I slept pretty well, though there was some rattling from the door from the suite to the balcony. Di didn’t sleep quite so well. I got up and made tea and coffee before heading for the shower. We were at Lat 49 17.6 Long 006 23.5W, due south of Land’s End, leaving the English Channel. The ship seems prone to motion despite the sea being fairly calm. I had a few moments of queasiness before we went down to breakfast.
My queasiness didn’t let up. I managed a couple of slices of toast but then returned to the suite, leaving the others to enjoy their breakfast. I sat on the balcony for a while, hoping the fresh air would help— but it made little difference. I tried to link my MacBook with the phone to exploit the maritime eSIM, but that failed miserably. I concluded that I would have to spend the money and get the full WiFi package. We walked along to the main atrium, where I chatted with reception and signed up for the WiFi package. We also had a browse around the shops before heading back to our suite. The new WiFi package (using Starlink) is certainly faster, and we don’t have to worry about how much data we use, but we still can’t use one device as a hotspot for others. We have to disconnect one and reconnect on another. Once I had the knack, this seemed to work well, but we’ll see as time goes on.
I rested on the bed for a while during the morning, and this seemed to settle me. By 1pm I was beginning to feel peckish (this was surely a good sign). We headed to the buffet with Jane and Trevor. I managed a couple of small cheese rolls, a slice of ham, and a couple of portions of nasi goreng. This filled the hole left by breakfast and was thoroughly enjoyable. We got chatting to an elderly lady whose table we shared. She was born in Wood Green and now lives in Enfield. This gave us some common ground, and we enjoyed a pleasant half hour chatting over our various memories.
After we had finished lunch, we went out on the promenade deck for a walk. The wind was blasting across the deck and could take your breath away, particularly as you turned a corner. The front part of the promenade was cordoned off for safety reasons, so we retraced our steps. I noticed a chap by the atrium with a "Meat Loaf" t-shirt and suggested to Di that she should get one made up saying "Malt Loaf". On that note, I returned to the suite, while Di went along to the library.
Knowing that we had a formal “Celebration Night,” we had a quiet couple of hours in the afternoon. Our butler arrived with a fruit bowl and some canapés, and that was the trigger to start getting dressed up for the evening. Once in our finery, we joined Trevor and Jane and then made our way down to the Bay Tree Restaurant. We were seated by Jose and Lheny, our servers, and offered the menus along with a small amuse-bouche. I can’t remember what everyone chose (after all, there are 3,078 guests on the ship), but Di, however, started with a salmon ceviche followed by herb-crusted Atlantic halibut on a rich shellfish ragout. I chose a forest mushroom and blue cheese cannelloni to start, followed by curried chicken Kiev in panko breadcrumbs on a saag aloo. We all finished off with tarte tatin. It was a wonderful meal, worthy of any fine dining establishment, but all the more impressive because of the sheer number of diners.
After dinner, we made our way to the Arena Theatre (at the front of the ship), stopping on the way to take some photos of us in our finery. The main event tonight was Bloxed Beats. This was a trio of young men from Leeds who put on a 45-minute show using just their voices as instruments. It was very clever, but I think they really had the wrong demographic. It was loud, and the “music” was essentially hip-hop. From my seat, I could see the first of the audience leaving within a couple of minutes. Others drifted away bit by bit. As I said, it was clever, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it.
We left the theatre and made our way to the Havana Lounge at the stern. This was heaving (and it wasn’t just the sea state). The house band “Pulse” was performing a soul and Motown tribute. This, of course, is right up Trevor, Jane, and Di’s street, and the band was very good, managing to get a large number of people up and dancing. I sat and chatted to another crusty like me who was more into Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and so forth. As in my case, however, his wife was a Motown afficionado. We stayed through until the end and chatted for a while before Di and I left Jane and Trevor to it, and returned to our suite.
Just a few facts about our ship, Ventura: it was launched in 2008, weighs in at 116,017 tons, carries 3,078 guests, served by a crew of 1205. Our cruise speed is about 17-18 knots. This first leg of the cruise is about 1100 miles to our first port, Funchal.
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