Cruising Day 7 - At Sea

Today is our second day of the cruise ‘At Sea’.   This means that we are in the most exciting place to be in the Mediterranean right now, on board The Navigator of the Seas!  Built in 2002, it is one of the most innovative ships around, with features like an ice-skating rink, rock climbing wall, full size basketball court and much more.  What to do?  Nothing?  Or everything that I’ve wanted to do all week but never got around to?

Today we are able to collect our passports.  As I have this dread of handing them over to anyone, knowing that NZ passports particularly are highly sought after by terrorists, I hurry along at the appointed time to retrieve ours, only to arrive an hour early.  Oops!  We passed another time zone and I forgot to change my watch.  An hour later I’m back again and readily receive the valued passports.

Paying for goods and services used onboard is painless if you register your credit card.  I pick up a copy of my account to date to check it off (ever the budgeting mistress).  Our sea card has been able to be used as a credit card throughout the voyage which makes spending effortless.  Only trouble arises when you have to tally up the amount against your credit card limit.  We have kept well within our budget, pre-paying for trips and beverages was a godsend. 

Today is more relaxed and there is time to catch a movie.  Then some reading on the outside deck, sipping a beverage, while I watch Mt Stromboli drift by.  Stromboli is another active volcano and rewards us with a burst of black smoke.

I watch the teenager win the Adult Dodgeball Tournament and receive a medal for being the last man standing.  Nearby at the pool is the sexiest man competition while both towel and napkin folding demonstrations take place indoors.  Ice carving is poolside along with dancing and games.  There is plenty to do, in fact, too much to choose at times.

After all this sun perhaps I should take in the Sun Glow demonstration in the spa or the seminar on Wrinkle Remedies!  There is wine tasting, art auctions, plenty of bingo or gambling and even a jewellery making class. 

I relax and do whatever takes my fancy and cross off a few more things I’ve circled on my programme.  I’ve decided that being at sea can be the best part of a cruise as there are no time restraints or hurrying to get somewhere.  You can take time out and really relax.

Later that night I go to return my two swimming towels that had a 25 euro deposit on them to find the line so long that I don’t bother at that time.   Much later that evening I head to the pool to finish this job to find it all shut up and no-one there so I end up taking them downstairs to the guest desk where a nice man takes them from me without my card.  Needless to say they don’t get credited so next morning when we are about to leave I find a charge for 50 euros for two swimming towels!  Obviously I head down to guest relations to have this charge reversed and hope it is.

At dinner tonight I am joined by a well-dressed teenager who has come to bid our fellow diners farewell.  They are very impressed by his manners!  Dinner tonight is a quiet affair until towards the end when the chefs appear on the stairs accompanied by bad music.  We have a repeat performance of the napkin waving and parading around the dining room.  It turns out the head chef is from little ole NZ!  The teenager departs for parts unknown and is not seen until 6am after some heated texts from me! 

As we sail back towards Italy I am filled with mixed feelings.  I have thoroughly enjoyed my time aboard the ship and the various excursions onto foreign soil.  Yet the thrill of discovering Rome awaits me onshore.