Tuesday, 20 September 2016

At sea


Wednesday 31st August


We were both ready for a lazy day at sea. We woke late and had breakfast and then wandered down to watch the midday Waltz lesson while drinking a Mimosa for me and a G&T for David. The lesson was quite bad. It was described as a ‘Slow Waltz’ but most of the steps were American style. There was no knowledge of technique. However, people enjoyed themselves and were able to dance around together, which is the important thing.

After that we spent a few hours by the pool. We were lucky to find 2 sun beds together, as most were full. Someone must have just left. We sat in the sun and swam in the pool to cool down. It became a bit noisy, as the entertainment on offer was Pool Olympics. We had to sit through a pool volleyball match and a scavenger hunt and then a few things that we did not bother to watch. We had a bit of a nasty incident when David could not find his sea pass (the key for the door plus the card that pays for anything we buy or shows we have the free rinks package). Mine was there, in its grey leatherette case, but David’s card plus case were missing. Someone must have seen it and decided to use it for a few free drinks. As David pulled on some clothes to go down to Guest Relations to get a new card, he discovered that his Vivienne Westwood sandals were also missing. I looked around and found them by the pool and took them back. Someone must have walked along the hot deck and decided the surface was burning his feet and grabbed the nearest sandals. We were lucky that the person left them in an obvious place.

We went back to our room where David fell asleep for a couple of hours while I read. Once again David started talking and was able to answer questions but could not remember a thing on waking. I finally woke him at 7.15 so we could go to dinner. While he slept I received a phone call from Guest Relations saying they had heard back from Head Office about compensation for being without lights. Head Office would not budge, despite the fact that quite a few people had complained. I could tell that the woman was embarrassed by that. She offered us a bottle of white wine instead, to take home or enjoy on our balcony with friends. Once again I said no thank you as it was no use to us. She said to let her know if there was anything she could do for us, so I said I’d go along in a few days and get her to reconfirm my airport transfer, if that was okay, as there was no way we could phone them. We won’t let it spoil our holiday, and we had a good laugh about it when the bottle of wine first arrived, but I still think we were put into a dangerous situation and something more should have been done.

It was an Evening Chic night (their version of semi-formal) so David wore a suit and I had on a long dress. We were among the most formally-dressed people we saw (though we did see a couple of men in tuxedo and bow tie) as most were wearing open-neck shirts or dresses that were close to sundresses. Service was slow. It was almost 9pm and our main course had not been served. We wanted to go to the show, so we abandoned our dinner table and went off to watch ‘Life’, the production with the singers and dancers. Afterwards we went to the Oceanview Café for a snack and then to Café al Bacio for dessert.

We were back in our room by 11pm and David went straight to bed. I read for about an hour before I was ready to sleep.


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