2nd February An unexpected event


On what should have been our last port of call, Samana in the Dominican Republic, we are still at sea. Late yesterday afternoon an announcement was made that because tooday involving a tender transfer from ship to shore in the midst of what was predicted to be bad weather, it would not be possible to safely 'dock' in Samana. 

Hence its going to be a slow meander back to La Romana. To be honest I would have preferred another day in Tortola but I guess other ships are heading there. Never mind at least it's saved me the dilemma of finding yrt another last minute trip for today and can go out on the bang that was yesterday's adventure.

So having left it until today to have a go at running round the deck 10 track. (4 laps equals 1 mile) I was up before 7am to discover the greatest internal sway ofvthe entire trip, some of the internal corridor doors closed, rain pouring down and deck 10 sealed off. Ho hum. But what it does mean is that everyone will be fighting for space indoors today. All 1800 of us.

As it turned out by 10a although overcast the sun lizards had occupied their regular loungers and settled in to continue turning from lobster pink to deepest mahogany. We broke up the day with an impromptu Q&A session with the Marella theatre show cast, finding out just a little about their background and the stages involved from baby ballet / church choirs, through the audition process, to three months on shore rehearsals, two week on ship handover from the previous cast and then the reality of 2 shows a day, six days a week for 8 months including hiw they coped with illness and injury. And even it tonight's show was for some unknown reason a repeat of one we had seen earlier on the cruise it was a good one to round off the trip.

We are currently awaiting our reviews on the Navigate app form other couples at evening meal times who we simply bludgeoned into conversation with four whitty banter and carefully constructed chit chat.

Now all we have to do is pack which according to Captain Derek, his housekeeping team can do in 7 mins if guests either miss getting back on board or are ejected from the ship, which apparently three were earlier this week for being drunk and disorderly.

Tom and I are now trying to see if that service, the 7 min packing not the ejection from the ship, is available as an add on extra.

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