At Sea

December 28^th, 2024

It’s hard to believe that it has been a month since we arrived in Barcelona. So much had happened since then, but it has all gone by so quickly. This cruise is simply going by too fast; I want things to simply slow down.

I haven’t achieved much of what I planned to do on board. I have only been in the pool a couple of times, only in the hot tub once. I haven’t done much reading; I haven’t touched the tablecloth I was planning to work on. I only made one pair of earrings in the craft group. I plan to be much more productive in the next 2 months.

It’s funny how I was so upset about all of the itinerary changes, and I am sure there will be more ahead. Nothing has been said about Mayotte, but there are no shore excursions planned, and it is looking less and less likely that we will stop there. However, the itinerary changes don’t seem so important now we are actually on board and seeing parts of Africa I had never thought I would see. It has been an amazing month, and I am so excited to think about what we will experience in the 2 months ahead.

Together with all of the new passengers, we have a batch of new speakers, conversationalists, on board. Although the topics on the schedule today looked like they would be very interesting, a couple of the speakers were less than inspiring. I was very disappointed, hopefully they will improve with time. The talks should be one of the best things about sea days. I want to learn something new. Who knows if this will help with answering trivia questions.

Instead of a welcome on board reception so that the new guests can meet the captain and senior officers, the captain did “welcome rounds”. Captain Hamish and the senior officers went around the ship saying “hello” and introducing themselves as they toured the ship, starting in the Observation Bar and moving on down to the Club. That sounds like an interesting way to do things! We weren’t in either venue so I am not sure how it worked!

Despite my search, in the whole month I have been on board I have been unable to track down a milky way martini, or even a chocolate affair. I tried one that had Bailey’s in it and it was OK, but not quite up to the standard of a QE2 milky way. However, for dessert in Solis this evening, Brian had a concoction that looked like it had the potential to be a milky way martini substitute, but it had coffee in it. Scratch that one. The search continues.

Along with the new guests and conversationalists, we have new entertainers.

Tonight we heard CH2, 2 South African guitarists, who claim to be the fastest guitarists in the world.

They are quite good, and I enjoyed the performance. It was unusual to see the Grand Salon so full. There were even people sitting in our usual seats when we arrived in the room. The wait staff seemed to be quite harried, and they never got to serve us. It’s hard to know what is accurate or not, but we were told that 100 guests disembarked yesterday, and 164 embarked – which puts us at about 300 guests, still below capacity. However, it feels like there are hundreds more guests on board. Still, it doesn’t feel too crowded, so I have no complaints.

We went to the Club after dinner. On some nights there has only been one other couple there, but tonight it was pretty busy, and for once we didn’t have the dancefloor to ourselves. Yes, things are definitely different around here.

I had hoped for rougher weather this evening, after all we are off Cape Argulhas, but no, we continued with fairly calm seas, and it is expected to be like this all the way to Durban. Very disappointing.