August 14, Saturday
I’m obviously getting confused on dates here, but I know Friday was Friday the 13th. We’re having a great time. Today we finally left the hotel (farewell Marriott) and got on board the Concerto, our home for most of the rest of the trip. It’s a lovely river boat, but we’re now down to two small single beds instead of the two king size beds at the Marriott. I think our whole room is about the size of the two beds at the Marriott, but it’s compact and nice. Grand Circle is giving us another free excursion today, again to make up for the perceived problems some of the passengers are complaining about. Frankly, I haven’t been inconvenienced at all.
We took a lovely excursion to a small artisan town today, where the shopping was great. Plus they gave us 15 euros for lunch. I bought the most unusual egg that will be in my collection. It’s called a blacksmith’s egg, and it’s decorated with tiny pieces of metal held in by about a hundred nails. The premise of this egg is that the blacksmith was so delicate that he could do this work on an egg without breaking it. I also got an inexpensive beaded egg that’s quite interesting and doesn’t look like any of the ones I’ve made myself. At the same store of the cheap egg, I also got a Christmas-ornament sized hurdy gurdy.
After our excursion we came back and were finally transferred to the ship. When we got onboard, we had a wonderful view of Parliament across the river. But once the boat made a u-turn to dock where it’s supposed to be, we had a view of someone else’s cabin in the boat we were docked next to. We are once again in the middle of the ship, which means that after we docked last night, we woke up looking at the underside of the dock. The guy from Grand Circle told me this wasn’t the case. He lied. If we go again on some cruise, we’re going to ask for an end cabin.
Speaking of Grand Circle, they really are quite amazing. Some of the people on this trip put two trips together and sailed from Amsterdam to Budapest, then will go from Budapest to Bucharest. But, those people didn’t get much of a boat trip at all, because the river was too high from all the rains they’ve had upstream from here, and the ship couldn’t get under the bridge somewhere. So they were put up in hotels and bussed from place to place. By the time we got to Budapest, the boat will still unable to sail, so they put us all up at the Marriott. So now they’re giving us another of the excursions for free instead of the $80 we expected to pay, and we got a notice that when we get home we will get a notice of a pro-rated settlement for the inconvenience. I told my tablemates at dinner I didn’t know how much it would be, but I wouldn’t pay more than $100. They will probably give us some kind of a discount on the next trip we make. And of course, the food on board is great – and in great quantities.
I think I just uploaded the wrong pictures for today, but you'll just have to try to figure it out.
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