Lubeck, Germany and stuck at sea

 On the second dress up night I had found an actual dress in one of the towns to wear. We enjoyed our fancy dinner and looked forward to next port of Lubeck Germany. 

We got to our port at 7:00am and we were ready to get off as soon as we could. We raced o the train station to get the fast train to Lubeck (1 hour and 10 minutes). Lubeck is a cute medieval city that built itself to the original style when bombed during WWI vs Hamburg which was the same distance from port but didn't keep the traditional style and looks like a modern city so we chose to visit Lubeck. 

It was not a very large city and we could cover a lot of it by foot from the train station. The Ratthouse or the Town hall was supposed to be a great place to take a tour but they were filled up for the day so we just saw it from the outside. 

Of course we found a church to visit. It was full of old and new items, modern stained glass windows and ornate and old decorations. I liked the colors in the church, powdered blue and brown black and cream. 

There was a chocolate shop that we visited and bought some chocolate to bring home. There were multiple levels to it and they had all sorts of fun marzipan and chocolate designs. When we pass by bakeries we also enjoy sampling some of the yummy pastries. 

Since I didn't have my luggage I only had one pair of tennis shoes that were new when I brought them and they ended up not being good walking shoes. We walked so many miles a day my feet started hurting so my sandals ended up being a better choice. Even though at times I wore them in the rain they worked out better than the tennis shoes that I had brought. 

We stopped to check out the devil statue at St. Mary's. The story is below.

Joel wanted to see one last sight in Lubeck and we wandered through the streets before it was time to get back on the bus to find it. 

This was the one Jewish synagogue that was in Lubeck that Joel wanted to see. We couldn't go inside so we took a picture through the bars. After we found it we rushed to get back to the train to get back to the boat. 

That night we celebrated Jeff's birthday on the ship. He got special soda and his room was decorated for his birthday to celebrate. 

As we were singing Jeff happy birthday the ship shuttered and stopped. We were pulling away from Germany on our way to Sweden. I immediately started worrying because I knew that wasn't what the ship was supposed to sound like. 

After dinner we went out on the balcony with others to try and see what was going on. There was a guy that had worked with these ships before and he thinks one of the propulsion engines went out and it was preventing us from steering. 

Carnival did not make any announcements or let anyone (including staff) what was going on so we were all in the dark. We could see land in the distance but the not knowing had me worried. We got on cruise tracker and joined a Facebook group full of our fellow cruisers and saw that the ship was going in circles throughout the night. Then at one point we were just anchored in the middle of the sea. 

By morning we had a note on our door saying that we were missing our last port and we would be having a "fun day at sea"

People were in a long line trying to talk to customer service but there weren't a lot of answers yet. 

We went to one of the show that they booked for the day and they finally announced that we would be going back to the port in Germany but we wouldn't be able to get off the ship.

 As a consolation everyone got a free Bingo ticket....to play for one prize. Which was a free cruise. Whomp Whomp.

None of us won the free cruise.

Carnival scrambled to start making travel arrangements for people to get them back to Dover which was our starting port. We waited to hear what was next for us. 

Stockholm, Sweden

 

Stockholm is a beautiful city and I wish we had more time to see it. We had to pay for a hop on hop off bus ride into town and I was impressed with all the large and imperial looking buildings that were clean and ornate. 

The city is full of museums that we didn't have time to see but we did get to see the Vasa museum. 

We took a bus shuttle into the city that was a hop-on hop-off bus and water taxi. We went into a church but they were having services so we tried not to disturb them too much. 

It started raining heavily and we got on the water taxi and took it 2 stops to the Vasa museum that had a well preserved boat from king Vasa that had sank into the harbor.  The museum was interesting and showcased a lot of the preserved parts of the boat, how people made it, what it looked like before it sank and how they were able to get it out of the water. The boat sank because the engineering was bad and it was top heavy and there were openings that filled up with water and sank it after a storm. It was ornate and over the top and in the end the basic engineering was it's downfall.  We stayed there longer than we would have because Jason left his phone and wallet on the water taxi and had quite the adventure getting it back. As soon as he met up with us it was time to start making our way back to where the last bus for the day was. 

We were going so quick we didn't have time to eat until we stopped at the local Ikea where we knew we could get food. It actually was really good food. We had the meatballs and lingenberry jelly, mashed potatoes and peas and a seafood salad on rye bread and it was all good. 

We found a fun shop called Virginia's and we had to stop to sample the sweets. 

Back on the ship its always nice looking out the balcony as we pass by land. On the ship we enjoy relaxing, eating, going to the shows and comedy club and one day we played bingo.