Day 9 - December 10 - At Sea

 

After leaving Crete yesterday we sailed all night in very rough waters with 7-12 ft. waves and a strong wind.  Around 10 am this morning the ship stopped buffeting around though the waves are still very choppy.  A little about our ship – Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Jade.  The Jade used to be the Pride of Hawaii until 2010 when it became the Jade.  There is still some Hawaiian décor on the ship indicative of its time in Hawaii.  The capacity of the Jade is 2402 (with double occupancy).  The ship weighs 93,558 tons and is 965 ft. long.  Cruise speed is 25 knots and there are 1075 crew members aboard. 

NCL is known for its freestyle dining whereby they have different restaurants aboard and you choose to dine where you want, rather than have a specific table and tablemates for eating.  Some of the restaurants have a cover charge ($10-25).  Both Jim and I prefer this as we can dine when and where we want.  The ship contains 4 pools with water slide, a library, a game room, fitness center, spa, a casino, theater, many bars, shopping store (largest of all the NCL ships we’ve been on), chapel, Internet café, clinic, golf cage, art gallery, ping pong, kid’s center, video arcade, and a sports court.  There are activities galore as many of you know that have cruised all day and evening from bingo, trivia, DJs, piano bar and educational sessions on the places the ship will dock. 

There are a variety of land tours to purchase at each stop as well as one can arrange for an outside tour company to meet you when the ship docks (we did this in Russia on the Baltic cruise and it worked out great and was cheaper than arranging land tours through NCL).  Below are some shots of the Jade.  We have travelled 3 times with NCL – on the Jade, Sun and Pearl (Alaska).  While I am not a boat fan, I have gotten used to cruising and some of the places we’ve gone with NCL can be done best by cruising.  This cruise is an 11 day one leaving from Civitavecchia (a Rome port).