Hi Everyone!!

Chris and I have nearly completed the Atlantic Crossing to Montreal. Sadly on Monday he will leave me to head home, but thankfully I’ll only have about 6 weeks left to go by then before I’ll be heading home too. Nathan (my bro) comes on very soon which I am looking forward to. He’s meeting the ship in New York and will be on for 11 days for one cruise back up to Montreal.

So, since I last wrote, Chris and I have been continuing to have a fabulous time. On August 29th we celebrated Chris’ birthday in Ronne, Bornholm, an island to the south of Denmark. We went on a bike tour.

Chris’ birthday celebrations however really started the night before. It was a formal night and Chris and I had a lovely dinner up at the Steakhouse. Later, we met up with everyone else for drinks in the Royal Lounge, before we all headed back to our cabin for more drinks and to do the count down til Chris’ birthday at midnight. On Chris’ actual birthday I had a show that night so everyone came around to our cabin after the show for more birthday drinks. The following night we had a lovely dinner party with everyone up at Sabatini’s Restaurant. I have to say everyone is really wonderful at making people feel really special on their birthday whilst onboard.

We visited Copenhagen which is truly one of the most beautiful and super clean cities I’ve ever been to. We had a glorious sunny day there where we went on a canal cruise, followed by a visit and lunch at the famous Tivoli Gardens. See the photo of Chris, Nando and Ann eating giant hot dogs there.

The next day we were in Oslo, Norway…another beautiful city. We had a rainy day there, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying it. There’s a photo of Chris and I outside the palace there and also standing along the harbour. The reason I’m holding up my phone in that photo is because Chris Trimarchi (our dancer that was medically disembarked) and I were texting each other. It sucks he missed out on all these ports.

After a day at sea the next stop was Scrabster, right at the top of Scotland. Chris and I did a tour to John O’Groats the most northern village in the UK and then on to Dunnet’s Head the most northern point. We also stopped off along the way at Canisbay, the little church the Queen Mother would regularly visit while staying at her summer residence, The Castle of Mey. That afternoon we all went into Thurso to a pub for lunch and then Chris and I visited Tesco’s (local supermarket) where Chris could stock up on all his British treats he misses.

The next day we had a very cold day in the Faroe Islands. There’s not a great deal to see there, but the scenery is beautiful. You can kind of get the idea of it through the fog in our photo, where we’re all rugged up at the top of a mountain. We were in with the Sea Princess that day, so that afternoon Chris and I went onboard there to visit Anna the Deputy Cruise Director we used to have on our ship here (there’s a photo of us all in her cabin).

After another day at sea we made it to Reykjavik, Iceland. Here we went swimming in the famous ‘Blue Lagoon’. It was very warm in the lagoon and in places very very hot. We covered ourselves in algae that is supposed to be good for your skin. It was a very cool experience.

Two days at sea then turned into three days at sea on our way to Greenland. Because the weather was so rough the captain was forced to abandon our scheduled stop at Nuuk, which is up north on the west coast of Greenland. Thankfully we made it to our second scheduled stop which was yesterday in Qaqortoq, located on the south west of Greenland. After wet, overcast days and choppy seas we made it there and surprisingly had the most cloudless sunny and glorious day. It was 2 degrees but once rugged up and in the sun it didn’t feel like it was. There were random icebergs in the harbour, the buildings were painted colourfully against the landscape, the people were very friendly and they served whale on the menu and sold fur seal products…. The latter two I couldn’t stomach no matter how much I try to understand that it’s their culture.

Today we are at sea again. Dave is very excited because his girl, Loren gets onboard tomorrow. We have a show tonight ‘What a Swell Party’. We’ve been managing as a cast okay with only 7 of us but thankfully Chris T’s replacement arrives in Montreal which should make things better.

I’ve been a little sick the last few days with a throat infection… damn air conditioning gets me every time onboard…. But I’m nearly over it now.

Chris has been filming the shows for me so maybe if I get organised and have time after he’s gone I’ll be able to upload some video. We’ll see how I go.

Anyway enough from me it’s a long one today.

Missing you all heaps.

Jess xx