Mark woke up early at 7am and, not being able to get back to sleep, decided to have a early breakfast and walk 9 laps (3 miles) around the promenade deck. It was very humid and little did we know that the temperatures were already very high and would reach 35c in the shade later on.
Mark needed to change out of his already sweaty clothes before he tried to defend his shuffleboard title (he failed) but didn’t see Pam as she had left for her morning talk on Samoa and it’s cultural identity, clothes and tattoos. Pam here- The talk was fascinating especially about the tattoos which both Samoan men and women have done. The women have a tattoo on their legs to their knees and sometimes their hands or wrists. The men have a tattoo done from waist to ankles. It’s very painful and done with a very sharp tool and take up to 3 months to do.
The rest of the morning was spent around the Neptune pool reading, swimming and sheltering in the shade. Lunch consisted of burgers - Mark had gone for a healthy salad in the Belvedere buffet but got thrown out for being topless (fair enough - he forgot). We switched pools after lunch for the music quiz and a swim in that pool. We were constantly in and out of the pool due to the heat. The quiz was a disaster and was only rescued by our friend Paul knowing some old 50s songs.
At 3pm we joined our regular quiz partners for a scavenger hunt which was questions on items around the ship OR name the room based on pictures of obscure ceilings. We went for the questions and came 2nd. Got a stamp for our efforts and this team photo.
We went indoors back into the cool air conditioned decks and the Intermezzo bar where we played upwords with Janet until dinner time. Mark won which was probably fair as he loses the other games.
Whilst showering and getting ready for dinner we discovered that Pam was now essentially a lobster and Mark was also in need of a touch of aftersun attention. Dinner was a shared table and we are now consistently eating with passengers we have dined with before. We both had mushroom pate which was truly awful as it was more of a mousse and then a delicious bream dish for our main course. Dessert was Apple Crumble with sauce anglais - Mark has been caught out by this before as he was expecting it to be custard but it turned out to be some strange white liquid thing so he was smart and said no to the sauce but asked for vanilla ice cream. Everyone had apple crumble and they all got given a jug of custard except Mark who had ice cream. P&O and their communication and damn inconsistency struck him again.
Time to take a break and jump to our ship tour piece again. We have been moving along deck 3 from forward (theatre) to aft (Meridian restaurant - fixed dining). We have now reached the middle and this is probably the biggest bar onboard called the Piano bar. The pianist and the Clarke & Carter duo often play here. As you can see it is all around the central spiral staircase that is from the Atrium.
After dinner we saw the Samoan singer Ben Makesi again who Pam absolutely adores. His voice is so rich and his personality so warm and true. It was another great show. We ended the night playing the hilarious full house music party bingo with entertainment quiz hosts Lucy and Karl. It was meant to be songs on 1 hit wonders but some artists (like simple minds) definitely aren’t one hit wonders leading Lucy to question Karl’s ability to create quizzes and Karl refusing to play songs Lucy liked. You didn’t have to know the songs on your card as they came up on the screen and you marked them off as they were played and you sang along or, they were not played and you still sang along anyway. Chris and Lesley joined us and we are all looking like red Ribena berries now. Note that we must stay out of the sun for a while!
We ended the evening applying more aftersun cream and Pam watching videos as Mark slept.
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