A day at sea with Marg & John

Fred, Marg and Jenny on their balcony at Panama

I thought I’d fill you in on what a day at sea is like for us.  Others on board have a completely different day.

Today we set the alarm for 8am, had an early morning cuppa (we bought a kettle in Dunedin), got up at 9am and were at breakfast upstairs in the Lido – the bistro – by 11 am.  Don’t sound so surprised, it takes 2 hours to get going for the day…  We often get up earlier, and will be doing so tomorrow.

In a week’s time we will be visiting Fort Lauderdale (reaching the end of our second “leg”) so today’s  Cunard tour office presentation was about that city and the various tours we can choose (well  not us, since we are rather limited depending on accessibility).  It sounds much like the Gold Coast writ large, but doubtless it has its own curiosities.

So that filled up 45 minutes at 12:15-1.00pm, with the large theatre about one third full. 

John in the lido - we spend a lot of time there

These presentations can also be watched in our suites on TV.  Then it was time for lunch, sandwich and salad, but I couldn’t resist a bowl of vanilla ice cream – very popular with most of the guests.

Today we sat with a very pleasant English couple who flew to San Francisco to join the cruise back to Southampton, but often we are on our own.

Today we are preparing for tomorrow’s passage through the Panama Canal,  so a second feature was a 45 minute presentation by guest presenter Captain Larry Rudner.  The theatre was absolutely packed and I and many other seniors had to sit on the stairs.  Larry has passed through the Canal over 70 times so is a bit of an expert!  We saw him and his wife later and mentioned how much we enjoyed his talk.

Then it was back to the cabin to collect the dirty clothes on the off-chance one of the washing machines on our deck (6) was free.  I had to queue for about 45 minutes but eventually I was lucky enough to obtain both a washing machine and a dryer.  Success indeed. 

The ship will do laundry and ironing for us, but it costs $40 for 20 items, so I’d rather spend the money elsewhere.

We have been making great use of the library, so at 4.30pm, we took our books up to the Lido, rather than to the Winter Gardens where I find the lounge chairs so comfortable because it was exceedingly hot and humid.  We stayed there till tea time, and the power failed, probably because of the excessive heat.  The emergency lights came on and it was not yet dark, but it took about 30 minutes to fix the power.  The ship practically stopped  - hardly a ripple in the ocean – presumably to save power whilst the technicians were restoring the lighting and other power.  The evening meal was affected because it was about 20 minutes late.

Some of you will be wondering why we spend so much time in the bistro.  We have permanent seats in the dining room but we’ve been going less and less.  John gave up altogether about 10 days ago, and I occasionally go to the Britannia dining room on informal nights but never on a formal night – I simply don’t have the clothes.  John finds the service excessive (as do I) and he prefers a good honest meat and veg so we find the Lido far more accommodating and quicker if we want to go to bed and read, which is our preference most nights.  I always promise myself to go to the shows (a 45 minute variety type show at 8:15pm) but so far have gone only once.  We do get through a lot of books.

When we return to our "state room" - no balcony alas - the daily programme for the next day - generally 6 pages - is awaiting us together with a ship newspaper - we get the Australian version and each nationality seems to have their own - UK, America, France, Germany as far as I am aware.

I log on to the Internet 2-3 times per day, to download the Sydney Morning Herald and quickly read emails and Facebook, but watch the time because it is so expensive on board.  John worked out it is 350 times more expensive than at home.  No surfing the web for ancestors or looking up words or places or learning new web design skills – we have to constantly be on guard to save precious internet minutes.

Our stewardess Ingrid – a very hard working Argentinian with heaps of personality – comes in twice a day to do our room.  We often tell her not to bother in the evening, as long as I get my chocolates – she knows how partial I am to them.

None of the crew get a day off whilst they are on the ship, they all work split shifts too.  They say they get used to snatching sleeps when they can get them.  I did much the same in my 20s whilst travelling, but looking at them from my 60s, I wonder how they do it.  The room stewards in particularly work extremely hard, much more so that the wait staff who are often bored silly – and admit it.

So that’s our typical day at sea – watching the water, including sightings of land, ships, birds and dolphins;  eating a great variety of healthy food, trying hard not to be tempted by the cakes and puddings; drinking heaps of tea - the free coffee is dreadful;  and reading books and the Sydney Morning Herald on my tablet.

Other passengers would have an entirely different day – there are so many options to choose from – playing darts or trivia in the “English Pub”, sunbaking insensibly on the outdoor decks, engaging in tennis table competitions or dancing the night away. 

Such is life.  We are about 2/3 of the way through our 55 day voyage.  There are large numbers of passengers who are doing the whole world cruise from Southampton to Southampton via South America and Fiji to Sydney and back via NZ, San Francisco and Panama, and a not insubstantial number who are on their 4,5 or 9th world voyage.  I can't see us joining them!