Day 85 4th April 2011

It is another warm day with temperature around 28C although the breeze blowing over the ship makes it feel cooler. The visibility is limited with a haze around the ship probably providing only a few miles sight. It is also a little humid. We are sailing towards St Lucia and we will arrive tomorrow morning. In the last 24 hours I have heard and witnessed that we are running out of some products. These are not terribly important but interesting. Apparently they are having to ration stilton cheese, have no flowers on board (i.e. you can normally order a bunch or a display for a special occasion) and no birthday cards. From time to time you notice that they switch brands and at the moment we have a lot of New Zealand and Australian products that early in the voyage would have been sourced from home. These are, for example, cold remedies, orange juice and ginger beer plus a lot of New Zealand lamb. At times I think P and O bought the whole supply since we have been offered it as an option for most meals.

Last night, our waiter Sandeep surprised us by bying us all a glass of champagne last night as a thank you because he had enjoyed serving us during the last three months. We saw the in-house company, Headliners perform a show called Blame it on the Boogie last night. It was to there normal high standards. We had already seen it once before earlier in the trip. Today we listened to a talk from Peter Purves, the actor who is probably best known for working on Blue Peter. He is doing a series of three talks about his life. He covered his early years in the theatre and how he got a part on Doctor Who. I enjoyed his presentation. He is a good speaker and works without notes. Tonight, we are going to hear the in-house company singers do songs from Andrew Lloyd Weber.

It is obvious that the trip is coming to an end so we are starting to think about taxis and packing as is everyone else.