Aurura Cruises us to Canada via New York

Hi there – ‘Aurora’ is lovely and we’re enjoying these 6 days at sea before we arrive in New York! In spite of crossing the Atlantic both ways we were very fortunate in that ‘the motion of the ocean’ didn’t cause us a problem, although that’s not always the case of course, so we were very lucky, or perhaps our bodies are becoming accustomed to the ship sway.
There’s a Lecturer, Malcolm Macfarlane on board giving talks, with photos and music, on 1950’s, 1960’s, – Great fun for us, and most of the other passengers! Brings back SO many memories for us.
The first thing the Captain told us all when we got on board was that the Pope would be in New York the same time as we would! Unfortunately we were then advised that he would be at 9/11 Memorial on the same day that we’d booked an excursion for so we’ll have to wait to see what effect it will have. We didn’t have to wait long! Tonight we received a letter advising that U.S. Security will be taking over the whole area, and our excursion had been ‘modified’ – which means no visit to 9/11 memorial! Disappointed! doesn’t describe it!
On Thursday night I woke up suddenly and thought I was sleeping on a train, I suppose the movement of a ship and train have rather similiar rocking movements!
The ‘Headliners’ are great of course, but we’ve done several cruises with P&O so have seen all of the shows at least twice so we’re obliged to miss them, good as they are.
We’d booked this cruise as it was due to call at Charlotetown, we’d taken ‘Ann of Green Gables’ from the library and read so were REALLY looking forward to the excursion we’d booked, so we were disappointed when this port of call was cancelled. We visited Sydney instead, fortunately on another lovely ‘shirt-sleeved’ weather day, so we DID enjoy the visit.
Most of the entertainment was good, especially Bernie Flint, who had the whole audience singing and laughing along.
in Halifax, Nova Scotia we visited An English territory, Lunenburg which was originally populated by German protestants who were expected to be loyal to the British Crown. They were tempted to set up home here by the offer of free land and materials to build their homes. London dictated the amounts of all the goods they received, the layout of the town and their street names!
As we strolled around I noticed a sign advertising a small Museum, The Knaut-Rhuland House Museum built for Benjamin Knaut in 1793, the foundation is stone more than two feet thick and 7 feet high, built into the side of a hill it gives the impression of being a three storey building.
On board the standards were excellent as usual, food was delicious, staff REALLY looked after us, all in all we had a wonderful cruise – thanks to P&O and their lovely staff.