Silversea November 2013

At the end of almost all of the Star Trek movies Captain Kirk or Picard manages to get the Enterprise destroyed.  The next movie therefore usually has a scene where the crew is on a shuttle going to the newly rebuilt ship and as the dramatic music gets louder they begin to see the new ship ready for action.  Thus it was with the Silver Wind and me. My shuttle was a bus, but I had a front row seat and could see the vessel from several perspectives as we twisted and turned on the roads in the port area.  Our final approach had me looking at the Wind from the bow and it looked more like a mega personal yacht than a cruise ship.  The white hull and teak trim glistened in the late afternoon sunlight and I couldn’t wait to get aboard.

The check-in crew was expecting me, thanks to Cindy telling them to look for a crazy man in need of Champagne.  In less than two minutes I had been checked in, given my portfolio and key and was up the gangway heading to my cabin.  Cindy greeted me at the top of the gangway and white-gloved stewards distributed ice-cold Champagne; what a lovely way to start a cruise.  The ship is small, only 285 passengers, so it has an intimate feel without being claustrophobic. The ship is all suites and all-inclusive and we had a lovely cabin with a nice teak veranda that provided exceptional views during our cruise.  I was quickly out of my travel clothes and into my cruise wear and we were heading to one of the many lounges for a snack and more Champagne.

We met our friends who had decided to cruise with us and we all enjoyed the Pool Grill languishing in the sunlight.  After the safety drill we dressed for dinner and again met at the bar before deciding where to dine.  During the safety demo we were told that as a result of heavy seas, we would not be going to anchor in Sorrento but rather would dock in Naples in the morning.  Naples is not Sorrento, but since we were only interested in going to Pompeii, we really didn’t care. (We enjoyed our tour to Pompeii, which surprised me. We also enjoyed walking in our other ports of call, Trapani, Sicily, Valetta, Malta, Tunis, Tunisia, but we were really on this cruise to relax and not to be sightseers, so no trip reports on this lovely locations.)

Our first night at sea was really rough – since then we’ve been told that the cruise ship industry pushes the envelope on appropriate times to sail.  Who knew?  It had never occurred to us that weather could be an issue in the Mediterranean, but this was a small ship and it doesn't take much to feel those swells.  We had a lot of rocking and rolling again on Saturday night after we left Tunis.

That night our cabin steward took the liter bottles of liquor that were in our bar area and tucked them onto the couch with pillows. Better safe than sorry - during that first rough night those bottles went sliding along their shelf during the night and it sounded like one broke, but Cindy got up to check and they were fine so she tucked a towel around them to keep them safe.

The bad news is that the captain slowed the ship to make it a bit smoother and then decided we had to skip Cartagena altogether.  It seems to us he should have stopped SOMEWHERE between Tunis and Malaga - maybe Algeria - to get us on land for awhile.  There were a lot of queasy people on the ship (including me) during our extra day at sea, but we sailed right through to our last stop, Malaga, and arrived about 12 hours sooner than the original schedule.  We had already planned to spend 2 nights in Malaga so now we had three.

Malaga was a grand surprise for us:  It was beautiful, filled with history, has one of the greatest walking areas, has world-class museums (we did three) and the food is spectacular. I got my Spanish fix with strong coffee in the morning, sherry and tapas in the afternoon, and typically long and fantastic dinners including one with the best roasted lamb I’ve ever had.  I’m set for another two years.

In summary we had just a marvelous time cruising and spent most of the days doing the same things. We made sure that we did a lot of exercise several times a day to burn off the wonderful food and wine. Every night we would dance until well after midnight which is one of the reasons that we enjoy cruising so much. Our time before and after the cruise was as enjoyable as the cruise itself.  Our Thanksgiving involved breakfast in Malaga, lunch in Zurich and dinner in Brussels, a very long travel day but we had lots of reasons to give thanks.

Ciao, Cindy and Wm 

PS I brought a real book on the cruise thus this:

Today I read a great big book

Not on an iPad, a Kindle, nor a Nook

It was made with paper and lots of ink

Changing turning page fingers to black from pink

I could tell at a glance how much I had read

And how much more was left before bed

I’ve realized how much I have missed my old friend

And vow in the future to do this again.