Docking Photos
Today is Friday, 2/4/2005
The schedule says that we may dock or anchor here so I am up early to see which it will be. We are not moving at all when I get up and I see the pilot arrive and we sit awhile longer, I guess they are deciding what it will be. Eventually the pilot takes us in a big circle and then tries to back up to going down the dock, he pulls back and out and repeats. Finally we are tied up, but it is rough in the harbor and we are bobbing up & down. A much larger ship is moving in behind us now, so that may be contributing to the bobbing, hopefully when the huge ship is tied up, that will block us from some of the swells. But, it doesn't.
I go in to wake Debbie up. She plans to special order the Eggs Benedict this morning and we will be able to just walk ashore. Good. I open the curtains and Debbie groans and growls, please God let us stop sailing in circles. I laugh, how could she know about that when I know she was asleep? I tell her that we only made 2 circles. (She is not a morning person.) She barks back, no we've been circling and doing lazy eights all night! What? She tells me to go out to the atrium and she how far we traveled from 11pm last night to whenever we stopped moving this morning. She is right, it is about 1/2 inch on the map. It would not take all night, and yet with the bed vibrating all night, clearly we were under power and sailing. She agrees with me, the bed vibrated and we were looping around for hours. I thought the bed vibrating was annoying enough, but apparently she also felt every turn. Neither of us got much rest last night, I was happy to have napped and gone to sleep early yesterday. Debbie is a little grumpy.
She hurries up, we exchange the Privacy for the Service Please sign on our door, and we are the 3rd couple seated in The Grand Dining Room right by the window at the rear. Debbie asks if she can have Eggs Benedict even though they are not on the menu. The waiter discourages her. She questions him, he says they have no hollandaise, they will have to make it just for her. She tells him to do that then, he says she will have to wait at least 20 minutes and he is sure she does not want to do that. (rut-roh) She assures him that she has the whole day cleared before her to wait for her Eggs Benedict for just as long as it takes. They have some more conversation about english muffins and canadian bacon, yes, he agrees with her that these are components of the Eggs Benedict so she does need additional bread or meat. How runny should the yolks be? (What the heck? It is just Eggs Benedict. These better be the most perfect Eggs Benedict that have ever been served to her.) The waiter turns to me (double rut-roh) and says this means I will have to wait too. I tell him, I am with her, do what you have to do, we aren't going anywhere. So, it is clear that we do not mind waiting. BUT, they do not serve the other 2 couples either until they serve us! They were not happy, at least one couple was renting a car here and anxious to get going. Oh, well, we did not request that they hold breakfast for everyone before us.
Debbie has heard a lot about the Eggs Benedict on RSSC and they are a favorite special breakfast treat for her, so she has really been looking forward to this. She has never read anywhere that standard order of Eggs Benedict, which it is more than clear she ordered since the 2 of them discussed the entire ingredients list, etc., comes topped with caviar! She would never eat caviar. When the dish is finally delivered with a big dollop of fish eggs on top each, we just look at each other in horror and then break out in giggles. I make her wait for me to take a picture. She says this can't be kosher, mixing species' eggs. This should never happen. We are scrapping them off (while trying to leave some hardwon hollandaise behind) when the waiter reappears to ask what our problem is. She tells him, you didn't mention the caviar. He tells her it is standard on all orders of Eggs Benedict, whatever. After discussing every aspect of the ingredients and preparation of Eggs Benedict with her, while trying to dissuade her, he might have thrown that little tidbit of information in, but she'll eat them anyway. We finished breakfast, walked down to the Tour Desk to pick up today's map and went back in to look at the navigation chart together. We see that the Service Please sign is still on the door, weird, we spoke to Alina on our way out and we were gone over an hour.
We put the Privacy sign back up and discuss our plan. I want to comparison price digital cameras here, get a T-shirt and just look around. Debbie wants to go to the museum. Debbie suggests going to the beach, but I don't want to. While we sit on the balcony looking through the information she has brought from online, Fodor's, Frommer's, Ngaire, etc., we hear the public announcement that the local authorities have suspended the water taxi service for the day because of the rough water. We had been watching them bounce around out there and it was clear when we left that it would be a land taxi for us. We brushed our teeth, put the Service Please sign back up and headed out for the morning
