first night, our Captain warned us what to expect and which would develop overnight and stay with us all the next day. I had forecast this myself before departure - as I had been watching weather and sea height websites and I thought that it was highly possible that we would miss our first port of call. But it was not until yesterday that we got to discover the extent of the weather that we encountered. It was quite a deep low pressure system and we went right through the middle of it over a period of around 18 hours. According to the Bridge, wind was Force 11, gusting to Force 12 - and sea heights were around 12 metres (around 40 feet in the old money). Some fantastic photos were taken from the Crows Nest by the ship's photographers showing Arcadia's bow plunging down the swells and briefly submerging, with huge spray going right over the Bridge. Anybody who knows how high the bow of this ship is above normal sea level will understand what that means! All of the outside decks were closed for the day and we stayed mostly in our cabin - in a horizontal position. Christine (who suffers from seasickness) did quite well really, and only had to talk to God down the big white telephone twice during the day. Early yesterday, I discovered that the rear of the Lido Deck (deck 9) was open so we went out there for some fresh air - she wasn't too happy at this time as you can see from the photo. But, having moved out of the low pressure system overnight, we had blue skies after the sun came up and everything slowly turned rosier. The seas were still a bit confused during the day - but we were now running with the prevailing swell, instead of fighting into it. One thing we have discovered is that this is a very noisy ship - creaking and groaning. I know that there is movement onboard ships - but this is more reminiscent of that found on an old sailing vessel. It is the fifth cruiseship I have been on and have never encountered it before - sounds like wall panels have all been installed without any flexible jointing compound between them. I would be very unhappy if my old converted bus/motorhome creaked like this as I drove down the road - but I was astute enough while building it to use jointing compound between all joins.
Anyway - all's well that ends well - and we were able to fully explore the ship yesterday , including all the open decks. As I said in a previous post, I really like the Belvedere (Buffet) restaurant - and we are looking forward to experiencing the Gary Rhodes restaurant and the Orchid restaurant ( the second of these including it's associated bar looks VERY nice indeed). We now have another 4 sea days before arriving in Barbados (after already having three) - so in my next post, I will attempt to include some photos of various parts of the ship.
For any that are considering future long distance cruises, we have come to realise that to go right around the World, the cruiselines need to have some tight schedules in some places (especially in the long approaches to the Suez canal via the Indian Ocean and the Panama Canal via the Atlantic). It is very easy for these schedules to be interfered with by weather or mechanical problems - and subsequently ports are missed, as the over-riding goal is to arrive at the respective Canal in time for transit through it. Better get used to that idea - or don't book World Cruises.
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