August 12, 2024
First look at my Cabin !!!
I flew overnight Philly to Dublin, got in at 8:15am, took the 9am Bus from Dublin Airport to Downtown Belfast, roughly 2 hours and hired a Cab to take me from bus depot to Harlon & Wolff shipyard to go on board the Odyssey for the first time since early June. After a quick stop at guest services to pick up my room keys, I headed down the Lido Deck to my Cabin #6065. Here's my first impressions!
I am really happy with size, layout and furnishing - what I expected! The artwork is fine, like the Van Gogh vibes from Provence - had a great trip there and it is bright and sunny! Had to track down one of my suitcases, but everything else was there and waiting for me.
Going to take a few days to unpack and get settled, more to come.
Got to love a place that sells shirts saying " Where the heck is Yap? " Colonia ( population 3,100 ) is the Capital and Harbor town of Yap State ( population 11,600 ) one of four states in the Federated States of Micronesia. We are in the Pacific Ocean or Philippine Sea just north of the equator, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Ternate, Indonesia, which is both the name of the city and island, and is part of the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It is a port that sees maybe 3 Cruise ships a year. However, they really made an effort to show us the best of what they can offer. It's mainly a Muslim country, and we knew we had to dress discretely, but we knew little else. We didn't have our typical port talk prior, due to a technical issue with the AV equipment. Ben a fellow resident, organized an island tour, with about 8 stops, for 90 of us residents.
Cebu greeted our Ship with a big warm welcome, despite having just been rocked by a major Earthquake, days before our arrival. The Minister of Tourism arrived with a motorcade and she proceeded to chat with the residents and thank us, for all our support.