On our first Friday night of the cruise, after our religious services, Felice and I went to Restaurant 2 for dinner. Don't ask me why they name Restaurant 2, because I don't understand it, but the formal dining room is called Restaurant 1, instead of some fancy/schmancy name. Restaurant 2 is the special restaurant. Now we have had experience on other cruise lines with the special restaurant, which usually has better food and ambiance and the cruise line charges you $40 per person to enjoy this exclusive experience. On Seabourn, Restaurant 2 is provided at no extra charge and their theme is to provide a tasting experience with one or two bites of two or three appetizers, two or three main courses and two or three desserts. If you want (as in money and desire) you can have the sommelier pick out special wines to fit the food to be tasted. Given our lack of wine expertise, we just drank the house white and red. While an interesting concept, it was a particularly long dinner for very little food. Yes, I did find some food elsewhere on the ship afterwards.
But what was interesting that night was that there was a guest at another table who was particularly loud. I referred to her during the cruise as Tea Leoni (formerly married to David Duchovny) as I thought she bore a striking resemblance to her.
Anyway, we were about to undertake in the next day or so our 3 day trip though the Tasman Sea. She was loudly complaining that the crew had no knowledge of the difficult weather and seas that were forthcoming and that the crew feigned ignorance when they just had to know. Felice and I passed it off to nerves and concern since the Tasman Sea is known to create a very bumpy ride during the 3 day trip. It wasn't until a couple of days later that someone mentioned to us that the Hurricane that we were scheduled to go through had changed course and we were in the clear. I was very happy that I had no idea that there was a possibility to go through a Hurricane. Actually, there was no possibility of going through a Hurricane as in the Tasman Sea region they are referred to as Cyclones.
http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-typhoon-what-happens-when-tropical-cyclone-crosses-international
Speaking of dinner guests, Seabourn seems to want to make all of its passengers feel special so frequently each passenger is asked to sit at the dinner table of someone on the crew or entertainment staff including the Captain, First through Third Officers, Chief Engineer, Cruise Director, Assistant Cruise Director, Comedian, Singers, Dancers, etc. When you think about it, if you have 15 honored guests at dinner each night and they can each entertain 8 people, then 120 (or one-fourth) of the guests can sit at an honored table. Pretty cool. Our first such experience was with the Assistant Cruise Director. More memorable at this evening was that I was sitting next to a couple from Toronto, Canada and the wife mentioned that her husband was a retired doctor, an ENT. I mentioned that I had an ENT client in Phoenix who had moved from Toronto and it turned out that my client and the other passenger's daughter were best friends with them. Small world.
For those who have never cruised, or who have never gotten sick on a cruise, the concept of having a doctor at your beckon call who does "house calls" is probably foreign, but all cruise ships have a sick bay and a doctor for your use. By the way, it is not free.
http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=175
On Saturday, I was feeling a bit congested and a little run down, and we chose to not take a tender for the 35 minute ride to the city of Oban. There just wasn't much there and frankly I didn't feel up to it. Finally around 6:00 PM, I was actually starting to feel feverish and decided that perhaps a doctor was what I needed. Based on my symptoms, I was sure that I had a sinus infection, but the doctor assured me that I had the flu. He then took a throat culture and when it didn't come back positive for the flu, he assured me that I did have the flu, just not one of the strains that the swab tested for. I assured him I had a sinus infection, but his MD trumped my CPA (Retired) and he gave me Tamiflu, nose spray and disposable thermometers (very, very cool). He also quarantined me to my room (although Felice was pushing to have me quarantined to sick bay). He called the next day and when I told him I was no better, he came up to visit and decided that he would provide me with antibiotics and treat my illness as sinusitis. Of course, the Tamiflu was discontinued and the antibiotics did the trick. I was still quarantined to my room until I was fever free for 24 hours and early during my incarceration, I received a letter from the Captain, thanking me for agreeing to stay in my room and offering Felice and I credit for the number of days of quarantine on another Seabourn cruise. That was very nice of them and probably a great business decision. But the experience reinforced something which I have come to believe from many sources. The person that best knows your body and health is you. I knew I had a sinus infection and probably should have been stronger with him to get him to understand that winter sinus infections were a regular occurrence with me. It would have saved me a day or two in the room. In the meantime, we had all of our meals from room service, which we could have done regardless, but it was nice to have that option. Oh, and my two meetings with the doctor and 3 medicines were only $220, which might be covered by medical insurance. I am encouraging my primary care physician to retire and become a cruise ship doctor. Maybe I can be his medical assistant and we can travel the world together.
Last item for this post is to talk about pilots. In many of the ports that cruise ships go to, the channel for travel is small requiring an individual very knowledgeable of the particular channel. So the cruise ships are required to board a pilot who is given control of the ship's course in the channel.
What is really interesting about this is that coming into the port, the ship doesn't slow down to allow the pilot to board and similarly on the way out of the port, the ship doesn't slow down to allow the pilot to leave the ship. Instead, a pilot boat comes aside the ship, matching speed and course and they transfer the pilot from one ship to the other. I didn't actually get to see the transfer, but I did watch them line the two boats up. It was very exciting.
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