CHRISTMAS CROSSING
Our return journey took six days. Christmas Day fell upon our first sea-day, and was, essentially, a working day, with a class in the morning and the afternoon, as per any other day not in port.
As such, it didn’t really feel that Christmassy.
Christmas Dinner had been planned out like a military campaign, with guests being allocated seats at tables in the Grill, the Restaurant and the two speciality restaurants. By breakfast on Christmas morning, we still hadn’t received any confirmation of where we would be eating dinner, so we asked one of the waiters about it, who chased it up and came back with the message that we should turn up at the Restaurant at 6.45pm, and they’d have a table for us. We were also told that a card confirming those details would be delivered to our cabin. That card never turned up.
Not that it matters. We were very grateful to the waiter who chased up our enquiry, and dutifully arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time, in our gladrags… it being formal night, of course.
Dinner was fine, seasonal fare, although it would have been nice to have had more than one single brussel sprout. We were sat at a table for six who were socially adept and the occasion went off without a hitch.
Later, we headed up to the Britannia Lounge to watch a band called Bon Adams. They are a young, four-piece band, with members from Coventry, Leicester and Manchester, some of whose luggage and musical instruments had gone astray in transit, so the drummer was using the resident kit and was wearing borrowed clothes, and two of the line-up were playing instruments that were unfamiliar to them. One was playing an electric bass on loan, and the lead singer played a borrowed accoustic guitar instead of his own electric guitar. Despiute all of these challenges, they were quite brilliant.
From the introduction, we learnt that this was their first time on a Saga ship… probably the first time on a ship. For four young, long-haired rockers (I say ‘young’, they were all probably in their early thirties), they probably had no idea what they were letting themselves in for, and certainly had no idea how they would be received. They needn’t have worried. They went down an absolute storm, and I’ve heard nothing but high praise for them from guests since… Saga will, I’m sure, be taking note…
On Boxing Day, the ship’s time went forward one hour at lunchtime, jumping from 12 noon to 1 o’clock in an instant. This would happen four times over the next six and a half days, to bring us back into European/London time, when we are due to arrive in Funchal, Madeira on New Years Eve.
On Day Five, Tracey woke up with a cold. In order to keep contact with other passengers down to a minimum, we stayed in the cabin for lunch and ate fruit and chocolate, instead of going to The Grill. Despite hopes that the cold might miraculously go away, it didn’t, and so we ordered room service for dinner. The Angus Burger was good but the small side salad we’d asked to be included turned out to be a full salad with strawberries… not my cup of tea at all. After dinner, we watched ‘About Schmidt’, with Jack Nicholson, on the TV, and I left Tracey watching ‘Calendar Girls’ while I went upstairs to watch Bon Adams for their second show (another corker…)
On our final night before arriving at Funchal, Madeira, we returned to the Grill for dinner – a Portugese Buffet – which not only was nice but also meant we could be in and out quite swiftly, without any sitting around between courses. Later, we went back up to the Britannia Lounge to watch Bon Adams’ third and final show, and Tracey was feeling sufficiently better to want to get up onto the dance floor.
Thus ends our six-day crossing. Tomorrow, we were originally due to be arriving in Funchal around about 1pm, which would mean me having to give a lesson in the morning. An announcement by the Captain at lunchtime, however, informed us that we will be arriving much earlier – roughly 9am. So… no classes… and… a lie-in!!!
