Day 31 - At Sea

Day 31 – Sunday 9^th February 2014 – At Sea

Slept in this morning, as I had made a mess of the time, last night, I retarded the clock one hour.  Wrong day, the clock goes back tonight.

This sent me into a bit of a tiss, but I still managed to make the line dancing at 10.00 and we were taught a waltz line dance, very strange to me.

With missing the gym, I decided to do a few laps around Deck 3; this is an open deck and the only one where you can get all the way round the ship, walking underneath the lifeboats.  I managed five laps which is equivalent to 1 ½ miles.  The sky is still overcast, but it is slowly warming up as we head on our south westerly course to the Hawaiian Islands.

I was a bit snookered after my walk and fell asleep in one of the many vacant loungers on this deck.  Spent the rest of the afternoon; having tea and sandwiches in the Lido.

Tonight is another formal night and another party, but we have not been invited to this one. It is the Captain’s introduction cocktail party for the new guests who joined in San Francisco. We watched them from our observation bar stools in the Café Carinthia, as they lined up, shuffling slowly forward to have their photographs taken with the Captain.  We were drinking today’s cocktail, very nice Planter’s Punch, and did not miss the free champagne.

At dinner of poached egg, asparagus/fillet steak/pear shuffle, our American at the table, William, asked us Brits what we thought about American politics and he got a lively response. Unfortunately, we had to shorten the discussion, as we did not want to miss the theatre show.

The singers and dancer put on a show which we had seen before, Vanity Fair, the difference being this time, the ship was now rolling a little in a heavier swell.  Informed, this swell was from a weather system called the pineapple express (takes a bit of believing) which had originated in Hawaii and was heading for the USA, bringing a lot of wind and rain. The excellent dancers still put on a magnificent show while the ship was rolling.

Finished off in the Golden Lion; listening to the orchestra playing Dixieland Jazz.  I made a mistake when I ordered our Speckled Hen.  Prior to ordering any drinks, you hand over your plastic ID card to the waiter and on receiving your drinks, he presents it back to you inside a leather wallet containing the bill, which shows what you had ordered, who served you and the price.  There are two copies, one you sign and the other is your copy.  I did not notice the waiter had not given me the correct card back and had given me one of the other customer’s cards, using the bar.  When I got back to the cabin, the card would not work in the door, on realising the mistake, I went back to the bar to find most of the other customers had left.  The bar supervisor rang the main reception and very quickly I was presented with a new card, so all was not lost, and after apologies all round.

I went off to bed; I will have to be more careful next time.