Thursday, 21st September 2023

I started the day with a run round Deck 7, which was quite busy at 08:00 – probably because you’re not allowed to run before that (there are cabins underneath and it would be unfair to subject sleeping people to the sound of pounding feet), and after breakfast finishes lots of people go out to sit on the deckchairs, or to walk around so it gets harder to get a clear lap after around 09:30. I’d done a fair amount of walking up the stairs over the previous days, including twice from Deck 2 to Deck 11, but I was feeling the need for some proper exercise. It was pretty damn unpleasant out there with lots of wind, squally gusts hitting me in the face as I went round the corner towards the “pointy end”, blowing me almost off my feet down by the lifeboat stations. About three laps in I was contemplating giving up and going inside to the gym and a nice dry treadmill when I encountered Major Scotty Mills running the opposite direction to me. He gave me a cheery “Well done! Keep going!” and after that I really didn’t feel I could stop, not when a retired Royal Marine had told me to keep on. I toughed it out for eight laps (I thought I’d done nine but it’s hard to keep count), before retreating inside, 4.73km completed (or 22km in 33 minutes if you believe my Garmin which of course also took into account the speed at which the ship was moving – I await my call from the British Olympic selectors!)

Cleaned up and dry, we had ordered room service breakfast (included in the price), with a fresh batch of fruit compote, more of that glorious Bircher muesli, and a light continental offering of meats, cheeses, and pastries that would get us through the morning. This was probably just as well because Desk 7 has views into the various restaurants on that level, so you run while watching people eating their breakfast! After that it was off for a walk around and then over to “Illuminations” for a further talk from Major Mills. Or at least we thought it was. When we got there we realised that what was scheduled there were talks in German, sponsored by “Die Zeit”. This might have been fine for me, but it wasn’t going to do Lynne any good. It turned out we needed to be in the Royal Court Theatre instead. We changed locations pretty sharpish, and took seats in the circle, before realising that J and J were sitting down in the stalls. So it was off down another flight of stairs to join them. Major Mills was still good, and we thoroughly enjoyed listening to him talk about his work helping with the rehabilitation both physical and mental of injured marines.

At 12:00 we had an appointment with the Voyage Sales team, having decided we’d like to do another cruise in the future, preferably somewhere around the Baltic or northern Europe. We sat down, told the young woman what we were looking for, and she came back and told us there was only one Baltic cruise and it was sold out. So we asked about northern Europe and she claimed there was nothing else. The “appointment” lasted a whole two minutes and was a complete waste of time – maybe she could use some geography lessons! We’ve since established that there are several northern European itineraries and have plans to go to Norway in search of the Northern Lights in 2025. To try and be fair to her (she was seemingly the very definition of “cute but stupid”), if you search the Cunard website and put in northern Europe as a filter you do also get a cruise to Lisbon, which is definitely not northern unless something has happened that I am unaware of! I have since booked for 2025 by telephone with the helpful people in Southampton, who do seem to have a grasp of geography…

Realising we had four bottles of wine left on our wine package, and only one day to drink them in, we decided it was a good excuse to go for lunch in the Brittania restaurant, where we could drink a bottle of fizz – and see what the lunch time menu looked like. It looked good and was light enough that we figured we’d be OK with a course or two ahead of a theatre trip in the afternoon.

The day’s programme showed that the afternoon’s entertainment included the Royal Shakespeare Company, with a cut-down version of “Miss Littlewood”, a musical about the life and career of the fabulously feisty Joan Littlewood. The show had been edited to contain the main threads but to be performable inside an hour, with a cast of five. The result was still very good and thoroughly absorbing, and it kept us all utterly wrapt for the entire hour. It was superbly done and a lot of fun to watch. It looked as if it was also a lot of fun to perform.

That took us through to late afternoon and while J and J went off to see if they could summon up some afternoon tea – we had no idea where they were putting it! We decided it was time to retreat to our stateroom and to break out the bottle of fizz that came with the room while we got ourselves glammed up for dinner. We also packed because if you don’t want to have to hoick all your luggage off the ship yourself, it needs to be outside your cabin, labelled and ready, before 11pm on the final night. We’d both brought large holdalls to add the last items to the following morning, so the suitcases were duly dispatched and would hopefully be seen the following morning in the arrival hall at Southampton.

Thus organised, we were slightly early for pre-dinner drinks. I managed to talk Lynne into being photographed by one of the many photographers stationed around the ship. Neither of us are great fans of being in front of the lens, but we’d seen some of the results on display screens around the place, and they looked to be very good indeed. Also, you don’t have to buy any of the pictures if you don’t like the results, so there was nothing to lose. We were told that we could see the results any time up to 11pm, or from 7am the following morning.  If we didn’t like what we saw, we’d not bother handing over cash (or at least dollars on our registered payment card – the only use for cash on board is to tip your stateroom steward and your waiters/sommelier).

We now knew we wanted to start the evening in the Chart Room, which was the bar we liked best. The cocktail list is imaginative, there’s a cocktail of the day, and the waiting staff are excellent. I’d ordered the cocktail of the day the previous evening, and when we came to order, the waiter suggested that if I’d liked that, then I should order the “Eye of the Storm”, because ‘d probably also like that.  He didn’t mention it would be served in an elephant!

We headed for dinner after a drink, and as ever were well looked after and well if not excitingly fed (duck was on the menu, which is always a good thing). We also worked our way through the last of our wine package, concluding that the choices had all been very good. After that we quickly swung by the photo studio and were sufficiently happy with the work of the photographer that we ordered three shots on a USB stick so we could print them ourselves at whatever size we chose. After that it was hit the dance floor one last time, before retiring to bed once the music ceased to be to our tastes. On our way back to our cabin, we ran into J and J, the pair of them having left us earlier for the midnight buffet. Apparently, they’d been on the Cornish pasties. It was probably as well for their waistlines that we would be getting off the ship in the morning!