Thursday 26^th July

Chris and Angela had another boating adventure on their recent European Adventure.  They went on a twelve day Baltic cruise which sounded like SO much fun.  But…so much EXHAUSTING fun! 

The boat would travel all night and disgorge their passengers at 7am to go sightseeing.  They went to Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, St Petersburg, (NO not in that order!  And more cities which I can’t remember…I will extract more info from them this weekend.)  After a day of sightseeing they would get back to the boat, have a shower, and be ready to watch an informative power point presentation about the next day’s activities.  This wasn’t just for entertainment, this was full of need-to-know information about timetables and Survival Abroad!  After that it was dinner, in one of the seven restaurants, then FUNFUNFUN – cabaret, magic, dancing, music, quizzes, you name it!  It was all GO!

On one of their rest days – there were one or two – they did a tour of the kitchens.  Oh the logistics!  There were about 5,000 on board – 1,600 crew, 3,400 passengers.  So the kitchens served up 17,000 meals EVERY day!  This many meals because a lot of the passengers had more than three per day – afternoon tea, morning tea, supper, snacks.  Chris and Angela said the food was absolutely delicious but that people ate FAR too much.  Great big heaped plates three, four, five times a day.  Everything in the kitchens was made from scratch – huge vats of tomato sauce on the boil, groaning ovens full of bread, rolls, cakes, croissants.  Imagine being the head caterer…the lists, to be made, the possibility of error!  The temperamental chefs, the sobbing kitchen hands, the scurrying waiting staff…I have worked in kitchens and I know how high-pitched it can get.  At sea, with these huge numbers, it must be hell!