As the captain had suggested, the sea and wind did indeed calm
down overnight and we had what was really our first ‘normal’ spell of
conditions on board during our sea day across the Bay of Biscay. We spent some time packing and generally
tidying up as well as taking in the odd quiz.
The trouble with quizzes on board P&O ships is that the clientele
are a pretty competent lot and we have never managed better than a distant
second place with a noticeable gap between us and the winners!
The evening was our second formal night with the vague theme
of ‘back and white’ which quite a few guests followed. We dined early and then went to the early
show where we finally managed to see Gareth Oliver. He was extremely entertaining and lasted for
around an hour or so, although a few older people did walk out early on as they
seemed to find his act offensive – it wasn’t that much so – perhaps they need
to get out more! Gareth had a number of
companions during his spell on stage, including Granddad George, Charlie the
Monkey (who is only 4 years old) and Oggy who bore a remarkable resemblance to
a muppet! As a finale he invited a member
f the audience up for an act I have never seen the like of. He gave Ian, from Leicester, a man whose job
is to sell cruises ironically, a lower face mask and Gareth said he would
control what he said and that Ian needed to add some hand and arm movements to
suit. The effect was hilarious!
During the whole hour or so he was on stage I only once saw
his lip quiver when one of his companions was talking. He was overall the best ventriloquist I have
ever seen operate by far.
After that we toured the bars and listened to the various
live entertainers. P&O employ a lot
of either individual or group players all over the ship, including a number of
bands and the bars where these people play are usually full to bursting. We also finally managed to cope with a spell
in the Metropolitan Bar at the very back of the ship which, until now, had
rocked and rolled far too much for us to be able to stay there. Again there was a band playing there and the
bar was very busy.
At one point we bumped into a couple of professional
photographers from Birmingham who asked us if we would take their photo. He had a Nikon camera with a massive
70mm-230mm lens and lens hood. The whole
thing weighed about 3 times more than our Canon! The man said that a 70mm-230mm lens was good
for portraits – and probably also for bringing on hernias! – and we felt that
other guests around us thought that he was one of the many professional
photographers operating n the Atrium area. As well as taking photos of us on
our compact camera, he also took some on his an promise to send them on to us
when they got back home.
We’ve certainly been reminded on this cruise of the benefits
of having a cabin in the middle of the ship.
We always try to find a midships cabin and these days not too high or
too low and often when we’ve ventured out during rocky times, it has been very
noticeable how much more movement there is at the front or back of the ship.
We rounded off our evening with some ballroom and Latin
dancing in the Atrium. Either one or both
the dance instructors lead the session which runs most nights for between 2 and
4 hours up to midnight. As well as the
band playing for guests to dance the dance teachers break the evening up with
some lesser known dances, for example the Catherine Waltz as well as a few
progressive dances.
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