Livorno – First Day

We are woken to the thrusters kicking in.  We are all the way forward on Baja deck and I know that forward and aft you can really feel the thrusters as we felt them aft in Club Fusion yesterday when we left and this morning we feel them when we arrive.  Not sure how mid ship is like.

I am up and showered and attending the Speedy Sudoko and I won, but there were only a handful playing so the odds were good.  Apparently there will be a Speedy Sudoko each port day as per Alex of the Cruise Staff.

It is a Sunday and we know that not everything will be open in town.  We know we don’t want to go to Florence because we spend five days there before.  We are not interested in Pisa again.  But we do love Livorno and it is close by and we need to pick some things up. 

But I don’t want to go ashore.  I am tired – more mentally tired than physically.  Those days touring around London and Rome did me in!  I have no interest today in boarding a bus, then walking around then coming back.  I also feel the need to focus on a port lecture.  It has been a week and I miss it. 

So today I pulled up a spot in Adagio from 10 to noon and worked on Trinidad.  Bernie came and found me shortly after noon and we went up to Horizon Court for a lunch.  I do miss the lovely World Fresh Marketplace from the Caribbean but hey this is pretty darn good too.

Around 1 pm I am back in the cabin with a cup of tea and focusing again on the lectures until 5 pm.

I should add that the ship also uses the new coffee cards that are loaded onto your cruise card.  We were gifted two coffee cards to use and we are using those up.  No old paper coffee cards will be valid after December 31^st.  I am okay with that, things change and it is handier to have it loaded on the card; however I hate that I don’t know how many punches are left.  Perhaps they could add it to your account online the option to see how many coffee drinks you have left.

Bernie is walking the Promenade and I catch up with him and tell him that I am heading to the Elite Lounge for a drink.  He showers and meets me there.

I am impressed to see some officers here in the Elite Lounge making the rounds.  Hotel General Manager, Andreas is here, along with Sandra F&B, and Lidia Bar Manager.  No sign of the Captain Circle Host though, but I do believe she is ill.

There are quite a few recognizable faces on board that are high number sailors.  Lots of nice people and quite a few demanding people too.  But lets focus on the nice people.

The staff shine – and having to deal with a few of those demanding passengers takes a lot of patience and they do well. 

We have run into quite a few crew friends.  Nice to see Amel in Vines again, and Adonis is here too but he is up in Adagio.  William is serving in Wheelhouse and Jazz who we have not see for a long time is in Crooners – Happy Happy.

For supper we don’t really want to change so we stay casual and head up to the Horizon Court for supper.  It is nice, not crazy and lots of nice selections.  It is Italian night and I love the two statues of the Leaning Tower of Pisa – one is of ice and I giggle saying “hey you don’t have to go to Pisa we could of just taken a picture here”.

We end going to Explorers and this is where we stayed.  We participated in Jeopardy type game along with a lovely couple for Chatham Ontario.  We stayed for the Yes No Game Show where I participated and lasted 1.5 minutes. 

Then it was the Logo Trivia and hey we won – but it was a bottle of champagne so we ended up giving it away.

Karin and John are on too – in fact Karin booked us on this cruise and so we ended up chatting and catching up with each other until well after the place closed.