Day thirtyfive, Saturday 5th March, Our last day onboard

So what does it feel like?  There is an air of excitement. Is it because we’ll be getting off tomorrow and back to home comforts?  Is it because everyone is waiting for the passenger talent show?  Nah, it’s because today is the day for the big exhibition.  All Peter’s students have given us pictures to display, and we keep getting asked what time is the exhibition? When are we putting the pictures up?  Do we need a hand?  All the students are dead keen.

We on the other hand are filling in time. We sat in on the ghost talk that did not convince us about ghosts, and then we happily sat in on Moss’s talk about the birds seen in the Caribbean and the Azores.  Moss is a good speaker, and fun.

Then we had lunch, and chatted to a few passengers, then finally it was time to get the paintings on the wall.  It seemed like the whole class turned up to help us, and it was a good job they did, because we would never have got all the pictures up in time if they hadn’t, remember this was a very large class, and they were working with Peter for 18 workshops/classes.  We covered every inch of wall we could find.

The area used for the display was the sort of foyer/reception area into the Neptune lounge and the restaurants.  Everyone had to go through there for something (especially as the passenger talent show was due to start at 3.30, and our exhibition was ready at 3pm.).  It was packed. out.

The “general public”  were genuinely impressed with the standard of the paintings of the class, and the whole occasion was an absolute success.  The students were happy, Peter was happy, and I managed to slip out and get cake whilst everyone else was “mingling”.  Superb.  I also managed to pop in on the talent show.  None of them are going to get a job on stage I’m afraid, but it could have been worse......... I could have had a go. The choir didn’t do too badly though.

Our exhibition is still running on.  We had thought to take it down about 4.15, but it was closer to 5 by the time we had started to get the pictures down. We delivered those that hadn't been collected by the students, (and got to have a nose in on the cabins on floors 7 and 8 - Dead nice!) Then we had to get back to our cabin to pack.  Then it was dinner, a game of Scrabble with Moss and Robina, which we thoroughly enjoyed, then back here to the cabin for a final blog.

Tomorrow we are back in Southampton, Monday I go back to work and normality.  I have kept this blog as a sort of diary.  We have seen so many things and enjoyed so many new experiences it has been hard to keep track. Peter has videoed just about everything and will make a DVD type film of our cruise. I have taken hundreds of photographs, we have hoarded all the Daily Times, information sheets, maps and details of the tours and places we have been, and as I said before, we managed to get a copy of the Ship’s DVD.  If possible, I don’t want to forget anything.  I can honestly say have enjoyed these last 5 weeks, the only downer has been rough seas. Would we do it again?  To the Amazon?  Oh yess!!  But not just yet eh? 
Final pictures are Peter in class and one of the exhibition this afternoon, and the pink dolphins.  I never managed to get an actual photo of these but I did take some film.  I have finally managed to cut a few stills out of the film to give an idea of how these creatures look.  They are pink, (and grey), have very long beaks, and a sort of floppy dorsal fin.  Cool huh?

Day thirtyfour, Friday 4th March, the last formal night.

Tonight is our last formal night and us ladies like to dress up.  We love posh frock do’s where we can go all out and get a new dress, visit the hairdressers, spend hours in the salon getting nails n legs n eyebrows done, and finally spend 2 hours getting showered, make up and dressed ready for the night.  The reason we love it is it is a rare opportunity to make ourselves look and feel real good. Us run of the mill, normal women look forward to those special occasions when we can do this.

On the cruise ships, we get the chance.  There is a dress code for every evening, and not one of them allows a pair of jeans or a Black Sabbath t-shirt, except mebbe on the first and last days of the cruise:

Formal means black tie for him and evening dress for her.

Informal means a suit for him, “informally smart” for her, (a small step down from formal).

Elegant Casual - trousers and shirt for him, “casual separates or summer dress” for her.

Casual is “comfortable attire for ladies and gentlemen, yet with a casual elegance”??

On this cruise we’ve had 6 formal nights, 9 informal nights, fifteen “elegant casual” nights, and 3 theme nights (western, tropical and british).  That’s an awful lot of dressing up and while it was nice at first, it eventually got to be tiresome, having to get changed for our evening meal every night.  You begin to wish for a “slob night”, and the dressing up has lost it’s attraction.  It was as much as I can do to get the frock out of the wardrobe.

Peter only brought 2 suits, his dinner suit and a beige one - no other trousers as such, just his combat trousers, jeans and shorts.  He’s just about worn out the trousers on that beige suit, because he has had to wear them most nights. (I insisted “Elegant Casual” does not mean combats or jeans).  Tonight he got his dinner suit out again, which at least gives the beige one a rest.  Tomorrow we are allowed to dress casual, since all our cases will be packed and everyone will be down to the clothes they are travelling home in. Jeans at last........Phew!

Overall today has been relatively uneventful.  We listened to Moss again, (on the tele), watched the dolphin racing and Peter’s last class had 42 people, who all brought their pictures to be included in the Grand Exhibition tomorrow.  It was nice to see how appreciative they were of Peter’s teaching, the compliments and thankyou’s were overflowing.  Really lovely.   The show tonight was the crew show, made up from the staff of the ship, such as engineering, deck, reception and housekeeping.  They sang, danced Philippine and Indonesian dances and included a couple of modern routines.  Good fun.

We have one more sea day, and we wake up Sunday morning back in England.  I am looking forward to solid ground, our bed and loads of space to walk in.  The ship doesn’t seem very big when you are on it for this long.

Enjoy the pics, the first lot are from Antigua. The one of Peter was taken as he walked off the ship as an escort for the “Spectacular Antigua” tour.  You can see now how he earned this responsibility.  It was taken by the onboard photographers, who charged us £7 to get it off them.  I’ve had to photograph the photograph to get it onto this blog.  Worth it though.

The responsible, reliable, sensible escort

Leaving Antigua

And I’ve added a few more from the Azores.  

Sao Miguel. The view of the east of the island from the top of the central volcanic crater

Symmetry. The old city of Ponte Delgada is a fantastic place to see

Day thirtythree, Thursday 3rd March, the end is nigh.

Another seaday.  The sea started out smooth enough, but has developed a bit of a rock n roll thing for us as the day progressed.  The captain did warn us that today would be OK, but tomorrow is gonna be pretty rough, but it will all calm down for our last sea day on Saturday as we get closer to Southampton.  That’s good actually, because Peter is organising an exhibition of everyone’s work for that day.  We don’t want everyone feeling too ill to come see.

It’s been cold and windy outside, so we didn’t spend too much time on deck, but we did go see Moss’s presentation about Africa.  We’ll never remember what he’s told us, but we can try.

We’ve spent loads of time in the cabin today, on the computers.  Peter is working, looking after his online students etc.  I spent the day going through my photo’s, of which there are hundreds, deleting the duff ones and renaming the good ones.  I’ve only got as far as Santarem so far.

Peter had a class of 41 today, and as usual they all seemed happy.  It’s “British” night tonight, which means we all wear red, white and blue (or your national colours if you don’t come from good ole blighty), and join in on patriotic songs in the Neptune Lounge.  Well done Sophie for getting Peter his union jack t shirt.

Anyway, because there isn’t much to say about the day, more piccies.. These are from Bridgetown, Barbados where we went to Harrison’s Cave in the morning

Gardens around Harrison's cave are lovely

These are from Castries, St Lucia where we did escort duty to the Mamiku gardens.  The view overlooking th port of Castries shows four cruise ships.  The one first left is a Royal Caribbean ship, second left is the Boudicca, which looks absolutely tiny, the third from the left is another Royal Caribbean cruiser and the little one furthest right is a Silver Seas ship and about the same size as ours.  The little cruisers carry around 850 passengers and 300 crew.  Those big monsters carry 3500 people.  Basically, they bring a small town full of people into a city or port.  Much too big to go down the Amazon though!

Orchids in Mamiku gardens

Spider orchids