Fresh off the amazing day in Uruguay, we arrived in Buenos Aires. It was bittersweet, of course, as it would be the last port of call for us. Making it better was we planned to spend an additional 5 days there after disembarking.
So, our last full day on the ship was useful but not all together sexy. We did laundry. We packed. We made the rounds to bless our favorite crew members as best we could. We did all the traditional things - the drink at the wake bar, the last night in Vines, etc. All things considered, it was a ‘normal day’ and that’s ok.
I’ve written quite a bit about the need to build in ‘sea days’ or normal days when you are traveling awhile. Burnout is real. Every day cannot be the MOST EXCITING DAY EVER. Sometimes, you just need a normal day to get yourself together, rest, transition, or whatever.
Our Malbec friends all went ashore for a great day at a cowboy ranch and got back on late. By late, I mean - 5. The horror! Slowly, everyone arrived in Vines for our last farewell. What a great group! We took some group photos, had a few rounds of cheers, talked a bit about the next one ( New England in the Fall??) and then we had to head up to the cabin to get our suitcases outside the room by 8 PM.
It’s always the same - it goes so slowly at first that it almost drags and then POOF - it’s gone. The circle of (travel) life. In some ways, I don’t mind it. It was a great trip and another great trip will now be on deck.
The next morning, we were a bit confused about the process because we had received a form asking when we wanted to disembark and we said 9:30. But, we got a note in our room telling us we had to leave at 7:15. 7:15 is just rude. Also, we had a note saying we had to be out of our cabin by 8. Which was neither 7:15 nor 9:30. We asked Sep, our awesome cabin steward, because a) he would know and b) the last thing we wanted to do was mess his day up! Sep said it would be find if we were out by 9. Great - 9 sounded good.
So, I woke up and went to order coffee which is exactly when I noticed they’d cut me off the app. No room service. That’s rude. How am I supposed to function without coffee? I waited for Jason to get up. He still had app access so he ordered coffee. Unfortunately, as soon as he did, the order cancelled. Dang. Truly cut off. So, finally, I ran up to the lido deck and grabbed coffee from the buffet. The coffee up there is terrible but terrible coffee is better than no coffee.
At this point, we hadn’t eaten anything and had no way of knowing what really was going to happen once we left the ship so Jason wanted to go eat first. Normally, there are a lot of options but those of disembarking who were obviously already dead to Princess, didn’t have those options. We were able to get into the Allegro dining room and had a lovely final meal there.
After, we simply walked right off the ship with no pomp and circumstance whatsoever. I feel like there should be an ample amount of pomp and at least some circumstance. I mean- geez. Alas, I had made a reservation for a private car to take us to our hotel but since I had no idea what time we’d actually make it off the boat, I wasn’t sure what time to book the car. Having to wait is better than missing it, so I requested the car for 10:30 and we walked off at 9:30. I will have you know, the driver walked up at exactly 10:30. He held up the sign with my name for one single second, we waved, and then we were off to the races.
As it turns out, the car ride lasted about 3 whole minutes. I’m not complaining. I didn’t want to drag all my luggage through a brand new country and city through what turned out to be the worst area of said city so a 3 minute car ride was ok with me!
Our beautiful hotel, The Park, Tower, was waiting for us. We had requested a special room since we’d be there a week, and therefore, it wasn’t quite ready when we got there early (before check in time). But, we grabbed some very comfy chairs in the lobby bar and in about 30 minutes, we had a text that the room was available.
To our delight, our suite was gigantic - a full living area, a separate bedroom, 2 bathrooms. So much space! Jason had quite the cough so it was nice to be able to separate to sleep in the hopes that somehow we would both actually sleep.
We decided to stay close to the hotel for this first day because we were exhausted and therefore was plenty to entertain us right there. The hotel had this great thing where every day from 2-3 in the lobby bar they would have a local Argentinian food/snack and a drink for free. What a fun way to try some many local things. So, we went to that and had a choripan, which had been highly recommended. It had been described as a hot dog, which really wasn’t quite right. It was a piece of chorizo on bread and it was delicious, though! We had a local beer that was SO good. I almost never drink beer anymore and I really enjoyed this one.
There was also a free happy hour in the evening for …well, some people. Us included for whatever reason. So, we enjoyed trying some local white and red wine and skipped dinner.
We figured the next day, we would go find the HOHO and explore the city a bit. It was great because the MALBEC gang took a city tour that day and Ginny sent over some areas that we should definitely check out.
With that, we closed out the 3rd part of the trip (the cruise) and started the 4th part (Argentina by land) and went to bed happy.
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