Breakfast this morning was another chance to meet old crew members, our waiter had served us breakfast on our last cruise too. He remembered everything, right down to Gary loving eggs Benedict. We decided this morning to take the shorter trip to blankenberge rather than spend time travelling to bruges. Really glad that we did because it's a fantastic town. The weather, initially, left little to be desired. Very cold and the icy wind was funnelled between the buildings and right into our faces. It warmed up though and, right now, I'm writing this whilst sat outside a small cafe drinking a coffee. I had an Irish coffee and Barbara wanted to taste it.... she ended up just planting her entire nose and face in my drink... pictures will be submitted for proof. We have already ... read more

We couldn’t decide what to do on our night in Fort Lauderdale..... not much in the way of nightlife around the hotel and we didn’t feel like sitting in the hotel bar.... We went for a walk and found a dollar store.... party in the hotel room! Sport on tv....both very tired anyway so a nice chilled evening before flying home tomorrow. we found some random stuff in the dollar store including runts!!... read more

Cartagena (cart a hay na) Awesome sauce and a bit of spice at the end. Day 17 - yes a day late but I was tired. We docked in Cartagena, a city we have visited before and still were not sure what we our plans were for the day. Last time we were here we took a horse and carriage ride which, whilst good, offered no shade from the intense heat that this part of the world offers at this time of the year. Cartagena has two temperatures.... hot and hotter.... on this visit we decided that we wanted to see a lot of more of the old city.....the walled city. We headed off the ship and considered taking the hop on hop off bus which was waiting in the port. But the price was actually ... read more

David’s birthday day 15 A very relaxing day at sea which started with two hours of pickle ball on the top deck. I had to drag a sweat-soaked David from the court because I feared he would collapse or something! It was fun though.... I AM going to see if there is a pickle ball club in Bracknell when i get home. The rest of the day has been spent relaxing and getting ready for our big day tomorrow going through the Panama Canal. Our transit starts at five am and we will be up from the very start. I managed to tell the guys in the restaurant tonight that it was David’s birthday and, at the end of our meal, they sang happy birthday in front of the whole restaurant and produced a HUGE cheesecake ... read more

Day .......13??? I think .... day at sea- edited to add pollygog ceremony. We have had a brilliant day at sea today.... I forgot the clocks went back an hour and was up at 5am wondering what to do with myself because Dave was still asleep. So...... I went upstairs to play some basketball alone but, of course, at 5:30 in the morning there was already a bloody pickle ball player there practicing serving....on his own. So I grabbed a basketball and started shooting hoops on the opposite end of the court to him. We didn’t say much to each other for the first few minutes but we did allow each other space to play. I got bored shooting on my own and so I sat down to watch pickle ball man serving to himself. Once ... read more