São Julião

Yesterday, we received an invitation from Natalia, the Captain’s Club Concierge, to enjoy today’s sailaway from Lisbon on the helipad.

I’m not sure who qualifies for an invite for this event. We’ve enjoyed similar invitations of this nature on previous Celebrity cruises since becoming Elite+ … in Santorini, Greece and Stockholm, Sweden.

I’m not sure how we made the cut for this particular sailaway instead of the two others that are still ahead of us. But I’m glad we did because this one saw Silhouette cruising the Rio Tejo — aka the Tagus River … the longest such body of water on the Iberian Peninsula — in order to get back to the Atlantic.

The event almost didn’t happen, however. You see, the forecasted rain, which held off and allowed us to explore Lisbon unhindered, began just as the watertight doors opened to let us out onto the helipad. Luckily, the downpour was of short duration … and the crew managed to squeegee the helipad quickly. So, we got a last minute reprieve.

The ships’ slow speed kept the wind down to a minimum, thus we had an enjoyable two hours for the scenic cruising as we sipped the bubbly that was being served by circulating waiters. Once at the mouth of the river, it was time for Silhouette to pick-up speed and for us to leave the helipad. Surprise … we were amongst the very few people who were still on deck. We’d been so intent on the scenery on either side of us that we had not noticed everyone else leaving.

It was nearing 6:30p when we left the helipad. Instead of returning to our stateroom, we went up to the Oceanview Café for a light snack before heading to the theater for the 7:00p show headlining King Jamesheed — a British entertainer … pianist and vocalist … and a bit of a funnyman. We enjoyed his performance and would love to see him perform again. Alas, he is leaving the ship in Tenerife.

So, here we are, swaying left and right again as Capt G warned us that we would. He did promise better weather for tomorrow, however 🤞🏻.

(P.S. Sorry about the quality of the attached photos … with only my phone with me on this trip, I attempted to take some zoom videos to capture frames for still shots. Didn’t work out well.)Read more