Christmas At Sea – Saturday, December 25

Last updated on December 26th, 2021 at 03:55 am

Today was spent at sea as the ship travels from Santorini to Malta.We set our clocks back an hour last night as Malta is an hour behind Greece. That gave us an extra hour of sleep and a more leisurely rising without a morning excursion. The day began cloudy with a beautiful sunrise. The clouds burned away for a sunny day in the mid 60’s with a calm sea. After breakfast Joyce did some laundry and Alan worked on pictures.  Alan had scheduled a massage, so he went for that. We met back up for the Christmas worship service. It was interdenominational, worshipful and joyous.

After the worship service we tackled the various forms of documentation required to entry Malta and Italy. We had put our vaccination information in the VeriFLY app for the flights to Greece and for entering Greece. With the constantly evolving COVID-19 situation, we learned a couple days ago we would need it for Malta as well. In checking the VeriFLY app we found that pass had expired and we needed a new one. We figured out how to get a new pass with the same information. Last evening we were given specific information from Viking on how to register for a passenger locator QR code needed for Italy. So, we did that as well. We have been informed we will not be able to leave the ship in Italy unless we are on a Viking excursion. Every morning on the ship we submit a saliva sample for a PCR test, complete a 4 question health survey, and have our temperature taken before breakfast. We are asked to wash or sanitize our hands before entering any venues on the ship – dining, theater, etc.

Lunch today was a special Greek buffet. It was fun to sample Greek foods we hadn’t had before and enjoy some of our favorites. After lunch, without an excursion, we definitely needed some exercise. We walked around the sun deck, enjoying the sunshine, though it was a little windy. We then went down to deck 2 where there was less wind. We made it ¾ of the way around until we came to a section without an intact rail as the crew appeared to be working on it. We decided walking the deck without the railing was not smart, so went inside. There were some electronic game tables in the Viking living room. We played a jewel matching game, (Alan won) and Majong (Joyce won).

Back in the room , we decided to watch a movie and settled on Meet Me in St. Louis. The movie held Alan’s attention a little longer that it did Joyce’s, but he soon fell asleep and Joyce blogged. At 4 pm we joined other passengers for caroling, where we were served some very good hot chocolate and mulled wine. After caroling, we returned to our stateroom to watch the port talk on Malta. One can either attend the port talk in person or watch it on the room TV. 

We ate Christmas dinner with Doris. We both opted for traditional food, turkey and dressing. It was some of the juiciest turkey Joyce has had. The pumpkin mash was not traditional, but tasty none the less. For dessert, Joyce chose a miniature yule log and Alan chose chocolate soufflé. Since we hadn’t been served any good food all day and not very much food either – Not!, next up was the Chocolate bar in the World Café! We visit it, Alan’s sweet tooth was delighted, Joyce enjoyed with her eyes.

The last thing for the day was the Songs of the Season performance. Sacred, new and old Christmas favorites were sung as solos, duets and quartets. Star, Millie, Sean and Alex, Viking vocalists, were joined by Scott, assistant cruise director, Heather, cruise director, and a male and a female vocalists we hadn’t heard before. These two sang a beautiful, moving duet of the Ukrainian Carol of the Bells in Russian. Heather ended the evening with a stunning performance of Oh Holy Night. She has a beautiful, classically trained voice. She told a moving story of how she first discovered she could sing through the encouragement of a teacher.