Wednesday, June 19

The Good Ship Prinsendam appeared to be docked in a commercial port this morning, so we were in no hurry to go anywhere.  While Stavanger may be a nice town, there was nothing in sight/walking distance to entice us off the ship.  Thus, we had our first sea day in port.  There will undoubtedly be others.

Having a sea day in port means that we have a leisurely breakfast in the MDR and read and relax until lunch time.  Then we relax some more before having our daily SCAN before supper.  A SCAN is a Senior Citizen Afternoon Nap.  We followed that routine today.  Breakfast was in the MDR; lunch was in the Lido and dinner in the MDR at our new table.  The afternoon featured Albert’s second lecture on the history of the Prinsendam followed by the purchase of hats for our mail carrier [who loves baseball caps] and the neighbor who whisked us to the airport last week.  After dinner, we returned to the cabin rather than subject ourselves to the comedian.

Tomorrow, the ship will be in Alesund.  Will we?

 

Thursday, June 20

In a word, “no.”  From the MDR and Lido windows, we could see the Alesund City Hall; at least, we think the “radhuis” is the city hall since it is similar to the Rathuis in Vienna.  If it isn’t, we will never know.  We could also see a big German cruise ship just behind us.  We have seen the Mein Schiff in other ports on other cruises.  It is an apartment block on water, like most of the newer ships, with no style or elegance to her.  It is ships like this that make us miss the Prinsendam even more.

There were no presentations by Albert today, so we spent the afternoon watching Stan and Ollie in the little movie theater.  It was surprisingly empty – perhaps 20 people in attendance.  We enjoyed the story of Laurel and Hardy’s attempt to make a comeback in 1953, 16 years after their final movie.

We had neighbors at dinner tonight, a couple from Texas.  He was an insurance broker for Northwest Mutual [“our” insurance company] and she was a ditz.  Before leaving the MDR, we had a long conversation with Moko, our dining room steward.  After dinner, D “cashed in” his $25 HAL casino chip at the blackjack table by which he means “lost.”  We played slots for a few minutes but did not really like the choice of machines.  There is no doubt, however, that we will be back in the casino.

Tomorrow will find the ship in Trondheim as well as sailing through the fjords.