We docked in the deep water port at Portland at about 7am. Slept well overnight. Stirred a few times and was aware there was very little to no boat movement so we must have been going very slowly. The day started grey and then cleared for a few hours and then came in grey again. It felt cold.
I hadnt been to this part of the world for about 35 years! A good long time. After breakfast we wrapped up and disembarked to take the ship’s shuttle service into Weymouth, which was free and ran every 20 minutes. The first stop was Portland Castle, one of the many built by Henry 8th along the coast. We continued on to Weymouth, driving along a long section of Chesil Beach to the left of us.
Weymouth town and old harbour were very pretty. Prettier than I remembered. It was really quiet and just a pleasure to look at the boats and their reflections in the water. We walked into the centre of town to find a Boots because Bob had forgotten to pack his shaving cream. Success! Walked back conscious to not over stretch Bob’s leg. It was about 1/2 mile from the bus to Boots, so about a mile round trip. Very pretty by the harbour with the colourful old houses and pubs and the fishing and excursion boats moored up along the jetty. An old wooden skiff style of rowing boat came into the harbour, rowing hard, and we were interested to see the crew were all women. It would have been nice to linger longer but it was cold and we decided to get back.
When we got back Bob got changed and went to the fitness centre to use the exercise bike and the leg flexing equipment. I sat out by the pool in one of the sunken couches and watched a movie on the big screen and did some knitting in the sun. It was freezing though. There were stacks of blankets and I took 2 of them and swaddled my self. Bob spent about 45 minutes in the gym and then came down to me and went into a hot tub which was adjacent. He had it all to himself unsurprisingly on such a day….. Had a great wallow for about 30 minutes. I was freezing by then so I went into the buffet for a hot coffee while he went off and got dressed and then we had lunch.
After lunch Bob went back and had another gym session and then came down to the cabin and had an ice pack. The steward is bringing us 2 ice buckets full of ice a day and we brought ziplock bags with us to hold the ice. So quite a therapeutic day for his knee.
In the afternoon we went to a music quiz and teamed up with 2 Canadian ladies. We did pretty well – much better than expected – but didn’t win. It was fun. We came back to the cabin then till sailing at 3pm. I did more knitting and watched a movie about Paul Simon called In Restless Dreams. It was quite dark really but he is clearly a musical genius.
At 5pm we went to the special Happy Hour and hors d’oevres buffet for Platinum and Elite guests. We don’t go every night because it takes the edge off dinner to be honest but maybe a couple of times a week. There were a lot of people there, more than I’ve seen on other cruises. Must be the nature of the cruise ie older people who’ve been cruising a long time so earned the loyalty level. The buffet was really good: beef tartare, tempura king prawns, little glasses of different salads, cheeses…. Like all things it has cut back over the years. It used to be enormous with great heaps of seafood some nights and like a cheese feast on others. The drinks also used to be free and now they just have a card of about 8 cocktails which are discounted, all other drinks are full price. We sat with a British couple and their sister in law. They’d cruised enormously, mostly with Princess, and we had a lot of interesting chat with them. They are staying on the ship after Port Canaveral and having 9 days around the Caribbean, then flying home from Orlando.
Christmas decorations are creeping around the ship now. Garlands and fir bunting going up everywhere and trees appearing too. It’s looking very festive.
Dinner tonight was amazing. We both had filet mignon for our mains and it was as soft as butter, absolutely perfect and delicious. Yum. Very good and not even a gala night. We took a glass of wine from the cabin in with us. We were allowed to bring on a bottle each so we are using that up first.
Went to the show afterwards. A very good female singer called Angie Grace Brown from Glasgow. She did a set of all female songs from Janis Joplin to Dolly Parton and Fleetwood Mac. Incredible voice but she sang with a strange combination of strong Glaswegan with an overtone of American and to be honest if you didn’t know the words to the songs (which everyone did thank the lord) you wouldn’t have understood a word she sang. Tremendous voice though.
Sea day tomorrow and the weather is set fine for our Biscay crossing. We are nearing Ushant as I write this and we will start across the bay in a couple of hours. We’ve struck very lucky for this time of year.