I was up early this morning and went up to the Living Room on deck 10 so I would not disturb Alice. Sean responded with a cruise selection text at 4:30. I wanted to respond to him because I found a cruise on Azamara Journey that was a little more Norway intensive. I did not want to exclude any possibility. We will wait to see what he thinks.
Sunrise
Then I got the opportunity to watch passengers with early flights start wheeling their luggage off at 6:30. That will probably be us on November 8.
We went to breakfast at 7:30 because as back-to-backs we will have to check out with our old keys. Then we had our pictures taken for security and got new keys. This went smoothly.
Now I took our passports to Guest Relations. They need them to have an Egyptian visa stamp affixed. I brought the passport claim checks to the room and placed them in the safe. We will need these to reclaim our passports when we arrive in Egypt.
That accomplished, I returned to the Living Room to work on yesterday’s post. Midway through that a young man came and said hi. He was the piano technician. He started adjusting and tuning the grand piano. Pretty soon Sasha, the band director and pianist came in. They started talking about the condition of the piano. They agreed that it was not badly out of tune. The technician pointed out that while it was not inexpensive it was a cheap Chinese piano and would not last. The guts are made with inferior materials. The tech said this instrument probably cost $15,000. For about $7,500 more Azamara could purchase a Yamaha grand that would last forever. Sasha agreed to suggest that and left.
When he finished his work, the technician played a wide ranging classical piece to put the instrument through its paces. I applauded and we chatted for a while. He was trained in Boston but came back because he is native of Athens. He is an independent contractor and services many of the cruise ship pianos. He also serves as the technician for the Athens Yamaha dealer. He knows there is a shortage of piano technicians in the US but he is not ready to relocate. He does quite well right here. Talking to him was a pleasure that would not have happened if I was not the only person in the room.
We went to the Patio for lunch for those staying on. I had an excellent bacon cheeseburger that was impossible to eat as a sandwich. It did well open faced. Alice had a plain cheeseburger without a bun. A much smarter choice. We agreed that the fries were excellent and the Carlsburg was a good accompaniment.
A short time after lunch we heard an announcement that we were required to be seen face to face by immigration at 1:30. I went to guest relations to retrieve our passports. After all how could immigration check us without them. At 1:30 we started to assemble. Of 20 of us only 6 had their passports. A crew member went to retrieve and distribute them. We learned that this check had not been necessary before and the ship was just notified at 1:00.
We proceeded to deck 4 where we were delayed while the bureaucrats decided how they wanted to deal with us. Finally we exited the ship and walked to the terminal. There we waited again. Then a man collected all of our passports. After another wait we were led to the same long line that incoming passengers were using. Soon we were led around to the front of the line. Now our passports had to be returned to us for us to present them to the immigration officer. He simply scanned and stamped them before returning them to us.
All done? Not quite. Now we had to pass through the same security checkpoint that the new passengers were using. Thankfully we were again led to the front of the line. Next we joined the long line at the gangway stairs. After waiting for a passenger in need of assistance we were scanned aboard. We returned our passports to Guest Relations and have now again locked our claim checks in the safe.
I returned to the Living Room to blog. Alice visited Bruno to advise him of her pain status. He decided that tomorrow’s treatment should not include anything for fibromyalgia. He wants to focus on her foot and ankle since they are responding well. We all want her in the best possible shape for touring Egypt and the Holy Lands.
Tonight we had dinner in Prime C, the specialty restaurant. It was a relaxed dinner excellently served by Shinapa.
On our way back to our stateroom we were able to help some new arrivals find their way.
Tomorrow is a sea day, but we still went to bed early.
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