YCGL - Saturday, Sept 30, 2023 - Barcelona - Go or No Go?

Slept in this morning, packed my bag again, and had a great seafood paella a a restaurant up the alley, walked up and down La Rambla for about an hour, bought some clothes, got my suitcase, got a taxi, had a pretty direct drive to the ship, and, after about 30+ minutes, got my Princess Medallion, which should have been ready for me since I informed them not to send it to me, and finally got on board about 3:30.  

The cabin was almost everything I didn't want, but its fine and I like the steward, Margarito. Since we are sailing east, I wanted a cabin on the port side, away from the sun and towards land.  I got starboard instead.  Ehh. I should complain about being in the sun???  (The word posh comes from Brits traveling to India.  They wanted Portside Out, Starboard Home, POSH.)  It's toward the back of the ship and I prefer being forward.  It's on the 10th deck, where I prefer higher, like the 15th or so.  Blah, Blah, Blah, you're on a cruise friend, enjoy it.  On our Norway Fjord cruise in 2017, our cabin was starboard side, on the 16th deck and about 5 cabins back from the bow.  I loved it because it was just above and behind the bridge, which extends out from the front of the ship.  We could watch the crew pilot the ship.  When we got to the Lofoton Islands, I watched the captain and his crew decide if the water was too rough to allow people to take the tenders into the shore.  I finally saw him nod yes, and there was an immediate announcement for passengers to get ready and take the tenders into the port.  It was also a great cabin because Liz got an upgrade from a oceanview cabin to a balcony right next to ours. We were able to share balconies with each other.  

When I walked out onto my balcony today, I saw that there was a horizontal side thruster motor sitting on the dock and a bunch of workmen srcambling around it.  It was being lifted by a crane and being dropped into the water next to the ship. As we had a 6:00 sailing, I thought that they had better hurry with that.  We later got an announcement that we would be sailing at 8:00.  Evening comes, I got a shoulder massage (and an appointment for a full massage on Monday), went to a movie from 9:30 til 11:35 (Bohemian Rhapsody, still increasable the 2nd time) and wandered around the ship afterward.  I was on the 17th deck at the aft of the ship when I saw a group of people watching over the side.  I walked over to see what they were looking at, and it was the dock crew installing the horizontal thruster.  We dropped down to the the 7th Promenade Deck and watched until the diver eventually emerged from the repair at 2:00.  All cables, airlines, welding equipment and tools were out of the water and on the dock when we left.  I got back to my cabin, worked on pictures somemore, fell asleep, woke up and checked to see if we were at sea.  And we weren't.  It's now 4:15, and we still haven't left yet.  

I hope the next, first leg of the cruise doesn't get cancelled.  I've always wanted to see Gibraltar and I have an adventure planned for Monday.  

We'll know a lot more tomorrow, I hope.

BTW, when I saw the horizontal side thruster, I knew what it was immediately.  We saw one mounted at a fort we visited in Bud, Norway, right before we got to Molde.  See, travel IS educational.  (if you look at the small plaques on big things.  :)