Day 5: Sea Day

Today’s highlight was to get a landing card for Israel.  Israeli immigration staff joined the ship in Rhodes and they’re using today to give everyone pre-clearance to land tomorrow.  All passengers have to go through the immigration process, even if they don’t intend to get off.  It seems they no longer stamp your passport in case you’re then refused entry to some Arab countries.  The ship’s notes about this process suggested that it might almost amount to the level of the Spanish Inquisition, but in the event it was all very smooth and the immigration staff were in good humour and included a number of young women among them in contrast to the straight-faced US authrities as we tried to get back into the US from Mexico on our cruise in  2010!

Then followed the famous $10 sale.  We bought nothing, but Elizabeth was only one ticket number away from wining the raffle, so a near miss.  After that we went to a Future Cruises talk where they put forward all sorts of tantalising offers if we were to book another cruise while on board as well as the ‘Buy One, Get One Cruise Half Price’ plus free drinks offer we've benefited from this time.

This is now our 4^th full day on board and I haven’t had to sign to pay for anything.  All our beer, wine and cocktails have been free plus any hot chocolate drinks as well.  We’ve paid for our excursions and wifi access before we came so are likely only to have tips added to our on board bill as we leave.

After the $10 sale we gravitated to the Café al Bacio where it was time for a coffee or hot chocolate plus a cookie.  While there we chewed over the relative merits of booking a phantom cruise while on board as against not binding ourselves, albeit with only a $50 deposit, to something with Celebrity rather than with any other cruise line and at a time when we don t know what the future holds as far as when we could go and what we might want to do for a holiday when the time comes.

Sea Day!

Then it was time for lunch.  Being a sea day, the restaurant was open, so we thought we’d go there.  We had mozzarella sticks with a tomato and herb dip, followed by a small steak with green beans and chips and some ice cream and butterscotch syrup for Graeme.

We went to the Captain’s reception at 3.30pm then the drinks flowed and there were canapés aplenty.  I’d barely taken a couple of sips of my bubbly when I was looking round to see if I could find a waiter who might give me a second drink when I thought: “Don’t be ridiculous, Graeme, you’re on a free drinks package!”

From there we went to sort out an excursion for our second day in Ashdod and our last day in Israel – more on that later.  Then we were lucky enough to bump into our concierge who sorted out the fact that we had indeed overpaid for our internet package.  It turned out that they owed us a $62 dollar refund but couldn’t process one for that amount so it was raised to $75!

Things were looking up.  I then went to find Elizabeth who was in the thick of today’’ Trivia quiz.  She had teamed up with 4 other people at the bar – the only place where there was still space as the large lounge was heaving with people.  Between us we managed ot get full marks on the quiz and each gained another prize token, all of which can be exchanged for non-life-changing prizes at the end of the cruise!

Our first nearly formal evening is about to begin. 

Well, another surprise tonight as many of the passengers indeed scrubbed up well and there was even a man with black and white patent shoes and another at dinner wearing a kippah – if in doubt, look it up on Google!!

We had a cocktail – as we have a pre-paid drinks package we’ve decided to work our way through the ship’s cocktail list and see what we like to be able to put into practice when back home.  We had a nice Indian waiter who brought us 3 bottles of water for the first of our 3 strenuous days and we decided to have a relatively early night so that we can gird our loins for the next excursions days ahead.