January 30th, 2024

At Sea

We have 2 sea days to look forward to. A good thing too, with all of the back to back ports, a bit of rest and relaxation is needed.

The program on board was as busy as ever, no time to rest and relax if you wanted to get involved. Several talks by the onboard speakers. Arts and crafts, singing, ukulele, tap dancing, quizzes, bridge, deck games to name a few of the activities.

I had found everyone with whom we had interacted, to be really pleasant. Even the launderette did not provide any hint of conflict or gossip. But apparently all was not well with several passengers. The bridge players were said to be a very competitive lot, and those poor players who were not up to the standards of the self appointed experts were given a very hard time. No fisticuffs, but plenty of tears.

The quizzes were almost as bad, and when the team who felt they should win didn’t, there was quite a to do about it.

Even the deck games weren’t spared the anger, and losers were known to refuse to shake hands with the winners after the games.

We were blissfully unaware of any of this as we walked around smiling at everyone, so happy to just be on board a ship. Nothing could dampen my spirits. We even experienced some really rough weather, so out came the sea sickness bags.

I love it when the sea is really rough, and Balmoral seemed to pitch and roll more than other ships. That’s how a cruise should be.

There also seems to have been more than the usual number of passengers with broken bones on this cruise. This did not seem to be related to rough seas at all. Brian had mentioned that the step between the bathroom and the cabin was abnormally high, and an accident waiting to happen. Sure enough when we were in port, so you couldn’t blame the weather, some lady broke her ankle trying to exit the bathroom. Then there was a shore excursion in Agadir where not one but 2 passengers sustained broken bones. Their poor tour guide must have felt really bad. The lady with a broken arm was able to rejoin the ship in Casablanca, but the lady with the broken leg had to fly back to the UK. The man who was hit by a motor bike on our Marrakech excursion had his arm in a sling for the rest of the cruise. There were several other passengers walking around with an arm in a sling, or boot on their ankle. However, we didn’t have to return to a port or have a helicopter evacuation off the ship, so that was a good thing.

Tonight was our final formal night, and the captain’s farewell cocktail party. J

ust about everyone followed the dress code, and the Neptune Lounge was full. Not much dancing though, one of the dance hosts danced with a passenger, but that was it. The dance floor is actually quite small, so it’s probably a good thing that there weren’t too many dancers.

The food in general has been very disappointing, especially lunch. However, they did go all out for the formal dinner. One can’t complain about near perfect chateaubriand. It was delicious. No souffles though for the whole trip.

One touch that it quite nice is that the table number has your waiters’ names on it. They always tell us their names on the first night, and despite wanting to write it down we invariably forget, and it is impossible to read their name badges. So it is great to have that as a reminder.

The show tonight was put on by the crew, and was absolutely fantastic. They are so talented. The engine room men (boys) fresh from their win in the swimming competition did a great dance routine, as did the deck hands.

We usually say that most of the crew are more talented than the entertainers on board. This time, although the crew were great, the paid entertainers really were excellent, and we enjoyed every show.

I wanted to skip along the corridor back to our cabin, but as the ship was still rolling, I decided to walk sedately. We didn’t want any more broken bones on board.