Viking Vela In Search of the Northern Lights and British Isles Explorer Cruise Day 18/32 – Channel and Celtic Sea Sailing
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| Meet Constance |
The more we travel, the more we realize how small this blue marble that we call home really is, and the more we have in common with people wherever we go. This is Constance. We met her on this cruise. Talking with Constance, we discovered that she is from Zimbabwe. She used to work at the Stanley Livingstone Boutique Hotel at the Victoria Falls Game Preserve. We stayed at that hotel when we visited Zimbabwe. We showed her a photo of the welcome card that we received in our room. She knew the general manager who had signed that card. She knew exactly which room we stayed in based on our description.
The point of this is that if you make an effort to talk to people and find out about them, you realize how similar we all are. We have shared experiences. We have shared travels. We have shared dreams and aspirations. If we all did just a little more of that, rather than looking for what our differences are, the world would be a better place.
Speaking of similarities and differences, we saw this in the World Café this morning.
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| Coffee cups - so what? |
We saw the same coffee cups that we have seen on every Viking ship we have sailed on. But when we turned them over, we saw this.
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| These two cups came from different manufacturers |
We found it interesting that Viking has two different suppliers who both make exactly the same coffee cup for Viking. It's not a huge thing, but we thought it was an interesting little tidbit for a sea day.
Speaking of sea day, we are off the southwest tip of England, exiting the English Channel to the west and entering the Celtic Sea.
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| We will turn north and head for tomorrow's port, Dublin, Ireland |
It was a sea day, so that meant Baggo - this time, officers versus guests. Beverage Manager Simbarache was already throwing shade in our direction last night. These types of activities really make the officers much more accessible, and the whole ship feels more like a family, albeit a family with heated rivalries. :-)
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| It was a hard-fought battle, but the officers kicked our collective butts today, and Simba delivered the dagger with a 10,000-point bag in the bucket from the top platform - he backed up his trash talk with the goods |
After Baggo, we took part in another photo scavenger hunt.
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| We had to find these 15 items and get 5 selfies with various crew members |
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| We found all the items and got all the required selfies in 25 minutes, coming in first place |
The captain's sea day noon report came with a significant disappointment. Some incoming weather has made Saturday's upcoming visit to Holyhead, Wales, too dangerous to attempt. Therefore, we will skip Wales and arrive a day early in Liverpool, adding an overnight stay. The shore excursion team is working on additional shore excursion options for the early arrival in Liverpool. We're disappointed that we lost the opportunity to visit a new country, albeit not a U.N. member country, but understand that passenger and crew safety have to come first. Kudos to Viking for scrambling with the change. It will be interesting to see what the additional exploration options will be.
Trivia followed the captain's announcement. We partnered up with three nice folks and tied for first with 13/15 correct. Our mistakes:
- What were the color of Dorothy Gale's slippers in the original written version of The Wizard of Oz, not the movie?
- We thought Lewis was just throwing us a red herring by asking about the book, so we said red - in the book, her slippers were silver
- How many U.S. states does the Appalachian Trail pass through?
- We tried to list them and came up with 11 - it was 14
- For the tiebreaker: What is the circumference of the Earth in either miles or kilometers? The closest team would win.
- We guessed 23,900 miles, the other team guessed 25,000 miles - it was 24,901, so we took second
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| Can you see something sticking up on the right? |
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| That looks like a lighthouse |
Because this rock sits in a common area used by ships, it was quite a hazard, so they built the lighthouse to keep seafarers safe.
After lunch had settled, we hit the gym for a little workout. As is typical for us, Arlona hit the cardio on the rowing machine and treadmill, and I pushed the weight on the upper and lower body machines.
After a shower, we hit the Explorers Bar for cocktails before tonight's Explorer's Society gathering. Explorer's Society is Viking's attempt at a cruise passenger loyalty program. These gatherings usually involve performances from the vocalists, a toast from the Travel Consultant, and recognition of the passengers with the most Viking cruises.
We take exception to these events and generally don't attend for the following reasons. First, Viking has no loyalty program. Every other cruise line gives you perks based on how much you have cruised with them. This could be room upgrades, free laundry, free drinks, discounts on things like shore excursions or other onboard purchases, and more. Viking's only concession to previous cruises is that you get a couple of hundred dollars off a new booking. That's it. All onboard benefits and perks have to do with the class of room you booked for this cruise. There really is no loyalty incentive to book with Viking. The only things that get us to continue booking with Viking are the exceptional service and compelling itineraries.
The other thing we take exception to is that Viking only recognizes bookings. The couple recognized as the most prolific cruisers haven't taken a cruise longer than 28 days. We only have eight bookings with Viking, but as of tonight, we're at 336 nights on Viking, more than any other passengers by a long margin. Oh well, we don't cruise for recognition. In the end, we really don't care, but when they make a big deal about their most-cruised passengers based on bookings and ignore those who have actually sailed more, it leaves a bad taste. That's why we usually skip these. Cruise Director Kate made a point of requesting that we attend, as she would be dancing. We attended, and it was a treat in the presentation to see Kate dancing with vocalist Lauchlan.
When the program completed, we went to Manfredi's for dinner. We had another enjoyable dinner, chatting with guests at a neighboring table. We decided to skip dessert at Manfredi's and went up to the World Café for some gelato.
During dinner, Arlona inadvertently dipped a tassel on her blouse in the tomato sauce on her ravioli. She got it out as best she could, but the best way would be the laundry. We got back to the room, Arlona did another rinse of her blouse, and took a load of laundry to the launderette.
While the laundry was in, we watched the recorded port talk about tomorrow's port, Dublin, Ireland. We still haven't received any updates on our revised port schedule, other than we will be docking in Liverpool on Saturday at 10:00 am. That will effectively give us an entire extra day in Liverpool in place of our canceled stop in Holyhead, Wales. We hope to learn more tomorrow.
