At Sea Sept 27, 2025

A group photo was taken of our Cruise Gang.  Bottom to top: Elizabeth and Alex, Mike and Valerie, Angie and Maggie, Linda and Mike, Robert and Janet, Kelly and Barbara, Butch and Donna.

 

We saw an acrobatic juggling show the night of Zadar, too.

There was a lovely lighting show waaaayoff in the distance after our discovery of the crepe-making station. We finally found it! We ate them in the outside cafe at the back of the ship.

On the "At Sea" day ( Saturday) I didn't take any photos. I left my phone in the room. We wandered around, ate, took a group picture. Played cards. Took naps. Ate a bit too much, too late. But that Brazilian Restaurant meal was our one "Speciality Meal" that was part of the promotion, so we tried to enjoy it. Lots of meat and a very unique salad bar. But a 9 pm meal is just too late. However, it didn't keep me up late with heartburn, thankfully. 

I attended a presentation on "How to Run a Floating Hotel" that I really enjoyed. 36,000 fresh eggs used on average per 7 day cruise. Yowza!

With ALL passengers on board Saturday, the pool area was crazy busy. 

We found a prominade deck that circles the entire ship outside! 

I learned to play shuffleboard today and played in a "Tournament" with strangers for a few minutes, played with Robert after because he came to watch and cheer for  me, and then I  played later with Mike.  Mike and I also played in a Cornhole "Tournament" in the busy Atrium area. I was just curious to see how and where they would do that in such a space. It consisted of one small Cornhole board (NOT regulation!) set up where performers usually stand and perform music, 12 or so  people who signed up on a clipboard, each person took a turn tossing the 4 beanbags, the game guy kept score, then we tossed again. He tallied up the score for bags got in the hole, and after two rounds, we were done. It took all of 20 minutes or less and the winner got a deck of "Norwegian" playing cards as their prize. So now I know! Haha. Sorry I took no photos. 

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What I wrote in my notes on Saturday when the Internet was "down" :

Saturday Sept 27, 2026 day 4 of Adriatic Sea cruise on the Norwegian Pearl.

This is our at sea day. I think it is the only at sea day that we have on this 10-day cruise. I also think it is a rather odd coincidence that they have a computer glitch with their network on the only day that we have totally on the ship to spend money, gamble, and shop in the stores exclusively. Nobody can leave the ship for excursions. I was getting very frustrated about not being able to log in and look at the online Norwegian freestyle daily newspaper. That tells me the events that are going on for the day. I couldn't make plans for the day because I didn't know what was going on for the day because I couldn't get a logged in! I also couldn't get logged in to read my audiobook. Nothing was working. And yet my device SAID I was logged in. Hmm. Sounds suspicious to me.

 However, Mike did have a tender mercy. His phone has mostly been off. But last night he had a text from Keala Cupp in Las Vegas, but the message never showed, just that there WAS a message.  And he worried about that. As in, it kept him up all night and he was unable to sleep. He was just worried about his friend, Don. Don has had cancer and it was pretty bad.  Once we got me logged out and Mike logged in, we were able to see that the message from Keala and it said Don Cupp had indeed passed away. But he passed away on September 2nd and today is the 27th! That news was a long time coming. I'm pretty sure Mike would have like to have attended a memorial service for him, but we never knew. The tender mercy was that of all the text messages that tried coming to Mike's phone-- ONLY Keala's was readable. None of the others were anything more than a notification that there was a message but content was "unavailable" at this time.

 

We slept in, didn't do ANY reading because we only brought e-books-- which had worked fine until today's " glitch"! We ate a late breakfast outside in the aft deck.

Blue skies, temps in the low 70's no wind because we're barely moving. It's so relaxing and chill .

Even though the ship is at capacity at around 2400 passengers, it's not too bad. Yes, the pool area is full and you have to look hard to find a place to sit in the buffet area. But it's not bad. 

I did attend one presentation on" how to run a floating Hotel" that I found fascinating. 36,000 fresh eggs per 7 day cruise in average. Washers with a capacity of 275 lbs. Each. 

Mike and I took some time to play cards together, enjoy Virgin Pina coladas, ask about the cruise next program and found a couple of our fellow family member cruisers. But only briefly.

We even lounged on a deck on chaise  lounges in the sun for about  20 min or so. 

And don't forget the naps! How we love our naps😃🥱

Sept 26 Friday old town Zadar and Sea Organ

 

I'm not unhappy, it was just bright and I forgot to smile!

There was also a solar installation. I guess it does stuff at night?

Antiquities

Church steeples

More antiquities 

A study of old and new. The old town is surrounded by ancient wall.

Our ship, the Norwegian Pearl.

Fri Sept 26, 2025 Zadar, Crostia

 We had a busy full day today. It started with getting up early! Who gets up early on vacation?!! Well, we did. So did Robert and Janet! Mike and I got up early enough to eat breakfast and then buffet and meet at the starlight theater by 7:15 a.m. are very large group of about three or four bus loads of people went to Krka National Park here in Croatia. We docked at Zadar.

We had a really good tour guide who narrated our bus trip out to the National Park, about an hour away from the dock. The park is basically water cascades and lots and lots of water and waterfalls and more water and more cascades and lakes that are small but deep and lots of trees. We followed a wooden walkway throughout this part of the park. It was very informative and beautiful and cool. There was also some ethnological sort of things that they educated us about. The people who lived in the area used the water for milling their grain. And doing laundry, too! And of course there are some  hydroelectric plants there. Lots and lots of rocks in this area. Robert knew what kind they were. The type of limestone. 

Mike and I bought gelato at the stop before our climb up the stairs and out of the park area. The walking sticks or hiking poles that Katie sent to me were a lifesaver. We walked down a lot of wooden boardwalk paths, and some stairs typical of national parks. But once we got to the bottom and had our little rest and gelato, then it was climbing up and out by way of the stairs. The hiking poles definitely helped me. 

After we rode the bus back to the cruise terminal, I decided to buy a shuttle ticket and go into the Old Town of Zadar and see and hear the sea organ. I did, walked around took some pictures, saw Liz and Alex, Barbara and Kelly, then headed back to the shuttle. On my way THERE, there were 5 of us on the shuttle bus. On the way BACK to the ship at 2:30 or so we filled three buses. and then we rode a shuttle back to the ship! Pictures follow.

Samples of wool Croatian weaving.

Typical national dress and typical American tourist.

The water mill stones. They had quite a collection of  mill stones leaning against the wall outside next to this mill.

They washed the newly woven wool fabric, not just every day laundry, here. 

Cyclamen? They are just 4 to 5 inches tall and EVERYwhere! Fields of them!

This little area is full of tiny flowers, too. So pretty!

The board walk. Uneven, rickity in places, and few hand rails. The wooden walks were NOT all level.

Educational signage about flora and fauna, mostly. 

Swans at our rest stop before the big

Climb up to the bus. 120 steps? 

Tired Robert and Janet. We were tired, too!

Zadar old town photos will be in another post 

Sept 25 Thurs. Day 2 cruise

 Today is Thursday September 25th. We honestly did not know what day it was this morning! I guess that is a good sign of a great vacation, right? 

We Mike and I had a great night's sleep. He probably slept over 10 hours. I finished putting away clothing and unpacking our final suitcase. He was asleep by 9:30 p.m. and I was asleep shortly after that. 

I got up a few times in the night and saw lightning through our portal window. There was a storm in the area. But the saline was very smooth. This is a very smooth ship! Our first little jaunt was just a little ways down the coast. Our stuff was at Koper, Slovenia. We did not have an organized tour for that day, so we just disembarked and wandered through the nearby town. Mike and I got there in time to listen to an organ recital in their very old and beautiful cathedral. The music was amazing! I don't even know what kind of cathedral it was. Catholic? Probably. 

The three of us siblings had breakfast all together with Barbara and Kelly. Robert and Janet came a little later but we're nearby. I have not even yet seen Elizabeth and Angela and their partners. We have been having a nice, relaxing time. 

I have been struggling with Wi-Fi and internet connection. I mean not really sure how to fix it even after speaking to the communications manager at his desk. Oh well. I will do my best to try to keep my blog updated. 

The meals so far have been really good. Mike and I had a pre breakfast snack because we were hungry at 7:00 as we went exploring the ship. We just made it a point to eat a little bit of fruit before meeting butch and Donna for breakfast at 8:30. So we had pre breakfast, then breakfast, then we had lunch, just Mike and I. Then we had a snack while we were waiting in the afternoon after our nap and walk through the town of Koper. And we still have dinner to go! Haha. Oh well. The meals are not humongous. It is tempting, however! So much ice cream and cakes and cookies around. 

Mike and I did a trivia game with a assistant cruise activities director in the atrium. There were only about five of us participating. It was silly and fun. We met Robert and Janet in the card room just by chance and played a game of golf with them. Mike and I discovered that the pool area is very busy on a summer port today! Two pools and four hot tubs and they were all filled to capacity. The boat is filled to capacity, as well. There are about 2400 customers and about 1500 crew. It's a busy place. 

View from front of ship

There workers down on the side of the ship. 

We enjoyed watching a container ship get into the port and start unloading.

Pretty water and clouds.

Inside of Koper cathedral.

Mike tried for lemonade. A big FAIL. It was water and lemon juice. Ick. Does not compete with the yummy lemonades he had in Romania.

View of town from ship.

Travel to Europe Sept 23- Oct 4, 2025

 It took two days of travelling to get here! 

A lot of driving, flying, waiting, naps, more waiting and driving.

But we are here!

Thank you Donna, for figuring it all out for us. 

We got up Tuesday the 23rd dark and early at 5:15 a.m. 

3 hr drive to Look as Vegas airport with traffic and long term parking.

2 hour wait

2 hour flight

Arrive in Denver

Another almost two hour wait

A TEN hour flight to Munich

An hour imor two waiting. Plus an un- planned gate change. Hurry up and wait.

A one+  hour flight to Venice.

Another wait for the bus to take us to port.

A two plus hour bus drive to port in Triest.

More lines. Waiting, checking in, security, a brief muster station check in and

We were in our nice little stateroom or cabin by about 5 p.m. 

I think we totaled up a LOT of travel hours! 

I finally caved and bought a bigger Internet package. Maybe it wasn't necessary, but I was just so frustrated seeing minutes tick away so quickly, just sending messages, checking the Norwegian app, etc.

We are on a 10 Day Adriatic and Mediterranean cruise on the Norwegian Pearl.

This is the first time I've elevated my feet in two days. Ahhh.