This morning E and I both decided we couldn’t take it anymore. The cabin has been so doggone noisy since day one. Not noisy as in passengers nearby or creaks and groans, but noisy as in airplane engine noisy. It didn’t matter if we were docked or at sea, day or night, there was this rumbling roar all throughout the cabin. A rumbling roar that had not once let up since we stepped aboard. Makes it almost impossible to sleep, hard to have a conversation, and required us to turn the TV volume way, way up to hear it over the noise. So at 3 AM we were sleep-deprived enough for E to head down to the Piazza for some quiet relief and me to head to the Passenger Services Desk.
Thankfully, the night manager was on duty and accompanied me back to the cabin. She could tell right away the noise was a problem and went off to find where it was coming from. I headed down to the Piazza with E in the meantime. She came down later to let us know she couldn’t find where the problem was, but had a temporary solution. While there wasn’t another cabin in our category to move us to, there was an obstructed oceanview she could temporarily move us to for the rest of the night. I was about to pass, but E was so ready for some sleep we took it. We were issued one blue cabin key to share. (It has been a while since we’ve had a blue cruise card in our hands.) Off we went back to our old room to pick up a few things we needed (pjs, medicine, bottles of water) and headed to our new cabin. Oh my, what a difference. By 4:15 AM we had tucked ourselves into the twin beds in the new cabin and thus began a peaceful sleep.
Until the phone rang in the morning, letting us know they were able to work some magic and if we wanted we could have the cabin for the rest of the voyage. Yes, please! We just needed to let them know when we were ready to move cabins and they’d send someone up. They also let us know we could keep sleeping, if we’d like. Yes, please!
Then we had the cabin steward coming in to service the cabin but was kind enough to let us sleep some more. Yay!
Then was the Captain’s noontime announcement (was it really noon already?) where he spent some time honoring Remembrance Day. The ship had a ceremony yesterday, but many passengers (us included) were off the ship. We’ve been on many ships during Remembrance Day before but this is the first time we’ve had the Captain acknowledge it in a lengthy presentation for all to hear. I’m guessing it has to do with the part of the world the ship is in right now.
The rest of the day involved:
*Learning how to walk on a ship while encountering 70 knot winds. Yep, the 50 knot winds we heard we might encounter actually turned into 70 knot winds. This ship is moving. Not only did I need to work on my balance, I had to help E work on his balance, and dodge all the other passengers trying to work on their balance. All the while trying to make my way to deck 5 to deck 8 to deck 10 and back to deck 8 to deck 6 and back to deck 5 to deck 14 and back to deck 8 back to deck 6 and back to deck 14 and back to deck 8. (I think that was my path for the day.) I don’t know how many steps I had, but it was a lot. For every step I should have taken I probably took an extra one or two is just trying to keep my balance. It took the entire day to:
*Pack up the old cabin and move to the new cabin and re-unpack everything.
*Go back to the Passenger Services desk to get new cabin cards. No sharing a blue temporary one anymore.
*Call room service for the umpteenth time to try and get the mini bar switched out. I don’t know what their delay is but we still haven’t gotten the new one. Thank goodness I had pre-ordered water or we’d really be in a world of hurt for in-cabin beverages. There also appears to be a glitch in the room service phone system. You are put on hold for one minute and when the 60 seconds is up, you are disconnected. So unless someone on their end picks up the phone within the minute you have to hang up and call again. And again. And again. And again.
*Read up on excursions for tomorrow. It was supposed to be a sea day, but since we missed today’s port we have a bonus port instead, Santorini. Woo hoo! It’s a tender port and with 25-30 knot winds expected might not be so fun getting to shore but I’m going forth anyway – on my own – for a little tour. The new excursions weren’t loaded into the system online so I had to make a trek down to the shore excursions desk to get my ticket.
*Go back to Passenger Services desk to turn in our passports. We knew they would need to go to the cabin steward this morning, but our new guy didn’t want them because we hadn’t officially changed cabins yet and our old cabin steward hadn’t even been told we were leaving his section.
*Make another trip down in International Café so E could get some soup in his system. There is where I tried to take a picture of the huge waves out the window but all we could see was sea spray hitting the windows hard. There were a couple times I did see waves towering over the windows, a sight I don’t believe I’ve ever seen before. That would have been an impressive picture.
*Trips to the buffet for green apples and bread for E and then a late lunch for me.
*Cancel our reservations for the specialty dining tonight. There is no way I can get E to get out of bed when the ship is rocking and rolling like it is.
*Sleep, sleep, sleep.
It has been a busy, bumpy, and sometimes relaxing day. We’ve got thunderstorms and lightning throughout the sky again tonight so still no bridge cam TV overnight. Another alarm day it’ll have to be.
Crossing my fingers for smoother sailing, calmer winds, and a great day in Santorini tomorrow.