Janet's Diary

23rd September

Vigo.  I really like this town, especially as a final port of call.  It has lots of 'normal' shops and restaurants, rather than those aimed purely at tourists.  The locals outnumber the cruisers and once away from the area close to the quayside, it's rare to bump into a fellow passenger.

We waited until late morning to leave the ship, as we were here until 3:30pm and the sun was on our side of the ship.  It's so quiet onboard as the vast majority of passengers get off as soon as they can and return to the ship in time for lunch.  This morning the crew had a fire drill while the ship was quiet, with real fake smoke, alarms and bells... It's good to know that P&O take these things seriously.  An announcement was also made that 'something' would be out of action for half an hour during the morning for routine maintenance , but unfortunately we missed hearing what the 'something' was.  Discovered it was the toilets when we went to use the facilities before going out!

Had a little wander along the promenade, then headed inland to the city centre, where we stumbled across Vigo's museum of contemporary art.  There was no charge to go in, and we had an interesting half hour trying to fathom out what the art was about - it was mostly video installations, you know the sort of thing,  black & white film of someone staring into space... One of the films, 32 minutes long, was called something like Searching For Love, and it consisted of a video of a man placing a gramophone needle onto a record time after time after time, until he hit the point where the word 'love' was being sung. Mmmmmmmm.

Since we were last here, they've built a large shopping mall on the quayside.  We had a little look round - not much to interest us, though I did buy a packet of Jelly Bellys ( or should that be Jelly Bellies?) from an American Sweet Shop.  We ate some of them as we watched tonight's movie, Cuban Fury.


24th September 2014

The last day of a cruise is always strange. Deck 7 is busy as the shops onboard give us another opportunity to purchase all those 'bargains' we may have missed first time around. The Inch of Gold table is in evidence, alongside the handbags, bottles of perfume, t-shirts and Aurora teddy bears.  We've all received the P&O customer satisfaction survey forms, and at dinner last night the Cruise Director almost begged us to complete them, adding that usually the return rate was very low.  No wonder, as they ask such darned stupid questions!  

The sun shone on our balcony all morning, so once we'd come back from the film talk (Jaws) we sat and read out there.  I've selected six of my paintings to display in the Art Class exhibition this afternoon.  It'll be interesting to see them compared to the work of others. There's a sort of Strictly Come Dancing show at 2pm, starring volunteer passengers paired with members of the Entertainments team.  And the cinema is showing four different films during the day, which is a great idea.  Plus all the usual quizzes, seminars (sales pitches), deck games and dance classes - I don't know how anyone will have time to pack their cases.

XX
Janet