World Cruise Day 64/152 - Sea Day - Messy Malta and Adiós St. Petersburg

Cruise day: 64/152

Ports days: 19
Sea days: 45
Countries: 7
Continents: 3
Ports: 12

We decided to make it a dry morning this morning.  No, we aren't giving up drinking mimosas for breakfast. A pipe burst on deck #b this morning, shutting down the water supply for the entire ship for a while.  I don't know what time it happened, but everything was back up and running by 9:40AM give or take a few minutes.  Things happen.  It's how you respond that makes a difference and Viking does seem to jump on things like this immediately.

It was a mostly sunny/hazy mid-70s day today, but it came with wind - a lot of wind.  And, that makes for rougher seas.  It wasn't bad, but there is a rumor that tomorrow might be a little worse.  We shall see.

Checking email, we found we both had an email from Viking.  Here's the gist...

We are staying on this ship for another two weeks at the end of the World Cruise for the Viking Homelands cruise - Bergen to Stockholm, hence the 152-day duration stated at the top of the post every day.  Well, you might have missed the news, but there seems to be a little party going on in Russia right now that has caused Viking to reconsider the wisdom of the planned two-day stop in St. Petersburg, Russia on that cruise.  No politics here (and any such comments will be deleted), but just a recognition that other things besides COVID can goof up plans for a cruise. And, missing a port on a cruise pales in comparison with what folks over there are dealing with.  You've got to keep some perspective.

We did our usual bridge thing today as well as trivia.  Today's was a little different that started with a photo of all the officers and was then followed by fifteen photos of the officers - as children.  We had to match the photo with the officer.  There were a few other twists, and it was great fun, even though it isn't easy to share here.

Right after lunch, we were summoned to a meeting.  Remember all the hoop-jumping I discussed related to getting a mobility pass so we could visit Chile?  And, remember that nobody ever asked anyone to see all that paperwork?  Well, we're back at it again, this time for Malta.  I think Viking is pulling their collective hair out trying to stay ahead of all these changing requirements that countries keep heaving at them.

The latest?  If a guest received their last shot on or after 11/1/2021, then there is a relatively easy process that Viking can do to get the approval for that guest.  But...if the guest has their last shot (including a booster) before 11/1/2021, then, they have to jump through multiple hoops to get the required approvals to visit Malta.  This doesn't apply to the Aussies, Brits, and a few others that have the required barcode for travel from the European Union already.  Since we were boosted in late October, that means it applies to us.

Viking acquired a set of Pfizer boosters and boosted passengers that wanted to get boosted yesterday while in Mindelo.  Between those passengers and ones that were boosted on/after 11/1/2021, that makes up roughly half of the passengers.  That means roughly 200-250 of us need to use the crappy internet to get our applications completed and the requisite images uploaded.  Viking is approaching this differently, targeting smaller groups of passengers.  Today's test didn't go well with the internet running exceedingly slow today.  They even moved several devices over to their corporate WiFi and that seemed to perform a little better.

I don't envy the crew who will have to step a couple of hundred senior citizens through navigating websites, entering data, uploading images, and capturing screenshots on their smart devices.

Arlona dashed off to art class today and produced her best work today.  The fact that the subject happened to be her favorite flower in the whole world probably figured into her success.

I attended another magic workshop with Greg Moreland and once again, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tonight's dinner featured Mexican, so margaritas were flowing at our table.  

Tonight's main entertainment is dancing under the stars on the pool deck.  Given how much the ship is moving tonight, that might be fun to watch.  It sounds like a low-key night for us tonight and might involve a movie in our room. When we got to our room, we had a note saying that we're losing another hour tonight, so an early night is a good thing.  We go to UTC +0 or Greenwich Mean Time - five hours ahead of the US east coast tonight.  That will only be good for a few days as we'll continue to lose hours as we head into the Mediterranean. 

Two more sea days until we arrive at Maderia (Funchal), Portugal - still on the African tectonic plate and autonomous under the Portuguese constitution.