Another scorching hot and humid sea day, where the aircon in some spots throughout the ship is struggling to keep the ship cool. As soon as an external door is opened, on walking outside it resembles walking into a brick wall, then the immediate area inside the ship get assaulted with hot and humid air.

Viking have provided us with an extremely generous compensation package for missing a few ports, so this morning we met with the cruise consultant to review options. Read on to determine is we booked another cruise.

Temperature: 29C/84F

Wind/Weather: Partly Cloudy, occasional showers and freshening winds

Sunrise/Sunset: 06:53/19:26

Clox: No change (Z+10)

Navigation

We maintained generally Westerly courses, bound for Darwin. Since departure Thursday Island, we have steamed 366 miles, at an average speed of 16.6 kts. We still have 371 miles to the Darwin Pilot Station, requiring 15.2 kts for a 12:00 ETA.

Weather

At sunrise, we had partly cloudy skies, with lower cumulus clouds around the horizon and band of high cirrus up above. This provided a great sunrise, with orange and pink colours, above the low clouds reflecting from the bands of higher clouds. By Noon, the winds had freshened to W’ly 20 kts, but was closer to 30 kts by the end of the day.

Meals

Today’s special meals:

• MDR – Curry Night, this is a private group organised by Full-Timers David & Roger

At 18:00, I headed to Torshavn to join the curry aficionados, while Judi went to the MDR, as she doesn’t like curry. The curry group has expanded to over 90, which is fully 10% of the passengers. We enjoyed a couple of libations, before heading down to the MDR, where the stb’d aft section was prepared for our group. The tables were set up in groups of 6 or 8, so the curries were served family style, with 2 or 3 dishes of each curry delivered to each table. We enjoyed lamb, beef, chicken, prawn and fish curries, with 3 different types of rice. It was amazing, the galley and restaurant staff really excelled.

Activities

I started in the sauna (aka Deck 8) for my morning walk, OMG it was incredibly hot and humid, even before sunrise. Before sunrise, it was already 28C and about 100% humidity. After walking 90 mins, I was both exhausted and soaked to the skin.

No early breakfast this morning, as we had an 08:30 appointment with the cruise consultant to review options for another cruise next year. Did we book another cruise????? Well, if you have read our blog for a few years, you’ll know we thoroughly enjoy this lifestyle, especially on our new favourite cruise line – Viking. We left at 09:00, with the confirmation for these 2 cruises – 1 river + 1 ocean.

Our Next Cruise

Viking River – Grand European Cruise, Budapest to Amsterdam

Viking Ocean – Into the Midnight Sun, Bergen to London

The future cruise vouchers must be used on a single or B2B cruise and are accepted on both Ocean and River ships. So, we have booked a river cruise followed by 9 days in Scotland, then a cruise up Norway to the Arctic Circle, which ends in London.

River Cruise                                                                    Ocean Cruise

• Budapest, Hungary                                                Bergen, Norway
• Vienna, Austria                                                       Geiranger, Norway
• Vienna, Austria                                                       At Sea
• At sea Wachau Valley                                            Lofoten. Norway
• Melk, Austria                                                           Tromso, Norway
• Passau, Germany                                                    Honningsavaag, Norway
• Regensburg, Germany                                           At Sea
• Main-Danube canal transit                                  At Sea
• Nuremberg, Germany                                           Lerwick, Shetland Isles, UK
• Bamberg, Germany                                                Kirkwall, Orkney Island, UK
• Wurzberg, Germany                                              Edinburgh, UK
• Wartham, Germany                                               At Sea
• Koblenz, Germany                                                 Greenwich, London, UK
• Cologne, Germany                                                 Greenwich, London, UK
• Kinderdijk, Holland
• Amsterdam, Holland

Total cruise nights – 28

Very satisfied with our choice and the speed at which it was completed, we still had time to visit the MDR for breakfast. After breakfast we spent the entire morning in the Living Room, me catching up with Townsville photos and getting that post written. The 10:00 lecture was Nautical Sayings & Superstitions, which was a repeat and the 11:00 lecture was the fashion lady, so skipped both of them.

We never miss trivia, meeting our team in the Theatre at 12:00. Yet again another average day, scoring 11/15, but the team next to us has been coming on strong these past few days, scored a winning 13/15.

After lunch we had a quiet afternoon in the cabin, with me still catching up with Thursday Is photos.

After dinner, we headed to the evening show, which was a repeat performance of the Viking Sun produced, “Variety Performance” featuring almost the entire entertainment staff. Yet again, another excellent show.

As another day closes, we bid you farewell, till tomorrow and hope for fair skies and following seas.