At sea

Tuesday 2nd December

I surfaced a few times during the night but decided not to look at the clock and managed to go back to sleep. When I heard the Captain’s midday announcement, I thought it was time to get up. The announcement had been broadcast especially to our rooms as he needed to tell us that there were more cases than usual on board of Norovirus. Special precautions were in force. It seemed likely that passengers had brought the virus on board, as the first cases emerged on the first night.

I collected Judith and Jenny from the dancing class and we went off to lunch. We found that as part of the precautions, the staff were serving all food dishes at the buffet, and even drinks at the drinks station. I had never seen such extreme precautions before. Jenny gave me a warning when she saw me touching my face, as the Captain had warned us to always wash hands before touching faces. We will have to be a little more careful than usual. No problem.

My room is in a fantastic location for my everyday activities. I walk to the closest stairway (D) and go down one flight and turn right for the restaurant or left for the Queen’s Room (afternoon tea and evening dancing). When I want to go to King’s Court (buffet), I go up to level 7 and turn left and it’s in front of me. I don’t think I’ll be doing as much walking up and down the ship as I usually do! I visited the front of the ship for the internet centre yesterday. Today I decided to venture further afield and go just past the centre of the ship to visit the shops. I need a new necklace to go with one of my dresses. I’ve found a couple of lovely Swarovski necklaces and will try them out tomorrow when I wear that dress. I think the necklace would make a lovely Christmas present from my family.

At afternoon tea a few of us had to talk tactics. Two of the men from my dinner table had taken to sitting with us during the evening dancing. This was a problem. It stopped us laughing and joking together the way we normally do, but more importantly it stopped us dancing with the Dance Hosts. We had paid a lot of money to come away and dance, but we were not getting asked because the Dance Hosts saw us with men and assumed we were couples. Jenny and Judith had not even been asked once by the Hosts the night before. We decided we would have to somehow move away from them before the cruise was too advanced and they were too dependent on us. In the end, Vi and I managed it at dinner by talking about the other two people we knew and the fact that we hardly spoke to them, so should sit with them that night in the ballroom. 

We ended up sitting on the opposite side of the room from the men, though both of them came over at different times to talk to us. It was quite difficult. We did not want to be rude, but at the same time we could see they were rather dependent and we thought it would be better for them (and us) if they socialised more. One of them rather annoyed me because he would only ask Jenny or me to dance, not Judith or Vi. I thought that was bad manners when he had 'crashed' our group. We still danced with them when they asked us, but we were pleased when they found other friends, though later we had to rescue another single lady from them and get her joining our group. 

Even though they hardly sat with us that night, one of the Dance Hosts checked up and asked if one of the men was my boyfriend!