Day 3 - Belgium

I slept much better last night after using the white noise option on my iPhone. You can add it in from the control centre. While in the control centre (swipe down from the top right), click on the + at the top left and then click on add a control at the bottom. Scroll to Hearing Accessibility and select Background Sounds – I chose the ocean sound and found it really helped me.

This morning the ship docked at Zeebrugge and we headed down to breakfast. It was while we were having our breakfast that I discovered that roaming wasn’t working properly on my phone. I’m with EE, so I called them to get it sorted out. It was quite amusing when they asked how long I would be in Belgium for and I replied “one day”. I don’t think he quite believed I would only be there for a day!

After breakfast we disembarked. You’re told that you need to take your Disney Cruise Line card, which is essentially your room key and room charging card, as the ship is cashless. The Disney Cruise Line card has your photo electronically attached to it, so when it’s scanned, they can check it’s really you. We also needed to take our passports with us too. You’re not allowed to walk around the port, so the port provides shuttle buses to take you to the port entrance. If you had booked an excursion with Disney, they would collect you at the ship. If you chose to do your own thing, for this trip, Disney provided shuttle buses into the city of Blankenberge, where you could have a wander around, or you could get a train to Bruges.

We chose to stay in Blankenberge and have wander around. We went into a few chocolate shops – it would have been rude not to! And then wandered up to the beach, where it looked like there were pop-up market stalls on the beach. We carried on walking and went into a cake shop where we bought a cake each. I don’t know what the cake was called, but it was like a large, square chocolate éclair, with custard in the middle rather than cream. It was absolutely delicious and John even saved some of the chocolate for later!

Generally speaking, we found the city to be really accessible, although wheelchair users may have had difficulty crossing the tramlines. There may have been somewhere else that wheelchair users could have crossed, but we didn’t see anything like that.

There were maps of Blankenberge distributed when we got off the shuttle bus and with hindsight, I wish I’d looked at ours properly! There were all sorts of interesting places to go and see, but I suppose it’s an excuse to return and see them some other time!

We decided to return to the ship, as we had bought all the chocolate that we’d wanted to buy, including some vegan chocolate for our friend, who was looking after our dog Jasper for the week. We had to go through security at the port, as we were leaving the country, and a bus took us back to the ship. When we walked up the gangplank to board the ship again, we could see the captain was conducting a wedding in the atrium. A very childish part of me always feels tempted to cry out, “Don’t do it!” whenever I see a wedding, but I always refrain and I refrained this time too! In all seriousness, I hope the two of them are very happy together.

A little while later, we sat in some very comfortable seats in the atrium area, and John sat replying to some WhatsApp messages he had. When we’re out and about, he uses a small folding keyboard that connects via Bluetooth to his phone, and the phone connects via Bluetooth to his hearing aids. This means that as John is using the keyboard, he’s hearing whatever letter he’s pressing on the keyboard, being read out through his hearing aids. A lady was watching John and was fascinated by what he was doing, so she came over to ask about it. We ended up having quite a long conversation with her about how it works, technology for the blind and about braille. It’s really good when someone comes over and asks when there’s something they want to know, rather than stare and jump to conclusions.

It was pirate night tonight, so everyone was invited to dress up. A lot of people went to a lot of effort with their costumes, others (like us) didn’t dress for pirate night. We also didn’t go to the show, as it would have been very crowded and overwhelming for George.  I did, however, take the opportunity to have a play with my Bluetooth Disney cruise ship speaker. I thought 'Sail' by Awolnation was an appropriate choice to test it with!

We had dinner at Enchanted Garden again tonight. All the servers were dressed in pirate costumes and were telling bad pirate jokes! In fact, it was a bit of a competition between the servers, John and George, as to who could tell the worst pirate joke! Personally, I think they all should have been made to walk the plank! All the dishes had a pirate themed name and were very tasty, as always.

At the end of the meal, our server told us that we would receive a survey tomorrow, which he would be grateful if we completed, as it helps them to improve. I told him that one thing I liked was that they didn’t hand a printed menu to John, as obviously he can’t read it. A lot of places we go to insist on giving John a printed menu, because it feels wrong to them to leave him out, but I think it’s quite thoughtless really because it’s obvious he can’t read it. The other thing we liked was that John was asked what he wanted to order, rather than them asking me what John wanted to order, as if John isn’t capable of making that decision himself.

We came back to the stateroom after dinner and found tonight’s blanket animal was a pirate with chocolate coins.

Tomorrow is our last full day and it’s a day at sea.