April 20th

At Sea

There was no other way of looking at it. We had to do laundry again as I was out of clean clothes. With 1200 passengers disembarking in Cape Town I was worried that it would be very crowded in the launderette with everyone trying to get their washing done before they headed off the ship. I was right. There was hardly any room to even stand in there while I was waiting for a machine to become available. Forget even trying to read a book. It was like the London Underground in rush hour.

While I was waiting we were all chatting about what we were going to be doing after disembarkation. Several people were going to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. One complained that she knew nothing about the Falls and that it would have been great to have a talk about the area whilst on the ship.

Ding! A light went off it my head. We already have 2 talks, and now this could be our third one. Have I found a way to help support our wanderlust? I made a note to find out more about becoming a ship’s speaker when we finally have access to decent internet. The idea was sounding so cool.

Armed with an overloaded pop up basket of clean clothes I headed back to the cabin. Last night I had noticed that Ricki and David had magnetic hooks on their ceiling. I was eager to see if we also had a magnetic ceiling. We do! So now instead of hanging damp clothes on the magnetic hooks on the walls I could now redecorate the cabin with damp clothes hanging from the ceiling. What fun. They aired much quicker, and if you hang the hooks over the bed you don’t have to contend with walking into hanging tights when you are trying to get to the fridge. The latter is not a pleasant experience.

Lunch was at the pub. It is still free, but you can now pay $25 for the privilege of having afternoon tea there. The tea menu didn’t look too inviting, so I think I will stick with free afternoon tea in the Queen’s Room. It really is hard to beat having tea there.

It was our final Formal Night – the African Ball. The banners in the Queens Room were interesting, I’m not sure they were what I would have chosen for an African ball.

In keeping with the African theme, Brian wore an African Kente cloth bow tie – a bargain on Amazon, and I found a beautiful African print silk shawl. I do love themed nights!