Loose ends

It seems that the closer we get to home the less I blog about and always forget to tie up the loose ends. So this will be my loose end tie up from our latest adventure these past 6 weeks.


First of all we had talked amongst ourselves that we felt the Captain on this ship was a chicken. Rumors started to swirl that his nickname was Captain Crash Nash. Not wanting to ruin someone’s career by passing that information along we kept it to ourselves. Well this morning at breakfast the truth came out from another passenger. She said that our Captain has indeed had 3 accidents and JUST RETURNED after a 6 month restriction. (Last year he missed Iceland and St. John’s also). I guess he was also going to skip Greenland but they brought onboard the Ice Pilot from Greenland so there wouldn’t be a mutiny onboard the Crown Princess. So his not wanting to have another accident combined with tricky weather has made a lot of very, very unhappy passengers. I guess we aren’t the only ones.

But on to happier things…We always learn a lot about ourselves when we travel. I have certainly learned how to travel light. It makes it so much easier when we are loading ourselves onto the trains, or subways, or walking to our hotel over cobbled streets. And then I usually get rid of a couple of items of clothing that I no longer care to wear thus allowing me to purchase new clothes when I get home. It also leaves souvenir space in my suitcase! I think that is really a smart move on my part.

I think we have decided that both Jim and I have a hard time with long cruises that involve many continuous days at sea. As much as we like sleeping away our jet lag and change of time zones on a cruise ship, there comes a time when all the food looks and tastes alike, all the shows on our TV are repeated and we really, really miss our family and friends and the ability to pick up the phone and talk to them regularly.

This trip was especially hard on me. We got our new home in Chandler 10 days before we left. In those 10 days we tore it all apart (removed all flooring, kitchen, some walls and the UGLY tree in the front) and then left it into the capable hands of Chad and Kimber. We know we have lots and lots to do when we get home and are anxious to start getting it ready to put together. I feel very un-nested and am anxious to bond with our new home.

Thankfully we did this cruise with our friends we met 2 years ago on the MS Eurodam, the Nettlehorst’s (Ralph, is that correct?) and the Ferrell’s. Okay we have now figured out why Ralph and Bobbie are so great at trivia. As we talked about going through all the mail that has stacked up in our absence Ralph says not only does he have to go through his mail but he has all his daily newspapers saved too!!!!

I think he is the only person I know of who saves all his newspapers while he is gone so he can read them on his return! That is at least 32 newspapers he has to read. That is a lot of trivia and news he has to catch up on! Wow!!!! Bobbie, his wife, has been so fun to travel with too. She always has a smile on her face and no matter how down I am she has a way of brightening the day.

Alice and Bobby Ferrell are real troopers too. Though they are a little older than us I think we retire to our rooms earlier than they do! Alice goes and goes and goes. She is up at the crack of dawn raring to go for the day. Bobby goes right along with her. A funny story about Bobby, her husband. He had signed up for a shore excursion in St. John’s but woke up and wasn’t feeling too well. The policy to get your money back for these shore excursions is that you have to go to the ships doctor and if he/she deems you too sick to go on the excursion you get your money refunded. Well when he told the doc he just wasn’t feeling great, she asked him what was wrong. I won’t go into the details but his answer brought immediate quarantine to him for the day! He was sent to his stateroom, told he wasn’t to leave, they would call to make sure he was in his room or he could face being let off the ship (oh really, where in New York????). Then we noticed that they brought in the haz mat team to clean his room. He was fine today and they let him out of quarantine! Of course the doctor visit was probably more than the shore excursion! We are looking forward to visiting both of them in Virginia sometime in the future!

We look forward to our return tomorrow to New York and our final destination—home! Speaking of our home we are going to blog about the changes and the remodel of our new home. Great idea Ralph!

Thanks for reading and being a part of our life. Stay tuned to our next adventure….. Print this post