Day 92 12th April 2011

It’s a bit of a grey day and quite cool (i.e. 13C). This is no surprise since we are heading north towards the western approaches. The normal end of cruise activities are underway such as completing the evaluation form, receiving the preliminary statement of account for us to check and collecting envelopes for tips. There is a routine for giving people a tip and it is to place the money in an envelope and then hand it to the individual. This is normally done on the last day but you have to get ready. In our case we have identified five groups of people we want to give something to.

They are starting to collect luggage from today. This is very early but is due to people having far more items than on a short cruise. The suitcases are taken from the cabins (we leave them outside) and they are then stored below so that they can be unloaded early on the last morning. No one can leave the ship until the bags have been unloaded and checked so it is important that it is done efficiently. We are all issued with a coloured ticket that gives us a time to disembark. In our case it is green or 10.15am. They often do it faster than the plan so I would anticipate being off the ship and in the taxi around this time.

We gained another hour at 12am so we are now at GMT+1, that is we are at the same time as the UK. We have come the full cycle of time. This afternoon we finished packing three of the five suitcases and sent them away. In between packing we listened to John Barby speak about the age of William Hogarth. I walked my normal 13 laps today and worked out that I had walked 750 laps of the ship during the voyage or around 220 miles.