Tuesday, July 7, 2015
It wasn’t raining this morning and the skies were struggling
to turn blue with a chilly stiff breeze. We had breakfast at the hotel. The
Jehovah’s Witnesses are still here. Today we also saw some Oceania luggage tags
at Freys Hotel. People are coming and going from Marina! Including us! Clay had
asked the front desk to order a cab to Frihamnen Port for us at 11:30am. With
our complimentary upgrade to Concierge level came at noon boarding time as
well. We hope to get on and get an early load of laundry done. We’ve been gone
from Marina 3 weeks or 22 days now and have only done laundry once since
leaving. It is time.
We took a final walk around our neighborhood after
breakfast. We went back to Vete-Katten on Kungsgatan and finally had a slice of
Princess Cake to share. It seems like it would be very tricky to make. I am not
sure if I loved it or not. I felt like I was eating Kermit the Frog! I told
Clay that it looked like Kermit’s round belly had been sliced. He asked if I
thought Kermit was filled with whipped cream and I think he could be all soft
and sweet inside. Anyhow, we tried it and it was pretty good, if a little odd.
It seemed like a crazy amount of work and I have no idea how they sliced it.
We got to the port about 5 of noon and got in line behind a
few hundred people. Our cabin was ready at 1:30pm. That was good as we did get
laundry done before the mandatory lifeboat drill at 4:15pm. We have a new
Captain and Cruise Director now. The stiff winds had only increased but did not
keep us from leaving port this time. We left right as scheduled. The only person I recognized from our previous time aboard was Lisa, the Social Hostess. She was the leader of our muster group this time. We went up to
Horizons for the Cruise Critic Roll Call Meet & Greet. We met quite a few
people from the roll call. We had dinner reservations at 6:30pm at Jacques so
we did not stay long. Dinner in Jacques was the best we have had of the 4. If
this had been our 1st dinner there, we might have felt differently
about it. We stopped by the Boutique and got Clay 2 t-shirts on the 2 for $30
special. He got an extra $3 off for some reason. We stopped by and checked out
the Concierge Lounge. Very nice. There is a big laptop taking up the center desk
drawer and there are 2 computers in there. You would not need to carry a
computer if you always traveled in O’s concierge class. We have an issue in that
there is a sign on the top shelf of our closet asking us not to remove the
cashmere lap blankets but that they are only for use in the cabin. Fair enough,
if there were actually any lap blankets in there, but there aren’t. Clay spoke
to our stewardess about the missing blankets so we are clear that we did NOT
remove them. We never had any. After dinner, there were still no blankets. The other
snafu was that as we are spending our $300 shipboard credit, I had dropped our
tour request at the destinations desk before the drill. We expected ticket before
bedtime. The booking deadline had been 6pm today. There were no tickets by
8:30pm, so we went down to check rather than waiting to see if they appeared at
the door overnight. The woman at the desk seemed unconcerned but eventually
checked the computer and then everywhere else and our request was lost. I was
afraid of that as the drop-off box looks just like the pickup box. She said sometimes
other passengers take them. Ya think? Here’s the thing though, if I picked up
someone completed form by accident I would take it back! Anyway, she waived the
deadline and printed us tickets. I guess Picturesque Porvoo wasn’t a big
seller. That is what we are doing tomorrow. Rain is predicted tomorrow, so I
guess we are just as happy not to be wandering on our own in Helsinki.
So, here we are back onboard Marina and on our way home at
last!
