Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2017
Christmas Day. Somewhere in the middle of the North Sea. Today is the first of 2 days spent at sea before arriving back in Southampton. This, though, is far and away at the back of our mind. We have 2 full days of jolliment to get through (although '
get through'is probably the wrong turn of phrase as we intend to savour every moment!)
We had a well-deserved lie in today waking at 09:15. Santa had been during the night and left some goodies in our cabin. I must personally thank him for the
Orange I found at the bottom of my stocking which immediately took me back to my childhood. Even to the point of drawing a comical face on it and leaving it to fester with no probability that I'll ever feel the need to eat it. I wonder if I leave it long enough it will ferment in to Cointreau!!?
In the lead up to the cruise we had decided to give the Cabin Steward, regardless of who he or she may be, a Christmas present. Not knowing what would make a good present for a cabin steward, I asked the question on a cruise forum and
the consensus seemed to be ‘cash'. (we're talking Wonga and not any studio album by the Man in Black!!) On leaving our cabin to head for our Christmas day breakfast, we bumped in to Cyrus who thanked us for the lovely present (Euros) and the Live from San Quentin CD (well you never know. I'm sure I heard him humming ‘Ring of Fire' the other day!!) I took this opportunity to ask him about the commotion of the flood last night. He confirmed it was a burst pipe and through a cheeky smirk and a giggle added, ‘
Not the best start to Christmas for some passengers!! He continued,
‘I shouldn't laugh really!' So why did he? Perhaps these passengers didn't buy him anything. Perhaps the flood wasn't an accident!! Ooh, I love conspiracy theories, don't you?!
Despite it being Christmas day, breakfast was business as usual. Christmas day, at home, is the one day I usually have a good size cooked breakfast. As I have been having that every day whilst on board, it's just another day in paradise!
Liam Jay, the cruise director made his daily announcement as normal, punctual as ever, at 09:45am. After wishing everyone
a very Merry Christmas he proceeded to highlight the main events of the day. At 10am a Christmas day carol service led by the Captain with readings by the officers and crew was to be held in the Palladium Theatre. At 10:15 Abbie, one of the assistant cruise directors will instruct a certain type of dance class in the Globe lounge!!! Only on a cruise ship can they make you choose between a church service and line dancing!! They could have merged the two events to avoid having to make a choice. I would pay good money to see a bunch of octogenarians line dance to Shania Twain's version of Once in Royal David's City!!
Liam also gave a special mention to Jimmy Choi who birthday it was today. He added that the birthday is made extra special because his initials are JC!!!
Many people wore their Christmas jumpers today. They came in many designs, some with flashing lights, some more traditional depicting snowmen or reindeer, some tasteful but most refreshingly tasteless!! I spotted at least 7 people wearing my jumper which I went to (not so) great expense to obtain. At the time I thought that a
jumper depicting a snowman with a protruding carrot for a nose was quite the original. Primark jumpers are more common than I thought!! Luckily I haven't worn my jumper and now I had no intention of doing so. I resorted to my contingency plan B and wore my Christmas penguin motif shirt instead!
After a leisurely morning wishing complete strangers Merry Christmas, it was time for lunch. This must be the first time in 54 years that I have had Chicken Jalfrezi on Christmas Day. Again, similar to the breakfast, the lunch served in the Belvedere buffet was what you would have expected during any day of the week.
Being a sea day, the Officer of the Watch made his mid-day report to the rest of the crew and passengers. Christmas day demanded a Christmas fact and the 2
nd Officer didn't disappoint. Did you know that the average Christmas dinner contains 960kcal? However, we were advised that if there is anyone who wants to cut down on the calories most parts of a Christmas tree are edible with the pine needles being an excellent source of vitamin C!! The nearest I'll be getting to chomping on a Christmas
tree is munching my way through a Yule Log.
There was nothing much in the way of activities today, the highlight being Brenda and Jeff's introduction to the Jive. Other activities included: Knit and Natter; Jolly Holly Handicrafts Get together; We Whist You a Merry Christmas (non-hosted whist drive) and, if you're fed up with these festive play on words to introduce the activity, the film in the afternoon was
Scrooged featuring Bill Murray. There was a classical concert in the afternoon with maestro pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi. Now we had the pleasure of his talent several days before. Whilst he is without doubt, a world class musician at piano recital, his programme started with Chopin and got more obscure as the programme progressed. It was heavy going for the uneducated (of which we were) and it helped if you were a connoisseur of piano recitals (of which we aren't!) For these reasons we gave Takenouchi-San a big Christmas swerve!
Despite the lack of activity during the big day (it was nice just to chill out) the day flew by. Before long we were getting ready for the main event; The Christmas day gala dinner. Not everyone enjoys dressing
up. Although the dress code is strictly adhered to in the main dining room, those for whom dressing for dinner is not their ‘
thang' can dine in the buffet. It was pleasing to see everyone on board making the effort for this day that only occurs once a year. I don't recall seeing anyone walking around without a jacket and tie (as the minimum requirement.)
We arrived at our restaurant a little early at 08:25 so had to wait outside as the second sitting wasn't due to commence until 08:45pm. Within 5 minutes of queuing, the line was practically half the length of the ship! We could see the waiters working frantically to prepare the dining room. Having finally got rid of the first sitting diners, all their rubbish left behind was shoved in to bin bags and taken away, the tables were re-laid, the head waiters were standing around as usual pointing and giving the occasional order and then…we were good to go.
The restaurant doors were open and an army of waiters were there to meet and greet us. We showed our invitation to ensure we weren't trying to muscle in for ‘seconds' , wished a
Merry Christmas by a waiter I'd never seen before and then taken to our dining table.
Our table was set for 6 persons. We were the first to arrive so had the pick of where we wished to sit. Usually the menu in the main dining room, whether for lunch or dinner, is handed to the diner by the waiter once he or she has sat down. On this occasion the menu for this special gala dinner was stood up on the table in front of each place. Places were set out in the traditional Christmas style. Lying across the top of each place was the obligatory Christmas cracker. In the middle of the placing between the knives on the right and the forks on the left, one found a comedy party hat. Before the restaurant became too full I snatched my hat and donned it, snapping the elastic strap under my chin. I asked Roisin to take the photo to prove I was really getting in to the Christmas spirit (as opposed to my usual trick of getting in to the Christmas spirits!!)
The next person to join our table was an elderly gentleman who we learned
was 84. He insisted on sitting at the opposite side of the table to Roisin and me despite originally being shown to the seat next to Roisin. Apparently his 92 year old wife was a bit poorly and is laid up in bed (he never said what was wrong with her). It is no fun to fall ill at any time whilst being away from home on vacation let alone at Christmas time. The final 2 to join our table were a retired couple that currently reside near Wigan but coincidentally originally hail from Liverpool. Whilst one of the table guests looked like he didn't want to be here as he obviously had other things on his mind and was worried about his wife, another table guest was thinking:
Great only 5 on the table. We ought to get served pretty quickly so should manage to make the evening trivia!! (names have been withheld for legal reasons!!) It's true what they say:
One man's sorrow is another man's happiness!! I was mighty impressed with the menu. There were 6 courses on the menu: Appetiser, Soup, Sorbet, Main Course, desert and tea/coffee. However, the meal started off with a chocolate
in the shape of a Christmas pudding. Along with the nuts, mince pies and petit fours you could argue the meal was a 10 course feast!! The main course alone had 7 choices (instead of the usual 4) – see photo for details suffice to say if worse comes to worse we won't just be having turkey leftovers tomorrow. We'll have a choice of leftovers!!!
The evening turned out to be a charming mix of fine dining and OK conversation. The man with a sick wife gave his apologies and left after the pudding and we got to our quiz on time.
We left Oslo at 5pm on Christmas Eve to travel the 757 nautical miles back to Southampton. We had now been at sea for 43hrs and at exactly noon on Boxing Day the officer of the Watch advised us of our position. We were now only 52 nautical miles off the Coast of Great Yarmouth. We still have 19 hours before arrival in Southampton so he needs to slow it down a bit!
The final day at sea and the entertainment programme seems to have been one of the best during the whole trip in
as much as nothing we wanted to see or do clashed with anything else. The variety show in the afternoon was the pick of the bunch. It is very rare to have a theatre performance in the afternoon as these normally take time to plan and produce. The majority of sketches and acts involved the Entertainment Team with a spot dedicated to
Magic Martin's comedy magic act and the traditional finale ‘
If I were not upon the sea…' This involved all the entertainment team dressing up as various characters, such as a sergeant major, light house keeper, tennis pro, casino croupier etc… and one by one entering the stage and singing their ditty until all member are on stage and they're all singing their lines simultaneously whilst doing their actions. Liam-Jay, the Cruise Director told everyone at the start of the show that this finale was only staged due to popular demand. We have seen this performed by different Entertainment Teams on different occasions and it never ceases to be funny. I suppose every team put their own personality and slant in to the performance that keeps it fresh and a firm favourite with the passengers hence why it has
become somewhat of a tradition amongst the cruise lines
. So to our final activity on the final evening aboard – the syndicate quiz. This quiz has been at the same time 10:30pm in the same location ‘The Crows Next' every evening. The format works like this: Each team (up to 6) obtain a table number. When a question is asked, the teams write an answer on a slip of paper and together with the table number run (or hop or skip or jump – if you're in to your athletics!) to the desk to hand your answer in. After a few minutes the question is
closed after which no more answers will be accepted. The possible answers are then read out before the correct answer being told. A tally is kept on a white board in full view of everyone so you can see the leader board as the quiz progresses. The questions seem to have got harder as the week progressed. Question
: What is a goatfish more commonly known as? Answer
: Red Mullet. One of the teams put ‘
Fish finger'!! Question
: To which island was Napoleon Bonaparte exiled in 1815 after his defeat at Waterloo? Answer
: St. Helena. It was not
Alcatraz, the Channel Islands or Craggy Island as some teams put!! Me thinks some folk are not talking this quiz serious anymore!! Although we never won a quiz we were consistently only 1 or 2 points off the pace. The refreshing thing was that no one team was constantly winning making our team the most consistent therefore unofficially winning the title of ‘overall grand master champions of the Universe'!! It's amazing how many people want you to be on their team once you tell them you have been on Mastermind, University Challenge and Countdown. I kept forgetting to add that our appearances have only been in the audiences!!
The weather has been mixed during this trip but around 10pm as the Arcadia entered the English Channel we had the distinct impression that the ship was listing. This was due to the high winds as the ship turned in to the Channel. The last night was a very bumpy one for which Roisin kept watch through most of it.
So, that's what the Hodgson's got up to for Christmas 2014. It was an interesting experience. The staff and crew had pulled all the stops out to
make the cruise special from the fantastic centre piece in the atrium that must had taken hours of preparation down to the silly Santa hats that the waiters and waitresses were made to wear for the entire voyage. Despite some of them complaining of itchy heads and sweaty foreheads most of them were never seen without their smile!! So whatever you got up to (and wherever you got up to it!) we hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and from the Hodgson's to the rest of the world, from Auckland to Aarhus, from Partille to Primrose Hill, on whichever continent you have made your home, we hope that 2015 brings you all the happiness you deserve and that you all have a prosperous, healthy and happy New Year.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 15; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0391s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ragnhild
non-member comment
Hi there! I wish you all the best for 2015 from my position in Partille. As for travelling we will be in the UK on the 4th of July so hopefully we can meet.. providing you are not on a ship somewhere on the globe, :-)