January 23^rd, 2024

At Sea

The day did not start off well, and in fact by midmorning I was declaring “never again on Fred’, however, things did improve.

It was a sea day, and time to do the laundry. I bought my token from Guest Services and went to the launderette. There were 2 machines that were out of service, but there were 6 that were available. I thought it was my lucky day. Trying to do laundry first thing in the morning is always good.

I put in my token, followed the instruction to press the white button (there were actually 8 white buttons, but I hit the correct one on my 2^nd try), and went to the Neptune Lounge to join Brian for Fred Stevenson’s talk on the moon.

When I got to the lounge, the talk was already in full swing and I couldn’t see Brian in the darkness. That was strange for the speaker to change the time of a talk without a warning.

Then I realized, there must have been a time change overnight. Indeed, hidden in yesterday’s Daily Times there had been a reminder. However, there was no little note on our bed reminding us to retard or advance our watches, our TV was dark and not encouraging us to change our clocks when we returned to our cabin last night. I realized that  we really should have read the Daily Times more thoroughly, but we didn’. No harm done.

The washing machine had said it would take an hour and 20 minutes to do the wash, but the notice in the launderette said it would take an hour, so after an hour I went to check on the washing. As I entered the room I could hear frantic beeping. It was coming from my machine. Hoping that this meant that my wash was complete, I went to open the door. It would not open. Then I read the error message, and apparently my wash had failed. I could not retrieve it, so I called guest services and requested help.

20 minutes later a gentleman from housekeeping came and was able to open the machine and told me I should use another one. Luckily there was 1 machine that was not in use at that stage, and I placed my washing in the machine, reminding him I needed another token. He looked a bit confused, but then offered to go to guest services and get one for me.

A long while later he returned with a token, and I started the washing process again. It said it would take an hour and 20 minutes. I had confirmed with a couple in the launderette that this was the case, so I set off to see if I could get in to one of the lectures, but it was in progress so I decided to go back to the cabin.

When the time was up I returned to the launderette, and yet again the machine had an error message and I could not get my washing out of it. There was only one machine that was not in use and I was really hoping to transfer to this. Again I called guest services and requested assistance. An hour later no one had come, so remembering what the man from housekeeping had done to get the door open, I was finally able to extract my washing and put it in another now unused machine.

I went down to guest services to get another token, and was most annoyed by the fact that I was expected to pay for it. I mean it is only 2 pounds and 25 pence, but it really was a matter of principle. New token in hand, I started the whole washing process yet again.

This time it did work out. Finally.

I ranted to Brian about it over lunch, and then I felt much better.

Lunch was followed by a pedicure.

Sitting getting my toes beautified looking out over the ocean, ever hopeful for a whale sighting improved my mood significantly.

By the time I was done, I was no longer saying “never on Fred again”. My toes looked great, perfect for sandals tomorrow. I was happy and relaxed, and ready to see how Brian was coping with the dryer.

He had no issues. Who knew that laundry could take so long? We were finally all done by 3:30. I hope we don’t have to ever try to do laundry again.

As we had both missed some of the talks, after folding and putting away the laundry, we spent the rest of the afternoon watching the talks on TV. Interactive TV really is a great improvement. You can watch the talks in real time, but you can also watch them any time you want to. We have been making use of this, catching up with what we missed during the day.

It was meant to be a formal evening tonight, but they changed this to the 25^th, to coincide with Burns night apparently. I am all for celebrating Burns night, well except for the haggis, the neeps and tatties are OK. I can’t see our Swedish captain doing the Address to a Haggis, but maybe Oliver, the entertainment director will.

The big issue is that we won’t be here. We have an overnight in Casablanca, and we will be on the Marrakesh tour which will not get back to the ship until after 11:30 PM. I also imagine that a lot of passengers will decide to head into Casablanca for the evening. Still I look forward to hearing what kind of things they did on board.

So, just dressed in our usual casual clothes we went to dinner, and then to the show.

The ship’s singers and dancers did a good job, and I enjoyed it. The only nerve wracking parts were when the male dancers lifted the female dancers in the air and their heads nearly hit the ceiling lights. Quite honestly I think that the low ceiling in the lounge would be a sign that such moves should be avoided.

Still, no one ended up getting injured, and the show was much appreciated by the audience.

After the show we decided to skip the disco and go back to our cabin to get ready for our shore excursion tomorrow in Agadir.

I love the way my toes look, and I had totally forgotten my frustration with the washing machines earlier today. Life is good on a cruise ship.

Oh, and I even learnt something new today. from the talk about the moon. The is no dark side of the moon, despite the title of one of the world’s greatest albums. There is the far side of the moon which we never see from earth, but we do have photos of it thanks to space travel. But there is no dark side of the moon because of the moon’s rotation. No dark side of the moon. Whatever next?