Eric's First Cruise, Part 2: Days 5-8

The ship docked in Ajaccio

Sorry to have taken so long to get to the second part.  With Eric's 2nd birthday party, and Eric and Mauri getting back to school and work, I've been busy and haven't had a lot of time to write.  I'll post about Eric's second birthday and parties as soon as I can, though, too.

So, when I left off last, we were headed towards Ajaccio.  We woke up the next morning in the port, and decided to explore the town a little.  It was a nice, quiet town, and it was very easy to get from the ship to the center of the town.

Eric playing in one of the plazas.  Notice the Napoleon statue in the background.

Ajaccio is the birthplace of Napoleon, and you can tell that they are very proud of that fact because most of the tourist attractions have something to do with Napoleon.  We didn't try to go see any of them, but were looking for plazas in which Eric could run around, and most of the bigger plazas had statues of Napoleon in them.

After letting Eric run around the bigger plaza, we decided to walk along the water, and headed towards what looked like a park with a play area for kids.  Eric really enjoyed playing on all of the toys in the park.

The weather was nice, but as the day went on, things didn't really look as great out at sea.  It was starting to get cloudy and windy, and the water was looking a bit choppy.  Being on such a large ship, though, I wasn't really too worried about it.

We made our way back to the ship for lunch and so that Eric could get in his daily nap.  Up until this point, I took advantage of his naps to write my blog posts, but on the last days of the cruise, I decided to just go with the flow and take naps with everybody else.

Towards the end of Eric's nap, I did get up to get some writing in, and Mauri left the room to go see the ship leave the port from the peek-a-boo bridge.  The peek-a-boo bridge was an area towards the front of the ship on the eleventh deck that had windows that looked down on the bridge.  This, of course, was probably Mauri's favorite area of the ship, and he would have us go there numerous times daily.
He had gone with intentions to see how they maneuvered the ship through the port, but came back a bit disappointed and annoyed.

To write or to sleep?  That is the question.

It turns out that they decided to have a private party for some of the higher-than-us levels of the Crown and Anchor Society right on the peek-a-boo bridge area.  So, when Mauri finally had an opportunity to see the ship leave at a time that we weren't supposed to be eating dinner, he got kicked out of the area where he wanted to be.

Emptying pools due to bad weather

I watched the ship leave the port from the porthole of our stateroom, and noticed how choppy the water really had gotten.  It amazed me how much the ship was beginning to move, considering its size.  We have been in similar weather on smaller ships, and they have moved much, much less.
I have a tendency to get seasick very easily, but I think I was too worried about Eric to actually get sick myself.  I wasn't feeling great, though, so when Mauri got back to the room, he suggested we go up and get some fresh air up on the eleventh deck.  When we got there, we noticed that they had already tied up the lounge chairs and had emptied the pool.

Poor, sick Eric only wanted water to drink.

The idea of fresh air was a good one, but going up so many decks to get it really wasn't.  Up on the higher decks the ship moved much, much more, and I noticed Eric starting to get really pale and yellow.  I told Mauri that I felt a bit sicker up there too, despite the fresh air, and just as I said it, Eric started to throw up on Mauri.  Seeing as the weather was only going to get worse, I decided that maybe I should take a pill, just in case, and see if there was anything available for someone as young as Eric.
The girls in the customer service area said that there were no medications for someone as young as Eric, and suggested we give him green apples or something like that to make him feel better.  Of course, though, nothing was open for food at that time other than the Promenade Café which only had coffee, tea, pizza, sandwiches and sweets.  I found some ginger tea there, though, and decided to try to make some for Eric to see if it would help.  Being as sick as he was, though, he wasn't interested in eating nor drinking.

Once in the water, Eric seemed to feel much better.

We went back down to our stateroom to clean Eric up and change his shirt, and we decided that giving him a bath would be the best way to clean him up.  The water seemed to really help him feel better, and he wanted to splash around and play with the shower head, so we let him.

That night was supposed to be the second formal night of the cruise, and, because the ship's pictures were so expensive, I had been planning on using the self timer to get some great pictures of the three of us in formal attire.  With the bad weather, though, I didn't want Eric to be any more uncomfortable than he already was.  I decided to just put on him the tie t-shirt that I had made him before the cruise, and convinced Mauri that we should at least go to dinner to see if he would eat anything.

At dinner, though, Eric got sick again, and once again threw up all over Mauri.  Luckily, Mauri had predicted it ahead of time, and didn't wear his more formal suit, and instead just put on another shirt with his dress slacks.  The sight of Eric being sick took away his appetite, and neither of them really ate much at dinner.  Eric then wanted to sit in my arms, and actually fell asleep there.  So, the waiters put together two chairs so that I could move sleeping Eric there and comfortably finish dinner.

Before dessert, though, Mauri decided to bring Eric down to the stateroom so that he could change and so Eric could be more comfortable.  I decided to stay and finish dessert and talk with the people of our table. We had the most interesting conversation thus far, and I found out that the eldest couple were 83 and 84 years old, and they had been married for 66 years.  The other couple surprised me when they announced that they were also about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary (They seemed too young for that to me).  The eldest couple shared stories of past cruises and how they had won the "Newlywed Game," often played on most cruises, soon after having been married.  The other couple seemed ready to leave the table, but each time they were about to leave, the eldest couple started talking again, reminiscing about past trips and events.  I thought it was funny, though, and actually found their stories interesting for once.  We ended up being one of the last tables to leave the dining room.

Trying to get down the steps from the dining room to our stateroom in heels, though, was quite a feat.  I had to grab onto the handrails tightly with both hands.  Once back in our stateroom, and, knowing that things were only getting worse, I decided that I would join the boys and go to bed.  We were all in bed and ready to sleep by 9:30PM that night.  It turns out that we didn't miss much by going to bed early because the show had been cancelled.  The singer  that had been scheduled was too seasick to perform.

We all woke up several times throughout the night and noticed that things just kept getting worse and worse.  At one point, Mauri got up to go to the bathroom and, around 4AM, he said that he could barely walk there.  To understand just how crazy that is, one must remember that he is the captain of a fishing boat, and is accustomed to walking on a much smaller boat in bad weather.  Our biggest concern, though, was Eric, and we were worried what the next day would bring.  The next day was our second navigation day, so we would be stuck at sea all day with no stop at port and no break from the weather.
Friday: Day At Sea

The next morning we were very happy to see that the weather had radically calmed.  We, affected by the bad weather, had actually slept in later than usual, despite having gone to bed much earlier than usual.  Luckily Eric had slept through most of the worst weather, and as the morning went by, the water just kept getting calmer and calmer.

Being a day at sea, everybody was aboard the ship all day today.  We noticed on the way to breakfast that people were already reserving lounge chairs by the pool, despite all of the signs saying that reserving chairs is prohibited.  We also noticed that there were still small waves in the pool, even though the seas were pretty calm.  On other cruises, the water has had to be much rougher for the ship to move enough to cause waves in the pool, and we couldn't help but comment on how much this ship moves in comparison to cruise ships we've been on in the past.  Poor Eric was unlucky enough to have his first cruise on it.

We spent a lot of the day outside, looking at the water, and as we got closer and closer to Spain, the waters got calmer and calmer.  At one point the water was so calm and smooth that it was very difficult to believe how rough the seas had been only hours before.  By that point, we weren't having any more pictures taken by the photographers onboard because I was too annoyed by the prices of the photos.  So, I kept playing with the self timer to get some pictures of the three of us on our trip.

Finally on Friday, too, the highly publicized ice skating rink aboard the ship was finally open for short sessions for open skating.  I had brought long pants and socks aboard, just in case we were going to go skating.  In the end, though, we just ended up watching.  If Eric had been a little bit older, we would have probably tried going skating together.  With things as they were, though, we decided that it just wasn't worth it.

During the day, people were fighting over overpriced t-shirts and gift boxes

We headed back outside to Mauri's favorite area, the peek-a-boo bridge, and Mauri noticed that the people in the bridge seemed uneasy and were looking out to an area of the water.  He followed their line of vision, and noticed a small inflatable boat filled with people.

It isn't unusual for people to try to escape northern Africa to come to Spain for more opportunities to earn money or for a better life.  We see it on the news all of the time, but seeing it in real life was a bit different because it was easy to see how these people had ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere and to really realize how desperate their situation really was.  Had they been stuck there in yesterday's weather, they wouldn't have likely survived the experience.  Lucky for them, though, the waters couldn't be calmer, and they had been spotted by us.

The people aboard the zodiac were motioning to us, and Mauri and I were debating whether or not we were going to go to their rescue and let them onboard the ship.  Not too much later, an announcement was made throughout the ship.  We were told that they had spotted a small boat with people aboard, and that they had contacted the Spanish Coast Guard.  The Coast Guard had requested that we stay in the area until they arrived, and that meanwhile we would be sending people out to see if they needed any immediate emergency help.

Of course, once the announcement was made, everybody flocked to see the boat.  Everybody was squeezed into all of the open decks aboard, and were all on the same side of the ship, the one with the view of the small boat.  Mauri and I joked about how they were going to have to make an announcement for half of the people to move to the other side of the ship so as not to have the ship tip over, but luckily, despite all of the extra weight on that side of the ship, the ship seemed to hold itself up pretty well.  :)

When the ship sent out help, everybody started to cheer.  From that point, though, there wasn't much else to see.  We were told that a helicopter would be coming, but that it would take about 40 minutes to arrive.  So we decided to take advantage of everybody aboard being at the same place outside, and we headed in to the normally packed Promenade Café to get some crappy free coffee (espresso coffee types were expensive, especially when adding on the tip and VAT charges), and to get Eric some pizza to snack on.  We actually were able to get premium seats that looked out on the live music being performed there.  Eric, after eating his pizza, once again showed how much he loved the music by dancing in the middle of the Promenade, occasionally running into the people who were trying to cross the ship.  

We stayed until the announcement was made that the helicopter was arriving.  So, we headed outside to see the suspenseful rescue that never actually happened.  When the helicopter arrived, instead of nearing the zodiac, it only circled the boat over and over again.  Everybody was questioning what they were doing until it was finally announced that we were no longer needed.  The helicopter was going to stay with the boat until a Coast Guard boat could arrive and aid them.  We, however, were free to go on our way to Malaga.  Our stop was going to affect our arrival time in Malaga a little, but they did speed up the ship a little to keep it from affecting us much.

You see, the majority of people aboard, supposedly around 3,000 people, were going to disembark in Malaga the next day.  There were only around 300 of us who were leaving in Valencia.  A lot of those people had flights planned for the next morning, so a late arrival could be have been disastrous for many people.

At dinner, Eric took lots of pictures, and ended up getting a few of the people of our table.  Being the final night for most of the people aboard, we were given a farewell song at dinner, and a farewell message during the show afterwards.

After the show, we walked around the ship for a little while and let Eric dance to the music being played in the different lounges.  One of his favorite places to dance was during the "Name that Tune" game being played almost nightly in the small Schooner Lounge.  We couldn't really fit into the small lounge packed with people, but Eric danced in the hallway near the entrance.  After more dancing, and a little more going up and down the stairways, we ended up going to bed, where a cute towel bird, with chocolates in his wings, was awaiting our arrival.

Saturday: Malaga Port

When we woke up the next morning, we were docked in the Malaga port, and the ship was already very empty.  We were able to eat a peaceful breakfast, and enjoyed having most of the ship to ourselves.  The center of Malaga looked to be such a long walk from where the ship was docked, and it was so nice to be able to enjoy the empty ship, that we decided that it wasn't really worth our while to get off the ship in Malaga.

Instead, we tried out some of the things that we hadn't been able to try out until that point.  The sports deck was completely empty, so we played a round of mini golf, played a little soccer on the small field, and played some ping pong.

After playing on the sports deck, we headed to the pool to relax a bit.  Not much later, we noticed that the new passengers were already embarking the ship.  The new passengers were unable to access their staterooms until later on, though, so most of them didn't have access to their personal items, like swimsuits, either.  That left the pool area empty for us to enjoy for quite awhile longer.

Enjoying the empty ship while docked at Malaga

That last day, we made the mistake of setting up Eric's inflatable pool in an area where he could more easily see the main pool.  As soon as Mauri headed over to the pool for a quick swim, Eric was obsessed with wanting to go into it too.  That day the pool was very cold, so we were hoping that by letting him step into the shallow part of the pool, that he would find it too cold, and he wouldn't want to go in anymore.

We, of course, were wrong.  Letting him step into the main pool, only made him want to play in it more.  We let him walk across it once, and then pulled him out of the water.  He screamed and screamed "pool, pool," "pool, pool!!"

We ended up having to move to lounge chairs nearer the area where we had set up his pool in the past.  Moving it, though, didn't really seem to help matters.  In the end, we decided to leave the pool area and went to go eat.

After lunch, we got self serve ice cream, which, up until this point, Eric had refused to try.  He is very sensitive to things that are either hot or cold, and has never wanted to eat ice cream anywhere.  Once he tried it, though, he seemed to really enjoy it, and ended up finishing off my cone.

Later on, we looked for activities to participate in, and saw that they had Wii bowling scheduled for the Imperial Lounge.  We decided to check it out, but were once again unimpressed by the lack of organization for activities aboard.

The exciting Wii bowling

The Imperial Lounge was completely empty, and there was a screen set up in the front with wii bowling on it.  Two wii remotes were in a small table in the front, but there was nobody there to explain any of it or to overlook to make sure that all was running well.

After a bit of playing with it, Mauri was able to bowl one ball until Eric got ahold of the other remote and touched something that made it so that he couldn't play the game any longer.  So, instead of continuing with trying to play, we took a few more pictures and went on our way.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  We brought Eric back to the room for his nap, and he miraculously slept through the entire muster drill for new passengers that was annoyingly loudly broadcast over the entire ship, including our stateroom where Eric was sleeping.  Mauri headed towards the peek-a-boo bridge for one final attempt at seeing how they maneuvered the ship when leaving the port, but was disappointed to find that he really couldn't see much in the bridge.  It seems that the captain sits out of view to the side of the area which can be seen from above.  So, there was really nothing to see.

It also got frustrating to go to the various places aboard the ship and having them keep welcoming us aboard.  "Are you kidding?  I've been aboard for almost a week now and I'm leaving tomorrow."  We got more of a welcome that last day than we really had when we had arrived.
The show that ended up being the very best of the week so far, not counting the intro done by the cruise director who basically repeated the entire monologue of jokes that he had told the night before.  Didn't he remember that some of us were still here?!?!
What made the show even more interesting was that during the break for the performer to change his clothes, our table mates became part of the show.  The cruise director was asking for the couple who had been married the longest, and the eldest couple from our table won with their 66 years of marriage thus far.  For their prize, the couple who had snuck aboard 7 small bottles of cava won a big bottle of cava for their very last night of the cruise.

Once the show was over, we wanted to make the most of our last night on the ship, but we were too tired and didn't really know what else to do.  So, we made it back to our stateroom to finish packing, and went to bed.
Our final day on the ship was pretty uneventful.  No longer having our suitcases, which had been set outside our stateroom the night before, we didn't have our swimsuits or other clothes available for any of activities.  Knowing we were supposed to disembark around 1pm, we decided to try to eat early so that we could eat both breakfast and lunch aboard before leaving.

On our way to breakfast, we were able to see the coastline of the areas south of Denia.  A week before coming on this cruise, we had seen a cruise ship from our house on Sunday morning heading north, and knew that it must have been our ship.  After breakfast, right around the same time that we had seen the ship the week before, we were able to see the Denia coastline from the ship.  I was looking forward to seeing our ship go by each week since then, but sadly, the ship no longer does the same route.  It was scheduled to do go by our house one last time, the Sunday after Eric's birthday, but with my mind on the party of the day before, I completely forgot to look out for the ship again.

Civitavecchia port

The last few hours aboard actually ended up dragging on and on.  We couldn't do much because we had to leave the stateroom and had to hang on to all of our carry on items.  Plus, like I said, we didn't have our swimsuits or clothes for other activities.  So, we just went from lounge to lounge, waiting for lunchtime, and then we were off to the Imperial Lounge from where we would be escorted off the ship.  I was sad to leave, but by that point was just ready to get home.

We had one last interaction with the younger of the couples that we ate with each night.  They were sitting in the Imperial Lounge and had some of the only open seats left next to them.  So, we went to sit with them and talk to them about the final night.  We told them about how the other couple had won yet another bottle of cava at the show, and how they had missed the best show.  The other couple was nowhere to be seen, so they were likely in a more comfortable lounge, being higher level members of the Crown and Anchor Society.

Soon after, we were called to disembark.  It was tricky because we had a stroller with us, and the elevators didn't go down to the bottom floor.  Plus, the elevators were so busy that we got sick of waiting.  They had roped off one set of stairs going down, so we had to fight with everybody else, going down and up, to try to make our way from the 5th floor down the the first floor where the exit was.  Still, it was quick.  A bus brought us to the terminal where we picked up our luggage, and we were on our way.

We had survived our first cruise with Eric, and it was a lot of fun.  Despite it sounding like I'm complaining about a lot of things, overall the cruise was great- even with a toddler along.  So comes the question about if it is worth cruising with a toddler, and I would have to say "Yes!"  It's not like cruising as a couple, but I would definitely do it over again.
Well, I will leave off with a video I made of some clips of us around the ship and in the ports of call.  It's a relatively long video, which is also why it took me so long to get it, and the rest of this post, up.  It will give you a better idea of what the ship looked like, though, and how Eric enjoyed himself running around, going up and down stairs, pushing the buttons to open the doors, opening the stateroom with his key, and dancing around.  He obviously had a great time too!!

The background music is comprised of songs with a creative commons license which allows for use in these sorts of projects.  The names of the songs and artists are posted in the description of the video on youtube for those who are interested!