Leaving Cape Town for Venice.

 

Friday 6 May.

CAPE TOWN TO VENICE CRUISE ROUTE.

 

Today was the day for our cruise. We were up before Ray and Carol this morning and had finished our breakfast by the time they came down. I spent the rest of the morning on the computer and checked out a little wireless speaker Ray had for playing music from his laptop. It worked on the iPad via Bluetooth, the volume and quality was exceptional from such a little instrument. It is a 'JBL GO Portable Wireless Speaker', it costs £50 from Amazon, being very small it will be ideal for us to take when travelling.

 

We were all ready and packed by 11:30 am and Ray and Carol drove us to the V&A Waterfront and docks. They dropped us off at the entrance to the registration hall. There was a long queue slowly making its way in but we had to leave our case more or less out in the open for them to be taken on board. I wasn't too happy with all these bags and cases just lying around without security, I asked if they realised that this was Africa! I saw one of the guys taking cases on board and asked him to take mine, he obliged and I was a lot happier now.

It was a long slow process to first get into the hall then another snaking line before we reached the desks to collect our cruise key cards and be photographed. Then it was through a security x-ray and scanner but it wasn't like the airport variety, more relaxed so we were soon through immigration and boarding. When we reached our cabin the case was waiting at the door for us. After dumping our rucksacks we made our way to the pool deck to check if our WiFi dongle was working but we couldn't get a signal. We went to the buffet for lunch and there we managed to get a signal and able to call Suzy, Hollie and Abigail on FaceTime. We had a light lunch then we had to go for life jacket drill before setting sail.

 

After the life boat drill we thought we would be setting off but the weather was announced as being too bad for the ship to navigate through the narrow harbour exit. We were stuck in dock until well after dinner time. We had a wander round the ship to find out where everything was and ended up in the theatre and listened to a guy who thought he was a comic tell is what to expect in entertainment over the next three weeks. When that was over we continued our reconnaissance of the ship before heading back to the cabin to unpack. I went into my iPad and did a crossword from the 'Telegraph' before we went to the buffet for dinner. It was quite busy, the meal was very nice but we had to be careful about eating too much, it is very tempting with so much on offer.

We were both very tired after our meal and decided we had had enough for our first day and retired to out cabin to lie down and read for a while. I soon dropped off to sleep and the ship still hadn't sailed. When I woke up about 11:00 pm we were rolling about slightly so we were now on our way.

 

Posted with Blogsy