Day 8: At Sea

Leaving port at Rhodes | The little boat that could

Last night we departed from Greece just after sunset as the Brilliance started its journey on the homebound leg.  Today we have spent the day at sea on our way to the Egyptian port of Alexandria, which was once home to the Pharos Lighthouse, formerly one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Today has been a decent day, despite a rocky beginning.  At first we awoke at 10:30am and found that it was not possible to get food anywhere on the ship until 11:45am – including room service.  We were understandably a little ticked off, and had a row with Guest Services.  The result was a pot of coffee, three packs of cereal plus cutlery which took an astonishing half an hour to be prepared.

To add insult to injury we discovered a ship tour which amounted to the same as the two trips which we had problems with to begin the cruise – and nobody at Royal Caribbean bothered to point out to us at any stage until I discovered it in our daily this morning.  It would have basically been an identical itinerary with the critical exception of a hotel stay in Luxor and a flight to Cairo.  We’re still pretty mad about it and will be writing a letter to the cruise line once we get back.

Our day markedly improved when we met friends in the Windjammer Café after we’d eaten lunch.  The service staff have been doing an excellent job of improving our morale despite the problems we’ve endured with the cruise thus far.  Our evening table staff, stateroom attendant and a few other staff members have really been great.  Many of our shipmates have been supportive as well, we’ve a lot more in common with the folks we sailed with on our first cruise last year.

The rock climbing wall

So after lunch we entered a competition in the jewelry store where one would have to pick the real diamond ring amongst to fakes (I picked correctly) although we did not win in the draw.  Toni picked out some nice jewelry though, and we bought an overnight bag for Cairo.  Afterwards, we hit the top deck and participated in some rock climbing.

Rob Begins initial climb | On the way down

I climbed three times in total, working from easiest to moderate.  You can see my first ascension in the photographs above.  In a surprise move, Toni elected to also climb and did a great job in reaching the top also.  She was quite nervous, but did an amazing job and came through incident free.

Toni preparing to climb | Toni almost at the top

Afterwards, we collected our passports (the cruise line organized the Egyptian visas), looked at photos in the photo gallery and then had some drinks in the atrium bar.  We solved some math and logic problems with our bartender Manino before splitting up and heading back to staterooms to prepare for tonight’s formal dinner.

Rob’s Third Climb | The main atrium

Winding down the afternoon