April 8th

At Sea

A day Full of Thunderstorms.

We were confused about what the time was when we woke up as our phones had adjusted to the new time zone, but out watches haven’t. Even though I have Bluetooth and an app on my phone to keep my watch up to date, it still refuses to change time zones so I will have to spend the day 2 and a-half hours ahead. This could be a challenge.

We awoke to thunder and lightening outside – it’s not a real storm, as the sea is totally calm, just a very noisy one, and it is still very dark outside even though my watch says 11:15, which really is 8:45 I think.

I tried to go on the internet, but it is still down. What on earth are they doing in Southampton one wonders? I had really hoped that after at least 48 hours they would have worked out what the problem is. For me it’s just annoying, but it must be incredibly hard for the staff on board as their communications are also down, and all transactions have to be processed manually.

The only talk we managed to go to was Jennie Bond, the former BBC royal correspondent, who gave an amusing talk on her adventures as a journalist following the royal family’s antics. The rest of the day was spoken for.

In a moment of poor judgment I had thought it would be fun to share our safari travel experiences with other Cruise Critic members, as some will be leaving the ship in Cape Town to embark on safaris. So I had gone to the Purser’s Desk to see if we could reserve a room to do this. We were told that we could have the Connexions 3 room in the afternoon of April 10th, a mere 48 hours away. Therefore Brian spent the day looking through our photos and preparing what I am sure will be an excellent and informative talk, and I wrote out invitations to those Cruise Critic members for whom I have cabin numbers to alert them to our presentation. Seeing as we still don’t have internet communications, I could not inform them via email.

We had another wonderful evening on board. Great food, excellent service, lively conversation with our tablemates, relaxing listening to the pianist in the Commodore Club. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that you can be so blessed as to spend time on this beautiful ship exploring the world. It really is a fantastic experience.