Carry on Cruising

We arrived back in Southampton yesterday evening (Wednesday)at 7 o’ clock to enjoy some ‘stationary cruising’ at the Ocean Terminal.  We’ve continued to have great fun and the following pics give a flavour of our last few days (and our whole trip in general):-

Amit and Chandra – our table waiters (and friends) who have made our evening dining experiences a complete joy.

The tremendous (in all senses of the word!) Beverly Davidson – violinist and ‘Diva’, gifted in both music and humour, entertained us during her evening performances.  Her violin, dating back to the 1660’s, is “worth about as much as the back end of the ship”!

This is James, seen here in a full action and extreme concentration, playing deck quoits. He reached the dizzy heights of a shuffle board final on Wednesday, but failed to win!  As Kipling said: “take triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters both the same”.

At about 5 o’ clock on Wednesday, as we past the Nab Tower on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, we took on board the pilot to take us safely up Southampton Water.

Looking further east as we rounded the Isle of Wight we could just discern the tip of Selsey Bill.  An important photo for us as we have, on many occasions, walked to the bottom of our road and watched the cruise ships come and go and looked forward to “our turn”.

At dinner last night Doug commandeered Jane’s feather boa as it matched his suit better than her dress!  That’s Ralph our wine waiter who gave us a brilliant impersonation of Ricky Martin the other evening on stage.

The food continues to be a very tasty art form.

Yesterday evening we had the “Headliners” Theatre Company’s superb production based on the music of Freddie Mercury and Queen……….

……. and, like all their work, they were given a standing ovation at the end.

Today we popped into Southampton on a shopping trip (free shuttle laid on by P & O) where James treated himself to some lovely Versace footwear (TK Maxx!) and we are now back on board and continuing our ‘stationary cruise’ until the scheduled disembarkation time on Saturday morning.  “Oriana” is now undergoing the urgent repairs to her port stern tube bearing over the next three days.

Tonight is our final black tie night with a gala cocktail party before dinner, to complement our stationary cruising status!