St Johns, Newfoundland

September 2, 2016

At Sea

Big activities today - ate three times, saw two lectures, one on the Northern Lights, other on St Johns, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Too tired for the entertainment so went to bed.  Iris fell in the night a couple of days ago trying to get a cramp out of her leg, hit the nightstand pretty hard with her back so she’s  sore and bruised.  Lucky she didn’t hit her head.  

September 3, 2016

St Johns, Newfoundland

Slept 9.5 hours last night.  Cruising is very tiring.  Up for coffee early.

Met our group of 8 near the door so we could go off as a group to meet our guide for today, Blair, who drove us all around St Johns beginning with views of the beautiful harbor of St Johns with the fishing boats and the oil platform supply boats.  

Then a drive to the eastern-most point of North America, Cape Spear with two light houses, one old one that has been refurbished and one in use today; 

visits to the bunkers, gun placements and munitions storage built by Canadian and US troops during WW II.  Maddox Cove is a bedroom community outside St Johns on the way to Petty Harbor (original it was Petit Harbor).  

Back closer to town we visited Signal Hill where Marconi received the first wireless transatlantic radio signal in 1901, great views of the city from here then a drive around the city including the university, the Catholic Cathedral (St John the Baptist), the Anglican Cathedral, St George Street (32 bars), Jelly Bean houses so named for the colors.  It was cold today and we had sprinkles but no real rain. The wind was tough on us all to the point that Iris had to buy a knitted wool hat, cute!  

Back on board we were really tired from our day so we had some supper in the Lido and Bob was in bed by 7 (claimed to be reading), at 8 the captain came over the intercom with word that due to hurricane Hermine we would be skipping Halifax and heading straight to New York in order to avoid the storm and stay west.  So early to bed.

September 4, 2016

At Sea!

Slept in, breakfast after 8 AM today, grumblings about missing Halifax.  We don’t know yet when we will arrive NYC but trying to plan how to make our flight on the 7th to Florida.  Waiting on word from our motorhome salesman that all is well with our new motorhome after the storm passed Florida.  Had a light lunch as tonight is formal and we’ve made reservations to eat in the main dining room so we can see Fauzi, our assistant waiter on the 2013 World Cruise.  Bob had already seen Fauzi in the Lido where he works from midnight to 5:30 AM.  He was really happy to finally see Iris, big hugs, and brought us up to date about his family.  After dinner we attended a Q&A session with the Location Guide trying to determine what we should do about getting to Laguardia airport.  Entertainment tonight was preceded by the Zuiderdam Chorale made up of passengers under the direction of the ship musical director.  They sang three numbers and then the show began with Rogerio Tutti playing piano and then Natalie Toro doing Broadway show numbers.  Set the clocks back another hour tonight so we are now on Eastern time (our bodies are not).  We were warned that some time in the night we will encounter heavier seas and that we should be cautious and use the handrails and batten down anything loose in our cabins.