Today’s Daily Programme can be found here…
It was hard losing the hour last night especially as we had a bit of a late one (for us) but I slept far better than the previous few nights, only being woken a couple of times due to a coughing fit. We’d remembered to set our timepieces and when I woke at 7:45 it was 7:45 which meant I managed to start off the day without getting shouted at, a rare and nice event. I did allow Jane to sleep a little too long though and she didn’t surface until ten to nine, so it was a a bit of a sprint to get ready and up to the PG restaurant before it closes. There are now two of the B elevators, which service Deck 11 and the Grills, out of action which adds to the jeopardy of getting to the restaurant in a timely manner. We have the luxury of being able to head either fore or aft and taking those elevators, but there are many Grills passengers with mobility issues who will struggle to get a lift at busy times.
Breakfast was nice where I opted for Eggs Benedict as well as my usual Bircher muesli. We were heading to the quiz post breakfast with one of the ladies, when the other three headed down to the Queens Room to take part in the chairobics session. Apparently chairobics is quite energetic, who’d have thought it ? After the quiz 14/20 we were on a mission to get some sunshine on my aching bones. There were plenty of beds on the port side which has rubbish WiFi rather than the non-existent WiFi that the starboard side has. Ricky the steward came around on his rounds so we requested a latte and cappuccino to enjoy while reading my book. The twelve o’clock whistle sounded, while I was recording to capture it on my phone, and it still made me jump out of my skin. I know it was a whistle because Captain Hoyt said it was in this 12:00 briefing, they must have a different whistle in North America from the ones we have back home is all I can say.
We were all alone at lunch as the others were indulging in a bit of courtyard dining, I’m not sure if the service is any speedier but lunch was reasonably quick with a buffalo wing starter, fish taco entree and Blueberry cream cheese bar dessert, for two, well it was for one but Jane insisted on two spoons because she didn’t want a dessert. It turns out I was quite happy with the sharing as I was pretty full after the first two courses.
After lunch we headed back to the Stateroom to download the Daily Programme and publish yesterday’s blog entry. The myVoyage problems have now been resolved. My geeking out of the way, it was back to deck 12 for more sunbathing. There were fewer beds available, luckily there was one next to the ladies, so I sorted out the bed for Jane and disappeared back to the Grills Lounge to read. When 16:00 came along I headed down the Winter Garden in case Jane fancied some light quizzing and grab a seat. It turns out the quiz has been moved to the Pub and the Wales rugby game is showing in the Winter Garden.
We’d met Jesus, a waiter from the Commodore Club on the Amsterdam cruise who Jane had been very chatty with and is now in the Chart room, and he suggested visiting his bar as they have different cocktails. Jane’s attention was piqued as soon as she saw there was an astrology selection and the Aquarius entry was described as refreshing zesty and floral, apparently right up her street. We ordered an “A New Discovery” for Jane and a Cunard Gold for me. It’s the World Club meet and greet for Gold, Platinum and Diamond loyalty tier members and a queue was building outside the Chart Room to shake the skipper’s hand.
We were scheduled for the second of the two sessions, we weren’t we were actually down for the 17:15 meetup, but that was far too early, so we spoke to the concierge and changed it to the later one. It was the usual fare, cheap fizz and a long queue to shake Captain Hoyt’s hand. We’d entered by the back door to bypass the hand shaking queue. There was more standing around chatting while we waited for the Captain to tell us how wonderful we are.
It was a good fishy dinner in the PG restaurant, I started with prawn and jumbo shrimp cocktail, Jane had caviar and I had shellfish pie as an entree and Jane Dover sole. All very good but the dessert was excellent peanut butter semi-freddo with chocolate brownie delicious but very, very rich.