We were woken, rather symbolically, by deck chairs being rearranged on the deck above us. Neither of us had had a particularly good night’s sleep. After recording a short video of the noise in case I needed it for complaining purposes, I went upstairs to find out what the fuck was going on. One of the crew apologised and said they only did it once a week so we’ll see if that is the case or if he was just saying anything to make me go away.
As dinner was a bit shit the previous night we decided to have breakfast in the Horizon buffet. This opens at 6:30 and like most buffets you ideally want to get there as soon as it opens because after 10 minutes any hot food under a lamp takes on both a dried out and at the same time, greasy texture. It was okay and plentiful which I suppose is all you can ask for from a buffet.
When we got back to our cabin the phone was flashing with a message. My Portuguese street food cooking class was cancelled due to lack of interest! Quite frankly I found this very annoying. Even if it was just me it should have gone ahead. What else were they going to be doing? Lyn was also annoyed as she had been planning a morning of coronation watching on her own without me commenting.
We had a wander around to get our bearings and ended up in the Crows Nest bar. It’s right at the front of ship so you can see where you’re going and it’s very pleasant. There was a ship guided tour at 10 from here so we thought we’d do that just to kill a bit of time. It was either that or watching Shaun the Sheep. It was more popular than we thought. We decided not to do it and informed the young girl at the back whose job it was to heard the stragglers. She gave us a look of “Thanks and I don’t blame you”.
We went back to one of the included restaurants for lunch. There was a sharing plater called ‘The King Charles Coronation Ploughman’s’ which turned out not be a Ploughman’s at all but just some sandwiches followed by cake… So an afternoon tea. So far nothing I’ve ordered from the menu has been what was advertised. I’m guessing making up fake menus is what the cooks are doing instead of showing me how to make a Portuguese tart.
After lunch we went back to the cabin so Lyn could watch the coronation and I almost immediately fell asleep. When I awoke Charles was King (officially) and a heavy fog had descended outside. I’ve not been in a fog at sea before and can now understand why lighthouses/foghorns are quite important. I was going to take a picture but you can just hold a blank bit of paper in front of your face and get the same effect.
The evening was black tie so we’d decided to eat in Epicurean the ships posh restaurant and one you have to pay extra for. Across the restaurant was a couple probably in their late 60s. As far as we could work out they hardly spoke a word to each other. They just seemed to be staring at each other and not in a friendly way. Lyn and I do stare at each other over dinner but in an adoring way until such time as she decides to open her mouth to show me what she’s been eating which kinda breaks the spell.
Service on the ship has not been good. Or at least it’s not what we are use to. They’re friendly enough, they’re fairly efficient at coming to take an order… then nothing. It seems to take an age for your drink or anything else to arrive. Understandable for say a cocktail but unforgivable for a glass of wine or a coke.
This came to a head in Epicurean. When they bought my main I asked for another glass of wine to go with my food, I ate slowly, waiting for the wine to arrive, still nothing. They cleared our plates and still no wine. When someone eventually came to take our dessert order and the wine still hadn’t arrived I complained saying I didn’t want it now and asking they make sure the wine wasn’t added to our bill. Service after that was prompt (but probably with extra spit) and a little less friendly but I’m happy with that exchange.
It’s Stavanger tomorrow and it’ll be good to get off the boat and start seeing what we came for.
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