I can’t believe it, I slept right through breakfast, normally if I miss breakfast it’s because I’m a lazy so and so and can’t be bothered but today the first thing I knew was Jane prodding me saying it’s 09:30 and I’ve missed breakfast. That’s what happens when you go for a nightcap after the late show! It’s a port day and a miserable one at that, it’s throwing it down. First thing for me was to head up to deck 10 and set off some laundry. We went to the buffet to eat for the first time on the cruise, Jane had her usual granola pot, and I grabbed some bacon, sausage and egg from under the heat lamps to eat while we waited for the washing to finish. After eating we went to the concierge lounge to get a coffee from the machines there. While we were there they replaced the croissants and danish pastries with some very nice looking open sandwiches, I wasn’t allowed to try them even as research.
Once all the laundry was completed it was time to brave the elements and head off the ship and into Ålesund to do some shopping. The weather seemed to be a lot better than Tromsø, but it turns out that driving sleet is a lot more painful than a bit of fluffy snow. It wasn’t far into town and the shops and the weather came in showers and passed fairly quickly.
I had a plan for lunch but first we needed to get the Christmas shopping out of the way, before I was allowed a nice hot cup of coffee and a sandwich for lunch. My first choice for lunch was full with no free tables, so we ended up in the second choice, Cafe Racoon. It wasn’t a bad choice, the coffee was good and the toasted ham and cheese sandwich was both delicious and filling. We did a bit more shopping on the way back to the ship and then we were back on board clutching our parcels.
We had our best result in the quiz but it was a massively easy quiz. 19/20 with three teams on 20. We wouldn’t have won the tie breaker though, show tunes aren’t our forte. There was an announcement by the Captain while we were having drinks in the Commodore Club. Apparently because Bremerhaven is a commercial port we cannot disembark via the port, the only passengers who can do that were transit passengers and people on organised excursions, we will have to tender off the ship using a port ferry boat which will operate hourly
We had ordered Chateaubriand for our main at dinner, a very good choice