Live (sort of as usual) from the Celebrity Silhouette 10/20/22

[abbydancer2003]

Internet has been down all morning.  (Cruise director said to get paper schedules).  It's finally up, but I don't know for how long.  I may post the rest of this from my hotel before my next cruise (next Saturday), but I will finish!!!!

[Moonarino]

18 minutes ago, abbydancer said:

Internet has been down all morning.  (Cruise director said to get paper schedules).  It's finally up, but I don't know for how long.  I may post the rest of this from my hotel before my next cruise (next Saturday), but I will finish!!!!

 

Internet down, hope that doesn't happen often. Nice to read "paper schedules" because (while sympathetic with saving paper) I missed some things on my last cruise (not on X) because there were no paper schedules and a mystery as to where certain info could be found. Anyway, following with "baited breath" as we're one the Nov 7th out of Miami and can't wait to board and explore Silhouette-renovated. Thanks for taking the time!

[jagoffee]

I thought you did not need the internet to use the AP for all the schedules.  

[jwlane]

8 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

did not need the internet  

They probably mean "WiFi".

[jagoffee]

Just now, jwlane said:

They probably mean "WiFi".

I have been lucky.  I have experienced terrible internet at times, I have always had WiFi.  

[Moonarino]

38 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

I have been lucky.  I have experienced terrible internet at times, I have always had WiFi.  

My experience too, never a problem connecting to WiFi (that I can remember) but then sometimes waiting minutes just to connect to email. That could just be a congestion problem somewhere in stream, as opposed to a total loss of Internet connectivity, but which could also affect app performance . . . . . I guess sometimes we just don't know/can't tell for sure.

[Jim_Iain]

Checked out the sea conditions.  There’s an app lots of crew used called windy.  
 

Looks like you got out right before 
 

Current wave height
 

 

and Current Wind

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by Jim_Iain

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette Day 2

 

As we usually do on sea days, we got up for breakfast.  We were seated in the back with the same server we had before.  I think I had bacon and eggs.

 

After breakfast, we wandered around, and then we went to the second cruise critic meetup.  This was better attended, and everyone took the name tags that Lu Ann had brought.  It was great meeting  more of the people on the ship.  I also connected with Beth, the person who would be with us in Lisbon.

 

After that, we first visited the new ILounge.  Because they had added inside rooms on deck 8 and 6, it’s been moved to a hallway.  The display case had almost nothing but cases.  Not so good.

 

Then we headed to lunch.  I explained my butterflied Luminae burger - I have them cut it in half horizontally because the base burger is too thick for me.  It took a few minutes, but they got the idea (first they thought I wanted it split after cooking, but it was before).  

 

The ship, at this point was rocking and rolling, and waves were breaking against the windows (not breaking the windows).  I tried to capture that.

 

 

At that point, not looking good for Lisbon, but we’ll see.

 

After lunch, we relaxed.  I went out of the room and found Lu Ann in the hall, looking for somewhere to play Mah Jong.  We first went to Guest Services to see if they had any sets.  One of the crew members checked for us, but no.  I did bring mine, though.  She said that we should contact the food and beverage department.  I suggested we ask the retreat staff to do that for us. So we went in and they, of course, said they would.  Lu stayed to read, and I went back to the room for a bit.

 

At 4pm it was time for trivia!  So I left Glen resting (he likes to do that) and went up to the Sky Lounge for trivia with a cruise critic group.  Turns out it’s progressive, so I know where I’ll be every sea day afternoon.  There were 5 of us - me, Lu, Susan and our lead is the “other Abbe”.  We did OK.  

 

After trivia, I went back to the room to dress for dinner, and then we went down to listen to music and go to the lounge.  We decided to attend the 7:00 show by Jane Curry.  She’s well known on the cruise circuit, but I’ve never seen her.  The show started with a short video of Mike the cruise director talking to Captain George about the weather.  Apparently we’re threading a needle between two storms to get to Lisbon.  It was interesting, and we’ve never seen anything like that.  

 

The show was entertaining.  She does singing and storytelling, and it was a lot of fun.  

 

After that, we went to Luminae for dinner.  Susan & Lu had got to the early show, so had just sat down.  They moved our table together with theirs and we had a nice dinner.  

 

When we came out the party band (the kickstareters) was playing so we danced a couple and went to bed.  Tomorrow is our second of 10 sea days.  (Was 9 when we first booked).

 

 

 

[raudacruise]

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this review.  I’ll be on Silhouette in January.

 

Just seeing the picture of waves hitting the window made me a bit nauseous.  I always travel with two Relief Bands (one is a backup) and Bonnie.  

[cazzi]

Were sailing next month enjoying your review thus far   Have fun

[raudacruise]

18 hours ago, raudacruise said:

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this review.  I’ll be on Silhouette in January.

 

Just seeing the picture of waves hitting the window made me a bit nauseous.  I always travel with two Relief Bands (one is a backup) and Bonnie.  

Not Bonnie, Bonine.  Good ole Spell Check. 

[abbydancer2003]

Hi

 

So while on the Discovery Princess, I was able to do one update.  Then I couldn't log into cruise critic at all, due to the internet.

 

I'm at the airport now, and will organize some of my pictures and finish this when I get home tonight and over the next few days. 

 

I haven't abandoned you all!!!!

[GRBlizz]

Great review so far, Abby! We enjoyed our lunch with you very much. I can echo that the internet was literally unusable for most of the crossing. Fortunately Silhouette was beautiful and the staff and other passengers were delightful. You'll probably report this, but we learned from our porter in Miami that almost exactly half of the passengers were non-US citizens. This made it such a more interesting experience for us, as we made several UK friends.

[Straughn]

Hi Abby!

I doubt that  you recognize my screen name. You and Glen know me as Pat, the solo lady, with whom you dined, spent time in the Retreat Lounge, and went to the theatre with on numerous occasions. I am enjoying your recap of the cruise. Love your writing style as you have a slightly humorous approach to things. Please keep the posts coming as I like your prospective on the cruise.

[upwarduk]

6 hours ago, GRBlizz said:

. I can echo that the internet was literally unusable for most of the crossing.

I’ve found in the past that internet is poor to useless in the Atlantic.

There was a notice in the iLounge on Infinity (2013) saying that it was the position of the Satellite. It was useless too on a crossing to Canada on Azamara Quest in 2016.

We were on a Mediterranean cruise in August 2022, where we were both in the Mediterranean and Atlantic . Much, much better in the Mediterranean.

[abbydancer2003]

Hi,

 

I have not, contrary to rumor, fallen off the planet.  After 3 days at home after my cruises I headed to San Diego for my Koman 3-day and am finally back from my Trip-a-palooza.  The 3-day pretty much consisted of getting up at 5am, driving a van around all day, back to the hotel around 8pm, shower and bed.  So barely booted the computer.  And I still haven't cleared my email from when the internet got bad on the Silhouette.

 

So I will try to finish this in the next week or so.  Here's your next post:

 

Silhouette Day 3

 

Once again we got up at 8 for breakfast.  We made it with plenty of time to spare.  We were seated toward the back of the back room, so thought we wouldn’t have our regular team, but we did.  I had French toast with bacon, and Glen had the waffle.  I’m sure I’ll have it again, and may remember to take a picture.

 

After breakfast, we didn’t have plans, so we went to the retreat lounge for more coffee.  Our friends Lu Ann and Susan were there, so I talked to them for while.  Glen in the meantime, went up to the room to nap.

 

Eventually, they left to go shopping, and I noticed Ann and Ross, the people who gave us that wonderful tour of Vancouver in July there, along with some others in their group.  So I chatted with them a while, and discovered that one of the younger people in the group loves Harry Potter too.  She told me there was Harry Potter trivia at 11:45. (How did I miss that?)

 

So at 11:30 I went back to the room and found Glen upgrading his old Mac laptop to a Linux machine to run some software apps he wants to play with.  I told him we were going to HP trivia, so he let the laptop continue and we left.

 

We got there just as they were doing question 1.  We sat with a couple of people on their own, but they were mostly gathering the questions for their grandkids.  For just two doing it we did pretty well, we got 16 of 18 - missing only where is the Hufflepuff common room, and which dragon Harry fought in the Triwizard tournament.    Not bad.  She said there would be a second one later in the cruise, and I’m wondering if I have time to read all 7 books before then.  (I’m really, really tempted to try).  

 

After that we went to lunch, and were among the last there.  I started with the bib lettuce salad, which was so good I would ask for it off menu, and the potato leek ravioli with morel mushroom and English peas.  For dessert, I had the poached pear.

 

 

 

After lunch, we headed to the ocean to play Catan with Arie and Cheryl from Cruise critic.  They set up a variant called Sea Farers.  It was new to us, and we hadn’t played in a couple of years, so we did a quick review as we played.  At at 3:43 we had to leave because it was round 2 of progressive trivia.  We got there a few minutes late, but it was good that I brought Glen, because it was a lot of science questions, and he was very helpful.  We got 12 of 15, although we disagree with one.  Abbe, who is kind of the captain of our team, said when she went up to give them our scoresheet someone was arguing the same thing.

 

We talked to her for a few minutes and then headed back to the room.  I then decided to call the people with whom I was doing tours with.  I’d met Beth  who we were doing Lisbon with (we’d booked a Shore Excursion group tour separately), but are planning to. cab over together, at the CC gathering, but I hadn’t met the other couple on my Madeira tour.  I went to my spreadsheet, and realized I didn’t have room numbers for them.  I knew Beth’s last name from her email, but not the other - however, when I started to email, it had their last name. 

 

So I could call their rooms.  I realized the phone didn’t have a guest services or retreat concierge number.  But I did find a paper with the concierge number, so I called and she was able to connected me.  I set up meeting tomorrow morning, and meeting at the Martini bar Monday evening for the Madeira people.  They also gave me their room number.

 

Then I worked on this, and my class.  

 

Around 6:30, we got dressed for our formal night.  We headed downstairs, and there wasn’t good dance music in the atrium, so we headed to the lounge and ran into some cruise critic people.  We chatted with them for a while, and then decided to go to the Broadway show.  They’re always interesting in that you never know what you’re going to get, and often the songs are from older or obscure musicals.

 

We got there around 6:55, and the butler’s were still seating people.  Lijo brought us in and we were about to sit in the empty first row, but Patricia, one of our CC friends, was in row 2, so we sat with her. 

 

The show was, as usual, so-so.  They did do some songs from shows I’d seen, including “The Room Where it Happens” from Hamilton, and of course “Memories” from Cats.  They finished with a medley from Les Mis.  Overall, OK.

 

Patricia decided to join us for dinner,   We headed down to Luminae, and there were a lot of people in the lobby waiting, so we decided to go to the passport bar.  No tables, so we decided to go to the lounge.  We asked the concierges to call the restaurant and let us know when a table would be ready.

 

That occurred around 8:30.  We headed down, and were seated quickly. I think the staff felt bad that we didn’t come in earlier, but it was fine.

 

For dinner I started with the Steak Tartar, and then had the steak diane.  Midway through, I remembered that I should take a picture, so I did.  Here’s the last part of my Steak Diane with Hassleback potatoes, and haricot vert (ie string beans):

 

Obviously, I remembered to take the picture towards the end of the meal.  At least I remembered, so maybe that's progress.

 

For dessert, I had the mascarpone  cheesecake.  We talked for quite a while after dinner, and around 11 went to the room and to bed.

 

Tomorrow, we do go to Lisbon!

[abbydancer2003]

On 11/16/2022 at 6:51 PM, Straughn said:

Hi Abby!

I doubt that  you recognize my screen name. You and Glen know me as Pat, the solo lady, with whom you dined, spent time in the Retreat Lounge, and went to the theatre with on numerous occasions. I am enjoying your recap of the cruise. Love your writing style as you have a slightly humorous approach to things. Please keep the posts coming as I like your prospective on the cruise.

Of course I recognized your screen name!

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette Day 4

 

We woke up and opened our curtains to an interesting site.  Crossing the entrance to the harbor of Lisbon was an orange/gold bridge, spanning the city on one side, and hills on the other.  My first thought was “how nice of Celebrity to drive us home”.  

 

Welcome to Lisbon.  We were meeting Beth (a fellow CCer) in the Passport bar around 9:15.  We’d gone through a tour provider and booked a walking tour of Lisbon that included a pastry tasting and a wine tasting.  The tour started in town, and the ticket suggested a 10 minute cab ride or a short metro ride.  We’d decided to take a cab.  

 

We went down to breakfast around 8:45 and had a light breakfast.  I just had a bagel and cream cheese, so we were on time to meet her at 9;15.  

 

From the passport bar, we went to the gangway, and headed to the terminal.  We did see some luggage in the terminal, which seemed a bit strange, since there was more than you’d think for some crew changeover.

 

We then followed the sign to the taxis.  When we got there, there was only one cab there, and it was loading people with luggage.  In addition, there were about 10 people waiting ahead of us.  There are 3 ships in port, and one is the Seabourne Sojourn.  It likes like a turn around day for them.

 

Since the cruise director said it was walkable and a 20 minute walk, I brought up google maps and we we walked.  

 

We waked along a cobblestoned street with shops, parklets (US term for street seating popularized during Covid) and occasional cars.  It really was an easy walk, and we soon arrived at the square we were to meet at, and found our guides.  There were two groups, and Beth was in a different group than us, so we asked them to change that.  They were happy to accommodate, and we soon set off with our guide Sofia.  We first walked across the square to a memorial for a massacre of Jews in the 16th century.  Apparently they were in Portugal after being thrown out of Spain for the inquisition, but massacred when a Portuguese royal was set to marry a Spanish royal.  

 

 

From there, we started heading up a hill.  She gave us some history, and then we headed back down to the shopping street and stopped at a bakery where Soffa gave us some of the national egg tart called pastel de nada.  It is a sweet egg tart that you top with cinnamon and/or powdered sugar.  It is delicious.  We decided not to purchase any to take with us (as Glen said, we’d just eat them).

 

From there, we used a series of elevators to get to the to top of the town.  There’s one elevator that everyone uses, but it has a long queue, so we used a shorter one and then one in a grocery store.  Glen and a few others decided to walk up on the grocery one. We wandered out on the platform at the top of the main elevator for great views of the city.

 

 

 

Following that  we headed to a bar for a wine tasting.  On the way, I learned how you say Whopper in Portuguese.

 

 

At the bar we were seated a a long table with bread, cheese (brie consistency) and procuuto.  We were then brought pitchers of red and white wine.  I’m not sure what it was, but it was very nice.

 

After that, Sofia walked us to near the port, and said her goodbyes.  It was a short walk to the ship and we were able to confirm that Seabourne was indeed on a turn around, since there was a luggage drop and check in in the port.

 

Once on the ship, we headed up to the buffet for some lunch.  They had a Portuguese beef stew that was quite good.  I had that, and some salad, as I usually do.

 

Following that, we were invited to the helipad for sailaway.  We went to the deck 6 forward elevator, and waited.  As we walked forward, people ahead of came back down saying it was cancelled, since it was raining.  So we went up a few decks to the Retreat Sundeck to watch.  We noticed people starting to populate the helipad, so we went back down and jointed them.  

 

On the tour, we’d learned that the bridge looks like the Golden Gate because it was designed by the same company.  Here’s what it looks like from the helipad.

 

 

After the helipad, we went back to the room, I worked on blog and class (story of my life) and the dressed for dinner.  

 

We got a call from Lu and Susan that they wanted to cancel or postpone dinner in the Lawn club, because of the cold.  We said OK, and we’d come down to the lounge to reschedule.  Before we did, we went to the Lawn Club, and determined that while it wouldn’t be cold, it could be windy.  So we went to the lounge, met them there, and rebooked for Day 10.  We’d originally booked Murano for that, so asked the concierges to get us in as soon as they could.

 

They were able to accomodate us on day 7, Madeira.  After the lounge we did a bit of dancing and then dinner.  I ended up ordering beef bourgenion from the main dining.  Here’s a picture.

 

——  picture of beef

 

Then back to room and eventually bed.  Tomorrow is sea day 3.

 

 

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette Day 5

 

This is day 5, and our sea day between ports.  We did get up in time for breakfast, so we went.  I think this was the meal, as we closed out the dining room, Laurance said “leaving already?”  She’s great (Maitre’d). 

Here’s a picture most of you have seen before.  The breakfast menu:

 

Glen decided to go to the gym after breakfast I went to the room and worked on the blog and my class.  

 

After that lunch.  I took a couple of pictures.  First, my risotto entree (butternut squash) and my dessert - key lime pie (a favorite) from main dining (between July and August the Eclipse changed their dessert menu to one choice besides ice cream so I couldn’t get it in August).

 

 

Glen had the olive oil cremeux for dessert and pronounced it very good.

 

After lunch, we were meeting our new game friends.  The issue around that is that we finish lunch between 2 and 2:30, and have Progressive trivia around 3:45 or 4.  So today, we brought Splendor, which plays a little faster.  Both Arie and Cheryl seemed to enjoy it.  We chatted with them for a while.

 

After that, it was time for trivia.  We joined our trivia team for progressive trivia. Today was another general knowledge, and hard.  We did only OK.

 

At 5pm we were planning to meet Linda & Pete, the people we were doing the Madeira tour with.   I went down while Glen headed up to the room to change for dinner.  At about 5:15 he came down and said there was a message that someone was sick, and Madeira was looking not good.  So I went back to the room and and called.  No answer, so I changed and we went back down and danced for a bit.  While we were going, a message from Pete telling us we could take someone else on the tour on Wednesday, but would cover their cost if we couldn’t.

 

Next up was the officer party in the retreat lounge.  It was very crowded when we got there, so we took two of the two seats and talked to a very nice couple from Chicago.  We met the hotel manager and the destination manager and that was it.  Never did meet the captain.  Oh well.

 

After that, we went back to the room since the band in the atrium wasn’t danceable, and then went to dinner.  

 

And I remembered to take pictures!

 

I started with the corn soup, without pancetta:

 

 

Glen had the pear and radicchio salad

 

For entrees, he had the vegetable lasagne, which he was was bland until he added sriracha sauce, and I had pork tenderloin with mustard sauce which wasn’t.

 

 

For dessert, Glen chose the Chocolate Sphere, a Luminae event.  He said the presentation was better than the taste.

 

 

After dinner we walked the upper decks for a little while.  Then back to the room for good.  Tomorrow is Tenerife.

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 6

 

We are in Tenerife today.  Because it’s our earliest tour (meet past the port entrance by 8:25), we ordered coffee, juice and pastries from our butler.  We enjoyed those while getting dressed, and watching the ship back in to our berth.

 

 

We headed off the ship about 8:10.  It was a about a 10-15 minute walk to the end of the pier, because we were behind another ship,.  It was Discovery of the Sea from Saga, who I’ve never heard of.  We arrived at the area where our guide (Liz) was waiting, along with other guides.  Cruise Critic had two buses of people.  Apparently each bus was missing one couple so they waited, even though the documentation sent to us said they wouldn’t.  The guides we continually on the phone.  And we waited.  People were getting a little annoyed, as it did say 8:30 was immutable.  Finally, around 9, we started walking through the parking lot, over a bridge and across the street to our bus.  Finally around 9:05 we boarded.  

 

We headed to the National Park.  Liz, our guide told us it would take about an hour and a half to get to Teide National park, On the way, we’d stop a couple of times, once for view and once for a break at a restaurant with restrooms.

 

First stop was a view point down to the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where the ship is docked.

 

 

At this viewpoint, we realized we had a slight problem.  We’d looked at the weather on our phones and it indicated it was 74 degrees.  That was in town.  Up in the hills, it was cold.  And we hadn’t brought jackets.  

 

Next stop was a restaurant called Pappillion.  We all piled out and mostly got in line for what appeared to be two completely separate stall restrooms.  My thought was that we’d be here a long time if we had two wait for a couple of buses of people to use them.  

 

We were towards the front of the line, and once we got through we headed inside.  I did see inside they had 3 stall restrooms for each gender, so I poked my head out to tell the people in line that.  We then sat at a table to order drinks.  We sat with another couple on our tour.  He did offer to lend me his windbreaker, and I gratefully accepted.  I had a latte, but Glen ordered the Barraquito, which is apparently the national coffee drink of Tenerife.  It’s a coffee drink made with coffee, milk and the national coffee liquor.  He liked it.

 

After our break, we headed to the Park.  We arrived soon after, and were given some time to explore.

It’s a caldera of a volcano and the landscape looks more like a moonscape.    See pictures below:

 

 

 

After our tine there, (Thanks, Bennett for the jacket), we got back on the bus and headed back to the bus to head back to civilization).

 

On the way back we stopped at an interesting geological formation called “the cake” because it very clearly showed layers of geological events.

 

 

We next arrived at our final stop - the town of Laguna, that featured a nice old town.  Liz said we had about an hour and twenty minutes,  She spent the first twenty giving us a tour.  We started with a government building featuring the flags of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain and the EU.

— picture of building —

 

From there, we visited an old Spanish home.  It was an excellent example of the enclosed courtyard and the tile work that Spain is known for.

 

She also told us about the convents that had been there, and still were, and we finished the guided part at the Cathedral.  

 

We then had an hour to wander around.  We walked up to one of the old towers, and found a nice restaurant to have coffee and cookies (also had a restroom).  Here are our half eaten cookies.

 

 

After that we wandered around, and found this:

 

 

There are two of these ‘day of the dead’ sculls, apparently presented by the Mexican consulate in Tenerife.  This was the more colorful of the two.

 

 

At the appointed time we headed back to the square, and walked around that.  We did notice they were already putting up xmas decorations.

 

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day:

 

It shows the flags of Tenerife, the Canary Islands, Spain and the EU.

 

We joined the rest of our group and got back on the bus.  Liz took us to back to Santa Cruz, and dropped us at the far side of the port entrance building.  We walked back to the ship.  

 

When we got back to the room, there was a message from the people we were supposed to go with tomorrow.  She was “1000 percent better” and would go.  We’d secured a back up couple, so I called them, and they didn’t want to go that badly, so I called first person (Linda) back, and said we’re back on.  We agreed to meet at the martini bar tonight at 7:30.

 

We decided to go for tea in the retreat lounge for a late lunch.  We ran in to Ann and Ross, and their friend Russ, so we joined them and chatted for a while.

 

They go to dinner earlier than we do, so when they left we went upstairs, got dressed for dinner and spent a lovely hour chatting with Linda.  They have late seating so we went to dinner about when they did.  We agreed to meet on deck 3 at 8:45.

 

We really enjoyed our day in Tenerife, and I’d go back.

 

[abbydancer2003]

Silhouette day 7

 

Today, we’re at our final port (midpoint of the cruise), Madeira.  As mentioned previously, we were meeting at 8:45 in the Passport bar.  

 

We got up around 7:30 got dressed, gathered our stuff and went to breakfast. 

 

Like yesterday, we backed into our berth and the sun wasn’t quite up yet.  One note on both these ports - we’re in the back berth.  I think it’s because the itinerary was completely changed when we dropped Bermuda, so a late addition.

 

We had a light breakfast, and I had the staff give me ice for my water bottle.   I think I had a bagel.

 

I arrived at the bar at 8:45, and Glen when off to use the restroom.  No one there.  No worries, a few minutes later Linda and Pete came out, apologizing for the late elevator.  No problem, and Glen showed up a few minutes later.  We headed out and were off the ship by 8:55.  Of course we were the whole tour, so the guide wouldn’t leave without us.

 

We headed out and walked through the terminal.  Once outside, we quickly located our guide, Edgar.  We introduced ourselves, and hopped into his jeep.  He gave us an overview of our trip - we’d start at a fishing village, then see Madeira as we drove to the sea platform, and a final stop at a bar to try the national drink, poncho.  After that we’ll off road a bit, and head to another vista point, maybe.  It will finish with a drive through town.  Because we have a 4:30 all aboard, dropping us in town wasn’t a good option.

 

We headed off.  Glen noted that there was some traffic.  

 

We soon arrived at the fishing village of Churchill Bay.   Apparently, Churchill visited Madeira.

 

We soon arrived and Edgar parked.  Next to the parking lot there were, of course, fishing boats.

 

On the left of the area where we were, the land went up to some houses and hotels.  To the right, was a flat route to the water. 

 

 We chose that one.  On the way we found this on the wall

 

 We walked to the end and saw this spectacular view.

 

 

We walked back along a parallel street.  Linda and Pete went into a store to find gifts for their grandchildren.  I found these festive trash cans.

 

 

We then drove to a couple of visit points and looked at the island. They grow almost every crop here, including, of course wine grapes.

 

 

Next stop was the sky walk, which is similar to the Sky walk on the Royal class princess ships.However, it’s over 1800  (I think ) feet above the sea.

 

By the time we got there, it was pretty overcast, but I think you can see the water below in the picture, taken while holding my phone over the edge.  (Also wrapped around my neck.

 

There’s also a picture of the sign.

 

 

 

Next we we stopped at the gift shop.  I noticed they had honey cakes, and I was reminded it was a Madeira specialty.  I asked Edgar about it and he said not buy them there.  He told me that there was a mini mart next to the bar, and he would take me there for the best ones in Madeira.  He showed me a picture, and told me that we could keep them for a year.  Sounds good.

 

Glen, Pete and Linda came back and we headed to the bar, with Edgar pointing out interesting plants and the wine terraces as we drove.  We arrived at a bar.  Edgar said it was one of his favorite.  We had the favorite drink of Madeira, Poncha.  It’s made with rum, honey, rum, sugar, rum, fruit juice, rum.  It was OK.  Glen and Pete liked it more than I did but I’m marginal on heavy alcohol drinks.  

A few minutes after we arrived, a group from a ship tour pulled it.  We couldn’t see outside, so we thought it must have been two big buses.  Nope, turns out a lot of bigger (8-10) person jeeps.  The bar got very crowded and we were glad we ordered before they got there (I believe that Edgar knew that).  After we finished, Edgar told me that the mini mart next door had opened for us.  So he took me over there, and pointed out the brand of honey cake we should buy.  He also told us that with proper storage (in wax paper maybe?) it would last a year.  I also found some cookies that looked good.  I looked at some of the small bottles of Poncha, but Edgar said not good.

 

Following that we drove off road to another viewpoint, but it was socked in fog, so we continued on.  We headed back to town, and saw where the farmers market was, and the cable car.  Edgar took us to the terminal entrance,   We paid him, and said goodbye.  It was a very good tour, and I’d recommend them to everyone.

 

Then the fun started.  We went through security, and Glen announced he’d lost his phone.  He thought maybe he’d left in the van.  I realized that Nico had given me Edgar's phone number in what’sapp.  I gave my phone to Glen and he talked to Edgar.  Edgar said he’d come back to the port area, but couldn’t get back in.  

 

We were talking about getting off when we looked at Find my Phone.  It appears Glen left it at the bar.  I contacted Nico, and he said he could send it to us.  He said he was going go get it, but couldn’t get it to the port in time.  But first, he would call.  A few minutes later, he messaged that it wasn’t there, and maybe we should check find my again (we were already doing that), and had noticed the phone had moved to just outside the port.  

 

So I called Edgar, he had it, and would wait for us just outside the tunnel at the port entrance.  So we headed back out, and Glen sprinted down the pier, while I walked.  I went, because I could use Find My if Glen couldn’t find Edgar.

 

About the time I hit the tunnel, Glen came back with his phone in hand.  So we walked back to the ship again.  This time, because we were walking, I noticed a bunch of paintings along the sea wall, commemorating the first arrival of specific ships, very similar to the rock wall in Skagway, which I think is mostly gone thanks to the rockslide this summer.

 

Here’s my favorite:

 

After that, we rested for a bit. 

 

We went for a late lunch at the buffet.  We went back to the room, and as we sailed away, I took this:

 

Last bit of land we would see for a week, as tomorrow starts 7 seas.

Following that we went to the lounge and then Al Baccio, where we ran into Arie and Cheryl, and I chatted with them for a while.

 

We went back to change, and then back to the lounge for Silent Disco until time for our reservation at Murano.

 

At Murano, they asked about food things.  I said I didn’t eat fish, so we had an amuse bouche (or welcome taste) of chicken curry.  An odd choice but good.

\(

(The chicken may have been because I said I didn't do fish) 

 

For started Glen had the heirloom tomato salad, I had the spinach salad. 

 

We shared the Chateaubriand for dinner

 

 

After a pallet cleanser of apple sorbet, we each had the grand mariner souffle. 

 

Following dinner it was up to the room, where I worked on my class a little, and then bed.

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Is anyone still reading?  If so, I will continue posting one or two a day.  

 

Thanks!  

[KatieDub]

I am still reading! We're heading on the Silhouette in February so love reading reports of the ship ❤️

[weregoingcruising]

Yes

[peanut head]

I have read some conflicting information regarding The Porch and The Lawn Club Grill.  Which of the 2 are open for lunch on sea and/or port days?