I’d had a good sleep, there was no movement overnight as we’d left the lumpy seas after Ålesund behind us, and was woken by the PA system announcing that the departing passengers should go and wait in the lounges until called and not block the pursers area. We made it to breakfast quite early for us, about 09:10 where Jane ordered her melon plate again and I ordered eggs Benedict, which turned out to be an excellent choice. Rich, unctuous and delicious. It set me up for the rest of the day.
We were in the port of Bremerhaven, it should have been Hamburg but, and I’m guessing here, the Azipod issues reported on the previous crossing prevented us safely navigating the Elbe to get to the city. We’ve tied up in the commercial port rather than the cruise port for some unknown reason, and because of this only passengers departing the ship and on tours can depart the ship on foot, to be bussed out of the port. All other passengers were being tendered off the ship using a “party boat” that can accommodate 300 passengers at a time. At about 11:15 we headed down to the Royal Court Theatre to join the queue for the tender, we were given number 7 and told to come back for the 12:30 tender. So we headed back to the stateroom to while away the time until 12:30 and when we went back down to the theatre we were told come back at 13:30. Jane had a 17:00 hair appointment booked, and if the return was going to be as chaotic as the departure, we’d never get back in time so I said we wouldn’t go and handed back the tickets. This turned out to be a good move, as our friends Pam and Max queued for two hours to get the return boat, luckily they were in the sun but it was very cold. Once aboard they then had to wait as 300 people passed through the single scanner at security to rejoin the boat. They were freezing when they eventually arrived in the Commodore Club at 17:30. The captain later announced that the last of the transfers would be at 20:30 so two hours later than advertised.
We took advantage of it being a shore day to have lunch in the Golden Lion pub. The pub is usually incredibly busy on sea days for lunch , it’s not a huge space and this is exacerbated by the fact that the highly popular bingo follows lunch as people quite often have lunch and then keep their tables for the bingo rather than freeing them up for others wanting to dine. I had the sausage and mash, as Max had extolled the virtues of the Jolly Hog sausages, these are pork sausages with pieces of black pudding distributed throughout. It was excellent, a good choice and one I’d wished I’d tried earlier in the cruise. Jane had the up-charged burger, which she also enjoyed, was it worth the extra $11, no, but since we had a surfeit of OBC left it wasn’t really costing us anything.
After lunch the sun was out so we took advantage of the balcony being sheltered from the wind and in full sun to sit out on the loungers, something I’d not expected to be able to do on this cruise. When it was getting near to quiz time we went to sit in the Carinthia lounge and wait for Pam and Max who we fully expected to be back in time, they weren’t obviously and there was no quiz, so after yet another coffee we were on our way to the Commodore Club where I would have a beer and wait for Jane to get her hair sorted and meet our friends when the returned.
We’d requested Beef Wellington for dinner. I ordered the ham hock starter from the á La Carté menu, a weird mash up of shredded ham on a bed of pineapple with a quails egg on a piece of Melba toast. I was looking forward to the Beef Wellington, and the extra mashed potato we’d ordered with it. It was huge and with the accompanying vegetables and mash I struggled to finish it, so much so I ended up just ordering ice cream for dessert.