OK, I am happy (kinda) to say that my preconceived ideas were not too far off the mark, and the cruise is everything I feared it would be, and more!! I don’t mean the mum & dad bit, I mean the actual cruise bit. Apart from feeling like I have a walk on part in a 2012 mega grand scale remake of ‘Cocoon’, I just can’t get my head round any of it, it’s so bad it’s almost good.
Take today’s activities for example. If we didn’t want to take the tender ashore and part with our well earned holiday cash in Cannes, we could stay on board and take a course in how to play the slot machines better (thus parting with our well earned holiday cash in the casino), or perhaps take in an interesting talk on the sparkling properties of Tanzanite (funny, they have a special anniversary collection of Tanzanite for sale in the on ship boutique). Maybe we would like to go line dancing with the lovely Linda (who doesn’t appear to have seen an up to date hair magazine since 1987), or join the daily (well, on port days anyway) ‘sail away’ party around the pool with DJ Keith… and then get constantly reminded of what fun we are having.
I would like to think that not everyone is voluntarily taking part in DJ Keith’s poolside capers, rather they have just been rendered incapable of moving from their sun loungers due to the fact that they are wedged together like sardines (and have been ever since they bagged the spot at sunrise), and nobody can actually get out of the sun-bed squash until the fat bloke and his Kindle, and the little old lady doing still doing battle with the Sudoku from last weeks Sunday Express, who are sat closest to the edge, finally release the bottleneck and let the others go free.
Meanwhile down on the prom deck the tumble(sea)weed is moving around quite freely.
I am still blindingly optimistic that at some point Cap’n Phil will come over the tannoy and tell us to look out over the horizon to see what a pretty pink the sky has turned as the sun goes down, and how the evening light catches the bridges of the other ships way out yonder making them look like sea stars, or indeed how many different colours of blue there are in the wash generated by the mega big propellers, or how awesomely soothing the roar of the water is when you stand aft at full throttle (day or night, and only on the prom deck, any higher up it doesn’t count), and that really, it’s a damn sight better than listening to some has been that never was of a club singer belting out a particularly painful rendition of Phil Collins – Su-su-sudio (yo-hoh-woah-oah) down in the ‘understated elegance’, (think eighties neon meets eighties neon and has a baby), of the Manhattan bar.
Blindingly optimistic indeed…
You,re loving every minute Verity. Love Libba x
no auntie libba.. i’m very good at faking it!!
Hang in there, maybe a Somali pirate boat will drift seriously off course, attack to relieve the boredom, or Captain “jack sparrow” will give you some entertainment. It sounds like you are on floating “hi de hi” adventure! At least the book should be a best seller. Stay sane, Rog xx
Rog… when have you ever known me to be sane??
Hang on in there…… you should write professionally. Pen.xx
thx Doll.. I think you may be biased!! xx
If I had any thoughts of taking my 90 year old parents on a cruise/ holiday that idea died about day 3 of your trip 🙂 – You’re a brave girl and I genuinely admire you taking on this little adventure!
Chris.. thx!! I will tell you the good bits one day.. cruises are actually very good for crumblies!! If I had had time I would have given you a shout as I crossed the M62 to Liverpool yesterday.. but I’m not sure you would have appreciated meeting me in early stages of the bends… still haven’t fully decompressed!!