone else on this cruise booked a
tour with them, but our next cruise’s roll call is going nuts with the time
changes they keep emailing. So, there is a lack of confidence in the tour
company combined with the prepay/no refund policy! We’ll see how it goes day
after tomorrow and report back here!
It is after 5pm and we are awaiting all aboard and sail
away. We are having the cheese curds we bought in Halifax yesterday. They don’t
squeak either but are tastier than the ones we bought at Cabot in the US which
also didn’t squeak. I am very much enjoying my Petit Frog boxed French white
wine. I think it is better because of the tap system with the bag inside that
keeps air from the wine. It doesn’t change after being opened. If only the
refrigerator actually got it cold! I am using ice.
About 4:30pm or so we noticed that the cruise terminal had
begun piping loud music out. We had not noticed that at any point earlier today
and can’t say if it is canned or there is a live performer somewhere that we
can’t see. It has been the same woman singing for about an hour now. She just
finished up the US National anthem.
We departed right on time, but it was touch and go. There
was a single man from deck 10 missing and they kept paging him in English and
in Spanish. He showed up about 5 minutes before sailing and they finished
closing the crew gangway. He did at least act concerned and ran to the crew
gangway after clearing security. I mean someone always has to be last, but no
has to be late. I don’t know what happened to make him late.
So, we’re back from Red Ginger. It was a mess like Jacques
was but as it was Asian Fusion we didn’t love it. Clay had the duck &
watermelon salad and really liked it. Neither of us liked the seaweed salad I
ordered. We both liked the amuse bouche of edamame. We both liked the expanding
washcloth when he poured boiling water on it. We both liked the tea menu and
little iron pots. We both liked the selection of chopsticks. Clay had sea bass
and didn’t love it. I don’t know if he really liked the side of Udon noodles he
had. I had teriyaki beef with a side of jasmine rice. It would have been okay
if it had been cooked well done as I ordered it, but it came medium rare and I
have a policy of never sending anything back to the kitchen. Clay ordered
caramel tapioca pudding with mango and we both hated it as well he had a tongue
swelling sulfite reaction. I ordered steamed ginger cake with apple cardamom
ice cream and we both really liked it. So far, we loved Polo, liked Toscana,
disliked Jacques and are equivocal about Red Ginger. That is the end of our
allowed specialty reservations for this cruise segment. We won’t be able to go
again until after Montreal. So, it will be Terrace or Grand Dining Room for us.
Tonight we had an invitation to a Captain Bencina and GM
Tholon hosted cocktail party for Oceania Club members on May 15 at 5:45pm in
Horizons. Right now we won’t be able to attend because of our Aventure tour
independently booked in Saguenay. Of course, they moved our noon tour back and
hour which made it end that late. We didn’t get a choice of opting out. As Clay
& I noted, it is unlikely this will be possible if Oceania keeps shortening
port times. So, it remains to be seen what will happen there. If the Captain is
hosting a 5:45pm cocktail party does that mean he thinks the ship will have
already departed or does it mean he is doing it during the time passengers will
still be ashore. We aren’t sure what to read into it as regards our eventual
actual departure time from Saguenay. More later!
