The sun was shining and we were well past Sicily and out of the Adriatic Sea and well in to the Mediterranean Sea having covered about 700 nautical miles since we left Venice. We decided that we would use the gym every other day and perhaps take a long walk later. We had breakfast outside on the rear deck café and as it was full and had to share a table with a Chinese couple from Montreal who were trying out this cruise line for the first time. They were finding the relaxed approach perhaps a little challenging as they were used to having their own table at a set time when they needed it and so they had been to the main Grand Pacific Restaurant at 7.30 pm the previous evening and it was full, “can you come back in two hours”, they did not realise that you must book a table at peak times.
Following some extra sitting in the sun we did six laps of the walking route around the ship equivalent to about 1.6 miles at a fast pace and by which time it was nearly 1pm. We checked out the duty free and the booze prices are not bad but you cannot of course drink it on board, what a bummer. We found a little bar serving mostly beer and hamburgers and that was our lunch for today. By this time the sun had gone behind the clouds and people had scampered away from the swimming pool as once the sun had gone the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees from the 23 degrees it had been. We headed back to the room for some peace and quiet and according to the map we are just North of Tunisia going West at 19.2 knots with waves for 3.5 metres high and we shall continue to track along the North African coast just off Algeria until we arrive in Malaga on Wednesday morning.
The ship is 98,000 tons so its quite large really and we understand it is full so that must be over two thousand two hundred passengers and it has over one thousand crew. Perhaps the only slightly annoying thing is the pushing of shore trips at what seems to be very expensive prices. One is a trip on the trams in Cadiz for USD 45.00 per person but when I checked on the Cadiz website it’s about 4 Euros a day??
The afternoon was spent relaxing in the room until late in the day when it came to decision time for dinner. As we don’t usually eat three meals a day at home, for us to have a hamburger and chips lunch time, meant that we were not too hungry tonight and so we went to the Garden café basically for a light meal and in this respect the ship is good as you can eat as little or as much as you like and not having to work your way through a four course meal.
We fancied a quiet evening tonight and headed for the Library to look at their selection of books and somehow became immersed and then it was 10.30pm and time for bed.
Finally the weather today has been almost fine, not always sunny but reasonably warm of around 24 degrees Cent and in the afternoon down to 18 degrees Cent as the clouds came over.
