Tuesday 26^th February – Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Had a quiet afternoon on board and met some of the new passengers – they don’t seem too bad!

Sailed for Montevideo at 7pm and although the ship was gently rocking in the River Plate, Nesta had her usual broken night’s sleep…

 

Wednesday 27^th February – Montevideo, Uruguay.

Our booked trip to the Juanico Winery was cancelled by the ship - there were not enough passengers interested on going on it!! (Cannot understand some people…) Means that of the three such trips we had booked back in the UK, we actually managed to go to not a single one!! Is someone trying to tell us something?

We went ashore and walked the recommended route round the “old town” but never found the pretty bit.

The Mercado del Puerto is interesting as it is full of restaurants cooking lots of meat (nice smells).

We took a number of photographs but our memory card jinx struck again! Even though we had only bought it from the ship a couple of days earlier “memory card error” came up on the camera so we were not able to take any more photos. We’ve taken it back to George in the camera shop in the hope that we can at least save the pictures we took.

Fortunately, our second card still works in the camera and, with the help of the lead we have borrowed will hopefully still be able to save our photos on to the laptop.

Back on board before lunch and just pottered around during the afternoon.

Austin, Rich and Lyn did the all-day Estancia tour and told us we had missed a brilliant trip!

                               Nesta re-creating the Battle of the River Plate!

 

Thursday 28^th February – Day at Sea.

We were planning a quiet day but it turned out to be quite exciting! It is the Captain’s normal two welcome parties today, and on top of this we have been invited to dine at the Captain’s Table at 6-30pm. (Nesta thinks this is just a way of the ship stopping us getting free drinks at both sessions!)

Had a phone call from Eddie at 11-30am asking if we wanted to move up to cabin 7204 now (as it’s empty during this cruise) rather than wait until the beginning of the next cruise when we have actually paid for an upgrade.

Panic set in and we asked for some time before we moved! (Well, we had to hide all of the alcohol we have brought on board!) Anyway, by lunchtime we were in and our fridge was full!

We sat on our balcony in the afternoon and drank our complimentary welcome bottle of champagne.

The Captain’s Table was a bit strange in that he had to leave us after the soup course - he had to do another “welcome” party at 7-45pm and Eddie also left at 8pm to take part in the second party.

They never returned to the meal – so the remaining seven of us finished our food and went up to the bar… (Nesta actually saw the captain a bit later on going into the Veranda Restaurant, presumably to get his main course!).

The sea was quite calm overnight so we slept as well as normal. Nesta is quite happy being up here as she hasn’t got as far to go now to make a cup of tea when she can’t sleep!

                             Ian, enjoying the new balcony