We had breakfast this morning and when leaving the 10th Floor Spey Restaurant was faced with a flood with water several inches high in places and it was pouring down the corridors and dripping through the roof from the 10th to the 9th Deck. I didn’t know that you could sink with water coming through the roof however about 20 minutes later announced that that a pipe to the swimming pool had broken and so all the water you could see was from the swimming pool. The service staff and engineers were running all over the place with towels trying to stop it but no doubt some of the most expensive cabins/nee suites will have been affected. How they will fix before the ship leaves on its next cruise on Sunday afternoon I am not sure. Perhaps that's enough excitement for today.
We returned to the cabin and have decided this is a morning of R & R and then after lunch we will do our packing, bags must be put outside your cabin between 2200 and 0200 and must weight more than 20 kilos. As I always carry a set of baggage scales with me this should not present any problems!!!!
On leaving our cabin for lunch we noticed that the cabin opposite which is an internal cabin for people with a disability was being emptied and there was a very wet bed and carpet being sorted and apparently the biggest smell in the room was not that of wet carpet but of chlorine from the swimming pool water. Some people were complaining over lunch about this but where else could you get a swimming pool delivered to you cabin door?A nice restful afternoon in the cabin with sometime outside on the balcony as it is really sunny and warm outside and even on the outer decks people grabbing the sun. Later in the afternoon it was bag packing time, why is it that it takes less time to pack when you are leaving than when you are leaving from home, either to much distraction oir to much choice of clothing. Anyway whatever we wear tonight will also be tomorrows wardrobe until we get home.
We had our usual table in the restaurant and dinner with a couple of glasses of wine. The food has been quite good really and so no complaints about that but we do have some niggles to share with Fred Olsen on their web driven questionnaire which I gather will be sent out after we get back to the UK.
A final goodnight glass of wine in the observatory lounge and then early to bed in view of the early start and as breakfast is served from 0630 only 0830 we had better be up with the lark as we could also be one the first or second group of people off this vessel due to the fact we have a suite.
According the ships information the ‘MV Balmoral’ has 710 cabins with a max passenger loading of 1350 with 510 crew. Following the problem with the pipes it now only has only one swimming pool instead of two.
Tomorrow will be a long journey back from Newcastle down the A1 and A1(M) with a couple of break en-route and we hope to be home mid afternoon.
