Our last minute tour booking was for an 11:45am meet – which suited us fine, so after an extremely light breakfast, then a cabin break, we managed a coffee and cronut (yes, that modern combination of croissant and doughnut – but sorry, no substitute for those delicious Princess chocolate doughnuts of yesteryear) down on deck 5.
Bus #5 with "Agnes". Oh dear. Another tour guide vaccinated with a Long Playing record needle. Thank heavens we had a couple of hours on our own.
We left the graffiti spattered port town of Gdynia and headed for Gdansk. Once we'd agreed the time and location of our meeting point, we were off like a rocket, with some others, whilst she babbled on, standing on the river bridge.
Now it is very easy to come back and say that a place was great, when our two hour stop was limited to a wonderfully rebuilt main street and the riverbank. But it was a great two hours in bright sunshine with many cruisers taking the opportunity to grab a beer and a bite. Experiences varied, as some said that they wouldn't accept Euros and others did. We limited ourselves to a delicious blueberry jam filled iced Danish pastry at 3 Zloty each and they happily accepted €1 each.
The place was very busy with tourists and the diesel powered sailing ship seem to be doing a brisk trade.
Lost people seemed to have an expectation that it would be a very 'grey' area, but it was very colourful and the housing also looked much better than we expected. Sure, there were many blocks of flats, but also many private houses.
Back to the coach and a wonderful Scottish family (2 sets of grandparents, parents and kids) shared our view of the guide, so much so, that one of the grandmas nudged me in the ribs chuckling and said "I turned off ma' hearing aid!" One of the Grandad's suggested we lag well behind when we were walking, just to enjoy the peace.
Anyway, the next stop, fortunately not too far away, was at a busy sandy beach, (at Sopot?) where we had a complimentary hot drink and a nice square of a sort of apple sponge. Meanwhile, three coachloads of ladies were queuing for the single loo and challenging each other as to who could be fastest!
Back on the coach after about 30 minutes and the lovely young Scottish girl sitting in front of me wasn't being very complimentary about the guide and she and I had our own mimicry going on. I'm such a bad influence on young children - but at least 1 Grandad, 1 Grandma, Mum and I had a few laughs.
We were back at 5:30pm but ship was then delayed due to a medical emergency, but fortunately just before we'd let go of the lines. No problem for the Captain as with 2 days at sea ahead, plenty of time to catch up. We enjoyed a pot of tea each before trying to catch up with the blog.
I pigged out at dinner. Pate, followed by two mains – very nice pork loin, then a 'trilogy of meats'.
The Princess Theatre late show was a disappointing British comedian, Jamie Sutherland. With several jokes I'd already seen on the internet, the act was very lacking in originality and he certainly didn't get the audience going – other than one or two did get going – to the exit. Sorry, only 6/10 Jamie.
Well, that is it then, as far as the ports go on this Baltic's Cruise anyway. Two sea days ahead and one of them will probably involve repacking, ready for our transfer to the Dawn Princess, which we are already really looking forward to.
PS: The title is a reference to "Mrs Brown's Boys". If you are not familiar with the hit TV series, just ignore it.
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