Clay Clayton

Chag Pesach Sameach to all who celebrate Passover. We joined some of the Jewish guests onboard for Seder this evening. @drjj (who apparently has been leading the Sabbath services) asked Viking if it was possible to have a Seder and other than putting together the program and leading it, the great staff and crew onboard did the rest. This was Mike’s first Seder ever and my first in at least 45 years so to us it was perfection. Some of course said their Mother’s Matzo Ball soup (failed to take a picture) was better but then shouldn’t it be? 😂 All in all, an enjoyable and educational evening learning about our friends and fellow passengers. Happy Passover everyone! (and yes the two of us WILL be eating bread for the next 8 days-we just went to a dinner-we didn’t convert😂.

Linda won LCR again today-that’s five in a row! of course “Linda” was guaranteed to win today😂 even the crew was Linda! Join us the day after Tenerife at the pool bar after the “Voices of the Sky” concert for our penultimate match.

LOL-don’t think that is the case…..and the lamb chops last night weren’t a special request, but sure glad we got to have them.

OMG, new favorite main dish onboard. The feta crusted rack o’lamb is so so good. Sorry that it’s unlikely it will be offered again before they make us leave on May 6th😢.

Mike had corrected me (after I read your post)-we too tendered the 2nd day.

We have worn our WC jackets once, it was chilly in Cape Town. Other folks wore theirs between Santa Barbara and Hawaii. Google is your friend: https://www.wikihow.com/Play-LCR

So this is the fourth day that a Linda won LCR. The other Linda won $33 today! Join us tomorrow at 3:30 at the pool bar as long as your name isn’t Linda!

On the Aquavit finishing lunch😂 if you mean where is the ship, we are off the coast of Mauritania headed towards Tenerife where we are to dock day after tomorrow.

We got lucky and were able to dock in Longyearbyen so can’t speak from experience on how long the tender would take. But another ship was tendered while we were there and they were relatively close to shore. I can’t imagine it would take any longer than 20 minutes from shell door to pier. Most of the tender time I’ve found is in loading and unloading. We didn’t take the included tour here as it was (as I recall) a bus ride to the center of town and access to the museum. Instead, we booked a glacier excursion with Hurtigurten’s Svalbard directly. That excursion left from the pier next to where we were docked. If you’re leaving on any water based trip, I think they will likely leave from the same location. Later, we took the complimentary shuttle into town and wandered for a bit before walking back to the ship. It is probably less than a mile to the center of town. In Geiranger, we did tender and I think they said to allow 30 minutes for the ride to shore and it was I think less than that. Below is a picture of Saturn anchored behind a HUGE Costa ship that used the floating pier. You can see our tender leaving the pier headed back to our ship. Costa arrived after we did and boy did it change the atmosphere in the little town. It’s one of those ports where they should really only allow one ship a day.

LCR today at 3:30 at the pool bar. Come see if Linda will make it a four-peat! By my calculations she has won close to a hundred bucks…seems like it’s time for someone else to win.

Apparently along with everything else I’ve forgotten how to do over the last four months, counting is one of them. My bad. Thanks for setting me straight!

Amazing breakfast selections aboard Sky this morning. Beautiful and delicious spread of mezze. We didn’t know it was breakfast food but according to our friend Wiki it is! #yummy.

It was not empty. Lots of tourists and seemingly an equal number of roving sellers of beads, statues, fabric, etc. My biggest takeaway was the contrast between the island’s colorfulness and the atrocities committed

He is the guardian on our excursion today. When I showed him your post, he said “oh-the Clarks. Tell them “Cheers!”

Isn’t that a day early? Thought yall were 3 days behind.