Our first stop: Slovenia

Before I talk about our first day of sightseeing I wanted to mention our experiences with food on the ship. 
 
On our first night I believe we tried the buffet.  The food was VERY good.  Good variety, hot, and for the most part good quality.   I didn't love the lack of trays, making getting drink and food to table into multiple trips.  They used tiny glasses, so with my love for liquids I had to refill my water several times.   The best part was dessert.  Not that every option was great, but we had multiple options!  Good news for dessert lovers.

We also used the buffet for every breakfast but one.  It was fast and good.  I tried the omelet station a few times and overall the options were good.  My mom found the secret espresso machine, although it was finicky.  After a few days we also found the coffee station in the eating area, a real time saver.

Our first stop was Koper, Slovenia.  We had pre-booked two excursions for the cruise, the first being in Koper.    Our research told us the port city wasn't terribly interesting, and I really wanted to visit Lake Bled which was several hours away.   We met our tour guide and set off on the big bus.  The countryside was very pretty, especially with the fall colors.  We stopped at a rest stop partyway for coffee, and I ran into my friend Susan from Minneapolis.  We knew we were on the same cruise, but didn't know we shared the tour (she was on a different bus with her mom), so it was funny to see each other at a random Slovenian gas station.

Janez, the guide, talked the entire several hour drive to Bled.  He was a "Kinesiology teacher" at, we later figured out, the high school.  We assume he was the Phy Ed teacher.   We learned a lot about Slovenia, the Yugoslavian conflict, etc.  As we neared Bled, about 40k from the Austrian border, we had the option of visiting the castle or taking a boat ride.  We chose the castle, which had amazing views.   We didn't look inside much, but enjoyed the scenery and the Wi-Fi.

This is the famous Lake Bled with the island church, from the castle's overlook.

 That's the castle on the bluff, taken from the little town of Bled.

 A picturesque lakeside scene.

After Bled, we headed back towards Koper with a stop in Ljubljana, the capital city.  This is Janez waiting for us to assemble.  He was clearly an introvert, making no conversation when he didn't have something prepared to say.  I imagine this is a difficult job for him!

The town was very pretty and reminded me a lot of Austria.   This was a unique experience on this trip.  A view from a bridge:

After a tour of the city, we split off from the group to get lunch.  The tour didn't include lunch, which we knew, but we thought that would mean "lunch on our own."  Sadly, it actually meant "no time for lunch," which was really hard for me.  By the time we had free time it was near 2 pm, so we decided to visit Slovenia's first McDonald's.  No pictures necessary.   We also stopped at a drug store to buy hair conditioner and lotion.  The stateroom bathroom only had shampoo and "sharp shower gel", whatever that means.

We arrived back at the ship about an hour before we had to leave.  They had a little wine tasting and local music set up in the parking lot.  Koper is one city that we never really saw, other than having driven through on the tour bus.

 

We boarded the ship and went to dinner early. I believe we tried the sit-down restaurant.  There were limited options, although my fish was very good.  We also each had a salad.  The dessert reviews were mixed. I had a really decent bread pudding (more like a flan, actually) with caramel sauce.  My mom had something that wasn't as good, but at least we knew we could hit the buffet later.

That night we had our first ship entertainment experience.    Every night there was a show in the big theater, offered at two times.   The first night was a magician/juggler.  He started out kind of weird, but he grew on us.  We laughed a lot.   The television was really bad, so after a little BBC World we called it a night.