Update (1:30am): Added running and moon photos.
Interesting day at sea, lots of logistics and planning (and being flexible). Back to being super muggy outside, but day 1 of virtual dopey races.
Late night shenanigans
Technically I guess this is part of day 21, but after last nights run on the track, I grabbed my GoPro and walked around the ship, starting at deck 12 and going down to deck 4. All the common spaces were completely empty and it’s the BEST.
For a night owl (and an introvert), having the entire ship at my fingertips wherever I want to squat for a little bit is always my favorite part of a cruise. I remember growing up, my family would go on cruises, and I’d go out on one of the decks and just read a book or listen to music by myself with some nice breeze and ocean waves crashing on the ship.
This look at 2AM on the Serenade was pretty indicative of my nightly routine. I can go anywhere and everywhere and not have to deal with people or crowds….unfortunately, no food or drinks either.
“Morning” routine
Woke up to the noon announcement that I heard through my stateroom door. Couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but the announcement tone definitely got my attention and decided it was time to wake up.
Headed out for some a Iced Chai and some live guitar in the centrum, before relocating to deck 12 aft.
As I was freeing up some space on my laptop and moving stuff to portable harddrives, I realized that I have taken about 15000 photos so far in 20 days. I’ll get the final stats later, but it’s been a lot of fun, and some incredible sights and scenes so far, couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Logistics
Originally, I had an approved side trip planned, but upon chatting with guest services, they told me that I needed to get off the ship a day earlier. I spent a couple hours looking up and booking some AirBnB places and changed a tour to an AirBnB experience instead as well, while I was at it.
No worries, I’m pretty good with being flexible and seeing where the wind blow. It’s how I’ve seen and done some of my favorite things while traveling — not being too stingy and stringent to plans.
Cruising Day
Most of the day was spent just doing logistics and catching up on plans for the next couple days. It’s going to be a little condensed in the next couple weeks for me.
One thing I noticed on someone’s facebook post that I glanced at was that it seems like there’s a lot of people getting on at Buenos Aires for the next leg, so potentially the ship is going to be a lot more packed. I’m going to take the last couple days on this leg to enjoy my solitude and peaceful spots before they become overrun :D.
Fun views though — a little different with some lovely cloud cover and some random shots around the ship as well.
Cruise Swag
Got back to the stateroom at some point in the middle of the day to find more cruise swag. Nice coin, and the shadow box thingy is pretty cool. Two stretched pieces of what looks like a saran wrap type material, but goes over both sides pretty nicely. Very cool.
Cuddleez Lotso says
Squatting in the Pub
On the way to dinner, I stopped at the pub for a little bit. Caught the first half of the Orange Bowl, and my oh my…ridiculous game. I totally get being pissed about not making it into the CFP even being undefeated, but having so many athletes sit out in (a seeming) protest is a little ridiculous.
Obviously, you can’t make anyone play a game either, but its certainly not a good look to just…not play either, and then leave your teammates that ARE playing to carry the load so short handed. They obviously got destroyed as well, and it was super uncompetitive.
In the meantime, I did a little bit of research and work, continuing to play with the garmin API and data. Today I learned….that the API has statuses for each half hour of your step tracking. Look at this API response from a couple days ago.
So rude…:P … I did wonder what the other statuses might be.
This was fun, I think this is just me walking to the bathroom at some point.
Apparently I sleep and don’t move a lot (sounds like a vacation to me :D).
Just really fun to explore this data, and there’s a whole lot of data and tracking that I can pull from my garmin watch, so I’ll keep nerding out on it as time allows.
Logistics Conclusion
Stopped back at guest services on my way to dinner to check on any updates on the approved travel situation, and apparently it turns out that customs will be there only for one day in the port and not the second day, so to leave and go through customs, I’d have to leave a day early.
BUT….
That only applies if I need to go through customs…so apparently I can forego my suitcase, and just take my normal backpack and there’s no issues…I can just get off the boat and come back later at a different port as originally planned.
Good thing I booked an AirBnB with a Free Cancellation policy. All squared away, but used a couple hours and a lot of mental energy on that today…oh well, good to know about the process, and hopefully will help for future trips the rest of the cruise.
Sri Lanka Visa
Apparently, they’re also reversing course (yet again) on directions for the Sri Lanka Visa as well. So we’ll need to fill out and get that visa ourself. Can’t fill it out till end of January though, so just one more thing to remember and put on the list.
Again…no worries, not much they can do about it, and regulations (and life) shift all the time.
Food
Dinner was quite yummy. I really enjoyed the special (lamb kebobs) and the white and red cheesecake. Crab cake was good with big chunks of crab, and the stuffed pasta was one of the most delicious things ever…saved half for my post-run snack.
Running Update
Heading up now (after this post) to get the first run of the Dopey Challenge in. It’s gonna be a tough 5K, I walked up there earlier this evening and there’s a light mist and rain, and it’s SUUUUPER windy out there.
Cloudy, but then clouds sort of parted for a little bit…had to shoot through the clouds, but still got a few.
Vibe Check
4 parts joy
1 part anger – was slightly frustrated when they told me that I needed to get off a day early. Not because I had to get off early, but because it seemed like I would’ve been screwed if I hadn’t randomly gone to check with them at guest services, and also that the approved travel and the process was not super useful if the approval doesn’t mean anything to my trip. Quickly faded from anger to annoyance to acceptance, as there’s nothing Royal can do, we all have to play by the port authority rules, so no issues, just wish there would be some better communication all around. Life moves on though, and we roll with the punches.
Feedback
Leave a comment or question if you have any thoughts! Anything you want to know about as we go around the world? Any things you want to share as feedback, or any images that particularly spoke to you. I’ll try to read all of them as time permits!
Matti 
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