Cruise Conclusion

Staying on a boat for 16 days has it’s pros and cons. First off, you really get to know the ship and team members. You become very familiar with the winning slot machines in the casino. You may begin to enjoy the subtle rocking of the ship which allows you to sleep soundly.

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Some cons will be that you will have had everything on the menu 100x. Once you learn the ship, it’s quite redundant. For us, we were ready to explore more and not be restricted by the cruise timeframes. Jeff was the most ready to get off the ship and said by day 13 he was feeling a bit trapped.

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We had a couple stops since the last post. Trodheim, Bergen, and Zeebruges. The last stop was Zeebruges in Belgium, which is about a 30 min drive to Bruges. Jeff and I left the kids on the ship in the kids activity area because they wanted to hang with their friends and play games. We decided to stay in the port town because we would be hitting up Bruges later in the trip.

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We walked for about 20 min or so and found this HUGE beach. There were many locals on the beach hanging out in these weird little storage unit cabins. They were very cute. Some were putting up makeshift fabric fences and putting their chairs out for some sunning time.

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We found a ton of jellyfish on the beach so we 100% weren’t going to play in the freezing water. We stopped at a local eatery on the beach and had some bitterballen. This is a local bar treat made by making a thick stew thickened with roux and beef stock and with meat, refrigerating the stew until it firms, and then rolling the thick mixture into balls. Then the meatballs get breaded and fried. They were quite good.

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Afterwards, we went to a chocolate shop and looked around and headed back to the ship. We packed, ate our last meal on the cruise, and went to bed at a reasonable time. We were ready for our next adventure!

Quick Aside:

The coolest, most awesome thing found on the beach was this rock that I am convinced is an ancient tool. It has perfect grooves to fit a hand for scraping and has a section that looks like it had been intentionally chipped. When we got back on the ship, I asked the gentleman who is doing the enrichment series on the ship if he thought it could indeed be an old tool. His response was it is very well could be! Huge win!