Our last day of the cruise. We had a winery visit planned with 5 other CC couples, and the couple that added through the winery. We set the alarm for 7 because it would be our last day for breakfast at Sabattini's, and we didn't want to miss that. I woke up early and saw from the balcony that we were coming into the harbor at Montevideo. A little while later, I noticed the ship moving sideways, meaning we were docking. About then, the last couple called to say they were sick, and wouldn't be coming. He told Glen he knew there was a waiting list. It was annoying since it's impossible to pull someone off a waitlist at 7am on day of. I did email the winery before heading out of the room, hoping we won't have to pay for their lunch.
Montevideo at dawn. This was taken as we sailed into the harbor.
We had our last breakfast at Sabattini's, and at the end made a point of thanking Pedro and the crew for their outstanding and friendly service during the cruise. They made the breakfast experience really special.
We then met our friends at the wheelhouse and proceeded off the ship. Because we'd gotten in a bit early, there was no line at the gangway, and we all headed off the ship. I'd very carefully written down the information Maddy (the contact) had given me, and in dealing with the cancellation, left it in the room. Because I'd written it down, it was somewhat committed to memory, so we left the port. At the location where I thought they'd be, there were lots of vans, but they were all there to get passengers to take tours, none were waiting for us. As I was considering heading back to the ship to get the phone number, a van pulls up, a young woman jumps out asking if one of us is Abby. The van they usually use is broken, so that's why they were slightly (very slightly - about 3 minutes) late. She introduced herself as Cecelia or CeCe, we all piled in and went off for our city tour. She showed us several parks, monuments and historic buildings, and also a part of the original wall around the old city. We stopped at a beach park along their shore (remember that like BA, Montevedio is a port along the Rio de la Plata, not the ocean) to take pictures. We got some of parrots, which are wild here. As we were leaving, the buses from the ships (both the Star and one of the Royal Caribbean ships were in town) were arriving, and we were very glad that we were on our private tour.
Glen at the beach park. I can't remember exactly what the sculpture behind him is.
Still at the park, these are parrots. Yup, they are wild in South America. Birdwatching here certainly beats Alaska.
After that we headed towards the winery. We had a few extra minutes, so CeCe showed us the new international airport. As we drove by the entrance, Glen and I kissed, and we got another airport in. (If you don't know, we're trying to kiss in as many airports as possible - this started when we were both traveling a lot).
We arrived at the winery and were greeted by Maddy, the -it turns out young - women I'd set this up with. After a few minutes, we got a tour of the winery. Because it's harvest time, we tasted a grape called Tannet - one I don't see at home at all. It was, like every wine grape I've tasted, very sweet. We then did a standard winery tour, showing the crush and separation of stems and seeds, the fermentation tanks, the aging tanks, and the bottling operation.
This is the crusher. For whatever reason, I usually don't visit California wineries during harvest season. So it was fun to see it in action.
They make two brands - their fine wine and their table wine. One of the main differences is the amount of pruning of the vines. What was cool is that because it was harvest time, we actually saw the crush and bottling operation in action. Very cool.
The winery. It's very pretty and quiet there.
After the tour, it was time for tasting and lunch.
This is Glen in the dining room. It was very pretty and a delightful experience.
Lunch started with plates of cold cuts, veggies and cheese, and a white wine sample. After that we two red wines with potatoes, sprinkled with Rosemary (which we think was growing just outside the tasting room), salad and barbecue meats. It all very good. We finished with sparkling wine and flan with dulche de leche. Quite possibly the best flan dessert I've ever had.
I rarely do food pictures, but this tasted even better than it looked. I'm going to Uruguay for dessert every night from now on.
Once lunch was over, we had to pay for it. She asked me to pay cash for the transportation and tour, so we just split it 12 ways. It was probably only a dollar or two more per person, no biggie. Each couple paid for their own lunch and the bottle of wine we all felt compelled to buy. I think we were all sorry that Montevideo was at the end of our trip - we would have loved to buy more and and drink it during the cruise.
CeCe gave us a bit more tour on the way back - we saw the presidential palace - which the current president doesn't live in. He's a doctor, lives in his own house and btw, has kept up his practice since he's one of the best oncologists in Uruguay. He didn't run for reelection, and the new president (inaugurated next month) won't live there either.
After the tour, most of us went back to the ship. We went back to our room to to prepare for the drink off, and the laundry debacle began.
Two days earlier, I'd sent laundry out. It should have arrived on the night of the 16th, but it didn't. Our steward told Glen it was done, but they couldn't find it. They had a search procedure and were going through it. When the laundry didn't arrive last night, I called the purser's desk. They called the laundry, who said it was don't but would be ready between 8 and 9 am. When we got back to the room, it wasn't there. I called again. They said it still wasn't done. At that point, we paged the steward's duty manager. He came by about 25 minutes later, and said it was lost, and I'd have to file a loss claim. So down to the pursers desk I went. The purser I spoke to was the one I talked to last night, and she was very apologetic, and told me that was what she'd been told. She then called the laundry to try to get a straight story. They told her they didn't have the ticket, implying it hadn't been submitted - they went back and forth and involved our steward. To make a long story less long, I gave her the claim info and the whole thing to about 40 minutes, so I missed the first 20 of our drink off. I finally got up there, and watched sail away from the balcony with friends. We then said good bye to some of them. Rich suggested we go to the pursers desk and talk to the hotel manager about it - with management involved they might be able to find it.
At about 6:30 we went to the pursers desk and asked to speak to the hotel manager or the purser. After about 5 minutes we were ushered into the First Pursers office. Glen stated that we'd been given the runaround for two days, and we just wanted to be sure that all was being done that could be. He apologized, said it was, and that he'd personally been down there to look for it. He was going to have the night shift look one more time, and if it really wasn't there, he'd give us the loss claim as an on board credit later in the evening. He also offered to buy us dinner at the Crown Grill or Sabattini's, but we wanted to have dinner with Joan and Rich at our usual table. He understood that and asked if we drank wine. We said we did, so he got our time and dining room.
Just enough time to go back, change for dinner and pack. We didn't want to put our bags out yet on the off chance the laundry would show up.
We enjoyed our last dinner with Joan and Rich. I don't know what the purser meant about wine, but none showed up. Maybe our old table got it or it would show up as a credit.
After dinner they came up to our room to pick up the roses Glen gave me for Valentine's day. Once they left, after a fond just-in-case farewell (we were going to try to meet them for breakfast at 7:30) Glen and I decided to walk around outside for a while. We found a relatively dark and quiet spot to look at the night sky - wait for this - at the mini-golf course that's just behind the Jumbotron screen. We enjoyed the Southern sky one last time.
Bed was next - early day again tomorrow.
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