Corfu
We arrived in Corfu about 8AM and out in our balcony it felt a lot cooler than the earlier part of our trip. The weather prediction was mostly cloudy with a high of 75 but it ended up mostly sunny and 80. It turned out to be a beautiful day to do the Hop-On Hop Off bus around Corfu past the site where Prince Phillip was born, and into the city of Corfu. Our bus trip was followed by an excellent 1 hour walking tour of the old town which is very picturesque. Our guide went out of her way to help us find a place where I could purchase a replacement for my lost sweatshirt. Success! We did some more shopping and then stopped for a nice lunch on the Esplanade next to the cricket patch.
After lunch we headed back to the port and were back in our room in time for the daily tea and scones cart which was a treat. Availability of good food has definitely not been an issue on this cruise.
It was nice to just be able to walk around the ship without a mission during the afternoon.
We had plenty of time to get ready for our 6:30pm dinner reservation at Prime C, one of the Specialty restaurants. Dinner was excellent but way too much food for me. David finished his.
In the evening we stopped in the bar on deck 5 and had some great conversations with Dwight, my favorite bartender. He is from the Phillipines and works on the ship for for a number of months at a time away from his family. He has done this for 5 years. and is excited that this year he will be hoome through Christmas to see his 3 kids open their presents. Whenever I have conversations like this with people who work on cruiseships I think of how fortunate we are and how much these people are willing to give up to make lives better for their kids. Most everyone who works on the ship is delightful and are often happy to share personal stories. about their families and where they live.
We gain an hour of sleep tonight so staying up a bit late is not a problem, and besides tomorrow is a sea day.
While we were at dinner, the captain made a general announcement that our ship has a mechanical engine problem so our planned departure was being delayed for 5 hours whcih actually tunred into 10 hours. The captain indicated ithey could make up the time so we woudl still arrive in Italy on time. Since we are in Italy for 5 days it won’t impact us if we don’t make it on time with the added delay but many people are getting flights out.