Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Day 11/11: Wednesday, January 15, 2020: At Sea






Yesterday I went to a presentation by Destination Consultant Jon Fleming. He was discussing shore activities at Natal, Brazil. It was an interesting discussion and convinced me to go back and talk with Stephen about signing up for a sand dune buggy excursion. I did and we did.

The talk by Fleming was interesting in that Natal doesn't really have much to offer except sand, sun and crime. It boasts Brazil's highest murder rate and one of the highest in the world (eclipsed only by some places in Mexico). Several times during Jon's talk he suggested not traveling alone and to avoid some specific areas.

I attempted to upload four pics (the ones above) this morning showing our map position and the daily paper. I waited 30 minutes and the upload had made zero progress, so I gave up. I went to a couple of lectures and then to lunch.

While standing in line at the pool for my custom made grilled cheese sandwich, Norman, the Hotel Manager who did not have time to call me yesterday, accosted me and said that he had been contacted by Maxine, my travel agent, regarding the Internet service. Norman agreed the service was totally unacceptable and promised it would improve, in fact, he said he hoped I had already seen an improvement. I told him I had not yet and that I had given up this morning. I also mentioned to Norman that his flunky, Marcus, told me yesterday that the broad bandwidth will be increased significantly tomorrow. Norman seemed surprised at this news, so I am no doubtful again. Anyway, Norman said it would improve. Later, at my table, the Butler Director stopped by and asked if the IT director could stop by my cabin this evening. Of course!

During lunch, I texted Maxine, telling her of my encounter with Norman. She said that she had lunch yesterday with the Silversea Director of Sales for all of North and South America. She discussed the internet issue of this cruise and was promised it would be looked into.

Once back in my cabin, I tried again the same four pics I had tried this morning. Amazingly, it ONLY took 10 minutes to upload all four. While extremely slow, and still unacceptable, it is better than just four hours ago. I am curious if they are making some exception for just me to shut me up. Stephen has several contacts that have also had the same issues, so we will find out.

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