Thursday was our third day in Monaco, and our first full day on the Silver Muse.   One of the concerns we had when we booked this cruise was that this is the maiden voyage.  Many people are excited about something like that, being first and all.  And let’s not even start with the other meaning of being first with a maiden.  But as a long time IT guy, I translate “maiden voltage” as “beta testing”.  As in ” we haven’t quite finished debugging yet, but let’s get some customers already”.  

Making us safe from the beta test, April 2017

I may have already described the seating chart issue from the first night, but to recap: the ship didn’t allow anyone to make any dining reservations for the first night, which are actually required every other night for every restaurant.  When we inquired upon arrival with the head of the restaurants, we found that they simply assigned people across the ship by cabin number.  So we were sitting with the couple from room 746 (we are 747), while Zelda and  Matteo were with two couples from 654 and 655, as they are room 653.  While a good way to meet people, not what any of the guests traveling with friends or family had in mind.

Not just loose, but missing, April 2017

Matteo came down this morning to breakfast with a cut on his hand.  When we inquired about it, we found out that the bedside reading lamp came off the wall in the middle of the night and cut him.   And when the electrician came to repair the lamp, he said that the screws holding it to the wall were missing, and that was a common problem across the ship.  Seems like the holes in the underlying baseplate don’t always align with the holes in the lamp unit, so they were simply left off during assembly.  Zelda went over to check the lamp on her side of the bed, and it came off in her hand (no injury this time).  When I checked our lamps, one had the required two screws and one had only one.  This is clearly a design problem, but also reflects the lack of time to fix a (minor) safety problem before the beta test maiden voyage. 

I wrote a couple of days ago about all of the work that the ladies put into organizing our diner reservations.  The effort was compounded, in part, by confusion over which nights were “formal” (black tie suggested) at which restaurants.  We wanted to avoid them, so Matteo and I didn’t need to bring suits or ties.  Which I didn’t bring as a result of the careful planning. It took many emails and phone calls with the travel agent and the cruise line itself before Sally secured the information.  Once we were on board and started reading the cabin information, it turned out that two of the restaurants are to be formal every night.   And we have dining reservations at those for four nights.  It also became apparent Wednesday evening that the passengers were taking this formal thing formally.  Even though Wednesday was formally informal (jackets required for men, but no ties), a significant number of men were in tuxedos, and woman in gowns.  I haven’t seen this type of dress widespread on a cruise in 30 years.  It definitely wasn’t the case on our previous Silversea cruise two years ago.

Saving us from beta testing, April 2017

Anyway, Thursday night dinner was at one of the formal restaurants, and we had a lot of conversation during the day about how to deal with it.   My response was, since I didn’t even have a tie with me, I’ll deal with it if and when it’s actually a problem when we show up there.  And I didn’t expect a problem.   

Well, I was wrong again.  

We arrived at the host’s station, and he informed me that the restaurant was formal and I needed a tie to be seated.  I informed him that, per the information the cruise line gave us, I didn’t bring a tie.  He informed me that it was ship policy and needed to be adhered to.   I informed him I came for dinner and wanted to be seated.  He informed me that he would be happy to lend me one of the ties they kept in back for uncouth idiots(1) like me who came without one.  I informed him that I paid a lot of money for the cruise, I didn’t want his stupid (2) tie, and I was going to have dinner in his stinking (2) restaurant.  

At this point he mumbled something about just following company rules, and proceeded to seat us in a nice quiet table in the back of the restaurant, where the fewest possible other guests would need to be exposed to my depraved dress behavior.  I, in turn, made sure I sat facing so that the maximum number of people could see my defiance to immoral and probably illegal authority.

Dessert was yummy: lemon meringue pie, April 2017

We then proceeded to have a lovely dinner, served by a friendly and attentive wait staff.  Although I need to say that three of us had to send our main courses back to be redone, and one of them had to be changed altogether to another choice.   But the desserts were excellent.

Monte Carlo at night, April 2017

After dinner, we went to the show, which featured the “Silversea Singers” (love the alliteration; very clever).  They were very good as they went through a program of songs from the 30s and 40s, which may have matched the age demographic of the passengers (3).  Sally then had to make a quick stop to chat with one of the restaurant managers about ensuring a garlic-free menu choice for Friday night, while I took a last picture of Monte Carlo.  The Silver Muse left port around midnight, headed for Marseilles.
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(1) He didn’t actually call me an “uncouth idiot”.  I’m using literary license to describe my inner feelings at this point.  

(2) I didn’t say either “stupid” or “stinking”.

(3) I jest.  If you were a teenager in the 1930s, you are in your 90s now.  While the passengers appear older than we’ve seen on other cruises, they are not predominantly in their 80s and 90s.   

I wrote the other day about packing. If you missed it, I was discussing two alternate approaches to packing for a trip, mine and Sally’s.  Mine is to bring only what’s necessary, while Sally tries to be ready for different circumstances and plan for contingencies.  

Sometimes my plan leads to a problem.

Falling apart at the seams, April 2017

Sally brought a favorite pair of comfortable shoes, and another pair of comfortable shoes to switch off with.    This afternoon – the second day of our two week trip – the one-piece heel and sole started to come unglued from the body of the shoe, making it unusable. Since she has the other shoes, this will merely be a mild inconvenience, rather than a crisis.  We are planning a lot of touring on this trip, and not having some comfortable shoes would be a problem.    She’ll try and get them repaired on the ship, but we don’t know about that yet.

I brought two pair of shoes: a pair of nice leather shoes for the evening, and a pair of sneakers.   If one of them had failed, I’d be shopping in Monte Carlo tomorrow and undoubtedly paying thousands of dollars for a pair of shoes.  

People like cruises for a number of reasons.  Some enjoy the nightlife.  Some enjoy the on-board activities, like limbo contests on the pool deck or trivia games in the lounge.  Some enjoy the all-inclusive nature of the vacation (1).  Some enjoy being able to see many different places without ever having to pack and change hotels.

This voyage makes stops in 11 ports, including the first and last nights where we overnight on the ship.  That means planning (or not) what to do on each day.  Now, the cruise line, as always, tries to make it easy.  They offer excursions which you can book directly online at their website, and usually have choices for each port.

These are not cheap.  The prices shown are per person, so the third one, for instance, is $69 for a 3.5 hour bus ride.  There is a stop for pictures included.  The second one, at $99, is a four hour bus ride where you get to go shopping at two large markets in Barcelona.  Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ve been there, and the markets are actually quite enjoyable.  But paying that much money for a bus tour is just beyond what we consider a bad value.

So our approach has been to find our own guides and book them ourselves.  As they usually charge by the tour and not by the number of people in your group (2), this can actually be quite economical and much more enjoyable when you’re traveling with another couple.

So, much like our dining plan, we set about identifying what we intended to do at each stop.  This is much easier these days than in the past; we start by checking travel forums like TripAdvisor to see if there are any local guides or tour companies which have worked well.  Using this technique, we discovered a website – Tours By Locals – which intermediates between independent guides in many locations and potential clients.  This ultimately gave us three tours.  We found another two independent guides in two other ports. We decided to take the cruise bus in one location where it was reasonably priced and all we wanted was transportation to the site.  At one stop we’ll rent a car, which I’ve arranged, and in the remaining four we plan to just wander around, or perhaps take taxis to get to where we want to go.

 

 

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(1) If they are looking forward to this, they are likely to be disappointed.  Every cruise I’ve been on has lots of ways to spend extra money after you board, starting with drinks.  On our ship, some of the restaurants have a nominal upcharge which is more than Sally and I usually spend for dinner when we go out.

(2) There is an appropriate charge if the guide needs a larger car or van for a larger group, of course.  But four people plus the guide will fit in pretty much any car that any guide we’ve used has driven.

When you go on a cruise, you spend a lot of time eating on the ship.  Breakfast pretty much every day (although some people skip breakfast), lunch some days, and dinner every evening.  And somehow, somewhere, someone got the great idea that it would be great fun to drag all kinds of formal wear on your vacation so you could play dress up for dinner.  At least sometimes.

Years ago, when Sally and I first took the occassional cruise, you dressed for dinner each night.  Men in a suit and tie, woman in fancy dresses.  One or two nights on each cruise would be “formal”, meaning black tie – tuxedos or the equivalent for men, and ball gowns or other formal dresses with scads of jewelry for woman.  Now, I suppose for some people, this was a dramatic change from their daily lives and therefore welcome.  But I worked at a bank – I got to wear a suit and tie to work every day, and “dressing up” while on vacation was, well, no vacation.  Until 1999, anyway, when the dot-com revolution swept away dress codes at any company that wanted some of that sky-high market valuation (1).

Not to mention that dragging a tuxedo and all of the accoutrements along as well was a pain.  At least we were not luggage-constrained while flying back then.  Ah, the good old days.

But casual attire eventually invaded cruising as it did most parts of society, and so the need to bring black-tie attire or even a suit faded.

Then Sally and I discovered this fancy cruise line that would really like you to dress every night, in at least a sport coat, and go “formal” – meaning a full monkey suit – twice on this long cruise.  They do offer an escape hatch for the latter; on the formal nights, you can choose to eat in one of the restaurants that won’t be formal.

Being eager to get along with Zelda and Matteo, whom we assumed wanted to observe the formal dress code, we made plans to bring the requisite gear.  Little did we suspect that Zelda and Matteo, being eager to get along with us, were doing exactly the same.  This double dose of niceness came to light last week, when we all had a good laugh and promptly agreed to boycott the formal nights.

 

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(1)   As if the worse your employees dressed, the higher your stock price would be.