During the night it had been much smoother and we slept very well. I woke up at 8.00am (Trevor had already left to do his laps around the deck) and went out onto the balcony. There was only a light sea breeze and quite a lot of blue sky, and the swell had dropped to two metres by now, which just felt like a long, languorous rising and falling. 😊
As tonight was Formal Evening once again, when we arrived at The View for our breakfast, there were bottles of cava on ice for us to add to our breakfast orange juice. A man sitting alone at an adjacent table asked us where we got the fizz from, “not that I’m desperate or anything” he said with a twinkle. We explained it was right next to the selection of juices.
He got up from his seat and, a few seconds later, returned with a glass of orange juice and a glass of the fizz, which he proceeded to mix together with a “cheers” gesture in our direction. 😊
Before going out onto the aft decks to enjoy the sunshine, I collected another glass of fizz to take outside. Usually, people would be staring at you if you were on the booze at 9.30am, but we saw several people emerging from the sliding doors of The View, each carrying a glass of cava or a Buck’s Fizz, and nobody batted an eyelid. 😊
After sitting outside and chatting with our fellow passengers, we agreed that the sunshine, warmer weather, gentle breeze and lovely “white noise” sounds of the wake were starting to make it feel more like the holiday we had been expecting.
We sat there until I’d finished my drink, then went back inside and down to 7055 to see what was on the Daily Times programme. We saw that there was a game of the inimitable Baggo at 10.30am so we went down to the Ocean Bar to participate. The staff didn’t need to ask our names by now; they already knew them. 😊
I was knocked out in my first round, but Trevor lasted a couple of rounds longer before he was knocked out.
Afterwards, Trevor went to the Neptune Lounge to watch a presentation about pirates, but I stayed where I was to watch the Dolphin Racing. This is based on a dice-rolling game where there are wooden ‘dolphins’ numbered from one to six; if your number comes out you move your dolphin forward one space. The game continues this way until the first dolphin crosses the finish line. To make it more interesting, they were taking £1.00 bets. It was all good fun.
Afterwards, we went to lunch in The View once again, and returned to the aft decks and bagged a sunlounger each, ordering a freezing cold cocktail. This was certainly the life! Looking at the sea, we saw no white horses or white foam (other than the wake) but the surface of the sea seemed to have “goosepimples”, such were the tiny little wavelets. 😊
Then it was off to the Ocean Bar again, this time for golf putting. We’d never played this before, so didn’t know what to expect. You had to putt your golf balls along a green baize strip towards some numbered holes; one of the balls was red and you scored double if that went into any of the holes. You then had to repeat the process with your non-dominant hand! I was completely rubbish and every one of my balls missed; Trevor was the same. Some of the other players, however, must have been well-practiced as they seemed to get all of their balls in the holes.
Soon it was time to start getting ready for the dressy-up evening. I was really quite annoyed, because the theme tonight was “Roaring 20s” or formal attire, but we had not been informed that there were going to be any themed evenings! In case we’d made a mistake, we read through all the pre-cruise literature Fred Olsen Cruise Lines sent us, and while it mentioned that there would be two formal evenings on our first leg of the world cruise, it definitely said nothing about a Roaring 20s evening. I wouldn’t have minded, but I have a fantastic 1920s costume that I’ve worn on cruises and other themed parties, and I could have brought it on this cruise too! It transpired that FOCL had only informed those passengers doing the whole world cruise of the themed nights; those of us disembarking in Costa Rica or Sydney had not received notification. As Annie, one of the entertainment hosts, described it when we complained, “it looks as if someone at Head Office has messed up!” ☹
Although I tried hard not to let it spoil my evening, every time I saw people walking past in amazing Flapper costumes it narked me, particularly since there was no featured entertainment on tonight, but instead a grand “Roaring 20s Party” in the Neptune Lounge with live music by Nelson and Friends and other musicians and singers. Likewise, instead of the regular trivia quiz in the Morning Light pub, there was a 1920s themed quiz in the Neptune Lounge. Alan and Lesley joined us for the quiz, but we gave up half-way through because the questions were too hard!
We finished the evening off by going up to the Observatory, where we sat on bar stool and enjoyed a couple of cocktails before returning to 7055 just after midnight. We were due to arrive in Charleston, South Carolina tomorrow, and we really looked forward to visiting this interesting old town, which was a new port of call for us.
We slept well.