At Sea & Durban

As I mentioned before, sea days have been pretty uneventful. I am feeling better even if my appetite is nonexistent.  So the thing to do on an uneventful sea day is to make the food interesting — and that’s how I link the first two sentences together in case you were wondering.

Last night, dinner was served family style a la Italiano.  There were massive quantities of appetizers and massive quantities of entrees. Dessert was massive. One thing they didn’t serve, which everyone at our table wanted, was spaghetti and meatballs.  No lasagna either!  Here is the menu:

Entrees

Cherries jubilee 

There were eight of us at our table. Bridge and knitting couples.  I ate very carefully and fortunately no one said anything about how little I had to eat.  This no appetite thing is pretty good right now. I wonder how long it will last. Maybe I can lose a couple of pounds 🤞.

Today we were supposed to dock in Richard’s Bay (South Africa). Due to high seas and winds, we were not able to get into the bay. About 150 passengers were supposed to get off the ship for an overland safari adventure for five days.  There is always a Plan B. We are now going to Durban, but won’t be able to get on the dock until about 3pm. Every passenger will have to do a face-to-face at immigration in the terminal. The travel arrangements for the overland passengers have been changed.  In addition, the rest of us can go on an abbreviated panoramic tour of Durban if we wish.  It’s amazing how fast the shore excursion people can make these changes and arrangements!

The pilot from Richard’s Bay came on board to discuss the weather and docking issues with the captain, and they both decided for safety sake not to do it. But interestingly, this is how the pilot arrives onboard the Neptune:

It is now 5:30 PM and we are now onto Plan C.  Captain just made an announcement that we are not going to be getting into Durban because the wind and water is too rough. So we are now going to try to get to Port Elizabeth. 100+ people were down in the atrium with their suitcases, waiting to get off the ship to go on their overnight excursions. But that isn’t happening.  People who have booked their own private excursions are probably going to be out quite a bit of money since they cannot easily cancel at the last minute; those that booked through the ship most likely will have their money refunded. I think there might be some unhappy people.