Sweet blissful sleep. Only four hours on Thursday night so it wasn’t a surprise when I felt tired after dinner last night. It was a surprise to wake up after midnight, well over four hours of sleep later. More strange noises, another wardrobe with hangers in it, so I put them on the floor too. The third wardrobe had a safe and a laundry bag. The safe door was wedged with folded paper, the laundry bag (on another wooden hangar) dropped into the shoeshine basket.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so read until 3am, realised I was tired again, slept through until almost 9am. Over ten hours sleep in total, waking in the dark feeling refreshed, ready for the day.

So no steam pipes! 🙂 The only issue with the room is that this ship has old crap TV (i.e. not the onboard digital service that allows movie selection and ‘show me where the ship is’ displays) and the shower cubicle doesn’t drain. I finished my shower stood two inches deep and it was still draining minutes later.

It’s a sea day, so there wasn’t really a lot to be ready for. My knees aren’t up to table tennis, I don’t want to swim in an 8m long pool and I’d be turning around every two strokes and the air hockey table is in the ‘for the kids’ part of the ship. Bad planning, that, especially with the sway we were enjoying. Would’ve made it a more interesting game.

I missed the first event I’d intended to go to. Not on purpose. I turned up and something else was on, so I left. It was only later when a second event also wasn’t on that I found out the ship had changed timezone overnight, the clocks going back an hour. Given we hadn’t gone West this was unexpected but also unannounced.

I did go to ‘America’s Test Kitchen’ to learn how to sear steak. In short, don’t use Olive Oil and do use an instant probe thermometer. Apparently it’s the most watched ‘how to cook’ program. I think I prefer Masterchef.

The promised plumber arrived, shut himself in my bathroom. A loud clunk and a minute later he emerged, promising everything was sorted. I didn’t ask him where I’m meant to, well… I did my laundry then went to another talk.

The lady telling you what’s going on at each port isn’t as good as the chap on the last cruise. He’d explored the ports, tried the activities, negotiated with the taxi drivers. She’s never been to the country before, instead used photos from tourism sites, read facts from Wikipedia. She was far more interested in telling us not to step on stonefish because they’re toxic. To be fair, I guess I don’t want to stand on a toxic fish that looks like a stone.

Dinner was a gala night. I showed up quite early, was shown to a shared table. A quarter of an hour later, reading my book, a waiter took my order and I dined alone.

I did photograph the menu. (It took 14 minutes for this photograph to upload. I’ll correct its orientation when I have a viable internet connection.)

You can guess what I ate.

After that a quiz night and solo traveller meet up. I was offered a drink of my choice by a crew member but already had coffee, so declined. That’s a $7 vodka I just turned down, I must be mad. Instead I found Guest Services for the first time all cruise. “Is there anywhere on board that I can watch the match between Liverpool and (I think it’s) Bournemouth?” She didn’t know, promised to ring and tell me.

She rang, shared her regrets.

Later I went to find the dancing. The music was playing, but not in the blues room. Instead a disco room, three members of staff, a barman around the corner and no passengers. The dance floor was artificial, sticky, wouldn’t be slippy with a layer of ice on it. No dancing for me.

At least I didn’t have to sleep alone.