It was great to have a sea day to catch up on sleep, get in some more gym and Zumba classes and lie about on deck watching the ocean. The ship has been rocking a lot as the waves are up due to the typhoon and they closed off one side of promenade deck this morning just after I’d been there as it was too windy and the waves were splashing up into the deck – it was great fun being out there in weather like that – I really like it but it is a bit risky for anyone unsteady on their feet or elderly. I met a lovely Japanese woman the other day in the elevator who was 90! She had been out all day on a tour and told us she was also feeling a bit tired after a day out and about. I thought I’d show you some photos of the ship today. Here is our room. We have an inside cabin which is quite spacious and comfy.
The wardrobe has plenty of room and makes a bit of a dressing room between
the bathroom and bedroom. This is the bathroom which is a good size. The water is very hot, no safety temperature limits like the motels in Australia and no water savers on the shower so lots of water pressure.
We get our beds made in the morning and turned back in each evening with chocolates left on the pillow. Our bathroom is also tidied and towels changed each morning and evening. 24 hour room service is available but we haven’t used it yet as we prefer going up for meals. I love going up on promenade deck early in the morning on sea days to see the sun come up and get in some walking. Early morning views are fantastic!
Then it’s off to breakfast in the Horizon Court where there is a huge choice of food. The fruit on board is just beautiful so I usually have fresh fruit salad. There is a huge variety of foods to choose from – western, Japanese, Indian, American, hot, cold and fresh! Waiters are everywhere ready to get cups of tea, water or anything else you might think you need. Often then we just go for a walk up on the top decks. The view is just beautiful – the light here is different, very soft and subtle, not harsh and bright as it is at home. The Japanese passengers usually do their morning exercises out and about on deck. There is a 10 minute video in Japanese of morning calisthenics which plays every 20 minutes or so for a about an hour and you just do the exercises if you want up on deck. We saw some workers on a construction site all lined up doing their exercises on the building site the other day. Then Tony goes to the gym and I either go to the gym or a Zumba class. Imagine one very fit South American dance teacher and a room full of uncoordinated middle aged men and women and a lot of very fast Japanese and Brazilian music – most of us aren’t very good at it but it’s a lot of fun and it’s a very good workout. After that I usually meet Tony either at the coffee shop or the ice cream bar. Ice cream in a cone is really popular in Japan. You can buy it everywhere and it tastes much better than Australian ice cream. The guys in the coffee shop are great, but coffee is not as good as Australian coffee.
But, on the other hand, the hot chocolate is better than what we get at home. We usually just sit around and talk and watch the world floating by till lunch time. After lunch we might watch a movie or lie up on deck and listen to an audio book for a while or have a snooze. It’s easy to spend hours just watching the ocean and watching people, doing absolutely nothing.
At dinner time we eat in the Horizon Court again. We didn’t like our visit to the dining room as they have set meal times (ours was 5.30pm) and you have only 15 minutes to arrive and then they shut the doors. It’s too early and it’s annoying as you miss out on sailaways on port days and that time of the evening is a lovely time to be up on the top decks. We have not been back to the dining room after getting in trouble for being late on our first visit. The laid back atmosphere of the buffet and the friendly staff there suits us much better and I can easily get gluten free food there. So that’s a bit of what we spend our time doing on board when we’re not off on a tour. The thing that I like about cruising is you unpack once and you can do as much or as little as you like. There is literally hundreds of things to do or attend, I’ve only mentioned a few here. Tomorrow we are back in Yokahama and off to see The Great Buddha. (it’s been several days since we’ve been able to log on and connection still very poor so posts are about a week late at this stage. We did get told about the typhoon heading towards Japan and due in Yokahama the same day as the ship is due, so our cruise is going to spend an extra day in Aomori and then arrive at Yokahama after the typhoon has passed. – so all is good here )