Northern Lights 2025

 For the first time in all of our years of cruising, we advanced our clocks to Fort Lauderdale time in error last night as I didn't expect that to happen on the last night of the cruise.  So we missed the Bible study. After breakfast there was a special enrichment program for writers put on by a husband / wife team that wrote the scripts to many of the second version of Disney animated films (think Lion King 2, Shrek 2, etc.).  They've also written books and plays.  Their session was fast paced and informative.  However, since I write so much it seemed pretty basic to me.  But I wish they had been able to start the series at the start of our crossing so they would have had more time. At lunch there was a cake extravaganza.  Here's a few pictures. In the afternoon the Voice of the Ocean program was held and the sole male singer won it with just over 60% of the audience vote.  Angela's Pop Choir then performed in the piazza. We ran into the Emerald ...

 Today was our next to last day at sea and the daily schedule was quite similar to the prior sea days except that not many events were scheduled in the morning due to a muster drill that was optional for passengers but we were encouraged to participate for reasons I'll describe below. After our morning bible study and breakfast the drill was scheduled for 10am.  When the general emergency alarm was sounded, we were to report to our muster stations and await further instructions.  Our muster station was D. (Explorer's Lounge).  By the time I got there after receiving the announcement while walking the outside deck, it was pretty crowded and there were no remaining seats in the lounge.  So Angela and I found seats in the outside hallway.  The reason for our needing to stay there became apparent as they wanted the crew to practice crowd control, demonstrate how to put on life jackets and demonstrate how to walk slowly to the outside "crocodile style" which was...

 Sea days tend to blend together.  There's a rhythm that we fall into that's very comfortable.  Our pace is slower and there's time to read and walk the deck and chat with fellow passengers. After our 8am interdenominational Bible study and breakfast, we attended the Meet the Captain session in the Princess Theater.  It was good and the guests asked good questions.   Immediately following this there was a crew tug of war among the ship departments staff.  After three rounds, the Stateroom staff out pulled the beverage department.  The Stateroom staff also won the best decorated contest.  For their victories, there was some form of cash prize that wasn't specified.  All of this took place on Deck 15 by the forward pool.  It was very sunny and warm, but I found a nice viewpoint on Deck 16 under an overhang. After lunch there was only one activity of interest to me (an enrichment lecture by Jacob on Spanish treasure (really good)) , so I sp...

 Today we literally passed the halfway point at noon when the Officer of the Watch gave the noon PA announcement as to our location.  I found today a much more fulfilling day as there were 3 lectures / events during the day following our customary interdenominational Bible study. First up was the behind the scenes presentation by the 2nd Engineer.  He covered all things below the deck and was proud to declare that they were truly the ones in control of the ship and not the bridge personnel. It was very interesting and he fielded many questions. After lunch, the Bridge 1st and 2nd officers gave their presentation about navigating and how the bridge operates.  It was also very interesting.  Immediately following their presentation, Mark Ruebery gave a fantastic matinee concert featuring rock hits by various artists with particular emphasis on George Harrison.  He covered several artists I had never heard of but their songs were nice. Following my customary wa...

 Today, unfortunately was our last short night as our Seattle Mariners lost game 7 with a score of 4-3.  The Toronto Blue Jays go on to play the LA Dodgers in the World Series.  We came so close, but so far away.  Today was the poorest schedule of the entire voyage.  Apart from the excellent interdenominational bible study, there was literally nothing scheduled all day in terms of enrichment lectures, meet the cast, etc.  Even the evening cast show (Disco: Blame it on the Boogie was a repeat for us of a show that we saw earlier in the cruise and we've seen it on other ships as well.  It was very well attended, however. For the majority of my day, I spent reading and finished my mystery novel and started on another one by the same author.  To get my steps in, I did 4 laps around the 8th floor as the wind really picked up this afternoon.  The temperatures outside have been in the mid 70's, but I don't like walking in the wind or rain.  We ...

 It was another very short night.  The Mariners played starting at 1am our time and unfortunately they lost which forced a final game 7 which will be played tonight starting just after midnight our time.  It's been helpful that we are getting back timezones as the ship sails west.  So when the game hopefully ends around 3am it will actually be 2am our time as the clocks went back at 2am during the game.   We were able to get up for the interdenominational Bible study and it was once again very good.  Afterwards we enjoyed a light breakfast in the LIDO before attending the enrichment lecture at 10am presented by Jacob Marvin.  His topic today was three Atlantic crossings and the myths that they were.  For me there were no further activities of interest for the rest of the day until 2pm when some of the singers and dancers were interviewed by Pauline, our Cruise Director and they took questions from the audience.  What I found most interesting ...

 For a sea day, today was pretty busy for me.  Without a baseball game playing during the middle of the night, I got 6 straight hours of sleep before needing a bio break.  Then another hour until it  time to get up for our 8am interdenominational church service which was held in the aft in Club Fusion.  It wasn't as well attended as the last service we attended and the person who volunteered to lead it was a choir director who did okay leading the songs but there could have been more singing as that's something we tend to have in common.  Preaching wasn't his strong suit and unfortunately nobody else was allowed to speak.  The ship did provide communion ingredients, so we were able to celebrate communion.   Afterwards we ate a quick breakfast before heading to the Princess Theater for a young new lecturer, Jacob Marvin, who spoke on the Islands of the Atlantic with a focus on the Azores and the Canary Islands.  He was a great lecturer who did...

 We once again listened to the Seattle Mariners playoff game.  This game started at 12:08am and was over around 3am.  That allowed us to get 5 hours of sleep before we were awakened by the "Welcome to Funchal" announcement on the PA system.  Since we've been here several times over the years, we were in no hurry to get off of the ship.  Our plan for the day was to ride the Hop On Hop Off Bus (HOHO) and do tourist things afterwards. After finishing breakfast and gathering up our things, we scanned off of the ship and headed to town through the terminal building.  Just outside the building, the HOHO ticket booth was set up and we learned that we could catch the bus here and it would also bring us back to the ship.  The cost was 25€ although we were charged the two day rate of 28€ probably because I said two up front meaning two persons not two days.  I didn't catch it until much later, but for 6€ I wasn't going to worry about it.  We boarded th...

Once again we had a very short night as the Seattle Mariners playoff game started at 2:30am.  Unfortunately we lost and the game was over around 5:30am.  We caught a short nap before the 7am alarm went off to give us enough time to prepare for the 8am Bible study.  After the Bible study we had our customary LIDO marketplace breakfast.  At 10am I attended Franz Schneider's enrichment lecture on Murderous Minds: Psychopathic Killers featuring an analysis of the Hillside Strangler and the Unibomber.  It was interesting and he pointed out the difficulty in finding and convicting criminals with mental issues. As the cruise is coming to a conclusion, I did some research on our post cruise hotel and learned that the Ramada on FL84 we have stayed at the last 5 years or so is no longer a hotel but is now used for low income housing.  So I found an alternative down the street at the Holiday Inn Express which is actually quite a bit closer to the shopping center that ...

 Overnight, our night was both long and short.  It was long because our Seattle Mariners lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in an embarrassing fashion 13-4.  It was short in that we were awake from 2am to 4am (we quit listening around the 7th inning.  It was the 7:30am "Welcome to Vigo" PA port announcement that woke me up.  I showered and got ready for the day while Miss Sleepy Eyes stayed prone under the covers.  Eventually she succumbed to the pressure of getting up.  I headed on up to the LIDO deck for breakfast and joined her in the aft section which I like for its compact selection of breakfast offerings.  Today I departed from my typical fare of Congee and had scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, corned beef hash, and cottage cheese. I washed these down with copious amounts of water and green tea. Yesterday I had scoped out some historical sites that I thought might be worth visiting.  The anchor attraction was the Castelo do Castro (Fort on a hig...