Dawn Princess World Cruise 2010 - Wednesday June 30, 2010

Day 40 Into the Adriatic Sea towards Venice
We had a day at sea today which gave us time to come to grips with muscles used yesterday that hadn’t been used for some time. It also gave time to do some laundry. I went to a lecture on Venice and Dubrovnik, which was good and one on Marco Polo and the Silk Road, which was not so good. It ended up being little more than a slide show. At dancing class, we learnt the Tango. Bill was quite adept at this dance, but I sometimes forgot the two steps before the turn. Nevertheless, we are improving. Last night we put our clocks back another hour. This means it does not get dark until about 9.00 pm. Tonight we went to watch the movie Nine on deck under the stars, but it was not dark enough to get a clear picture, so we left after about ten minutes and went to our room to watch The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. This afternoon we had a passenger emergency drill. This is compulsory once a month. It was quite funny. As we have a large number of elderly people on this cruise, they always arrive for any event 15 minutes early and the passenger drill was no exception. We were told it would occur at 3.00 pm but most of the passengers were in their assigned places 15 minutes before hand with their life jackets on. We were meant to go to our rooms and collect our life jackets when the announcement was made at 3.00 pm but not put the life jackets on at that stage. When they were told they had done the wrong thing one man near me exclaimed, “I’m not silly, I always come early to get a seat”. We are moving more quickly now and the ship seems to be over its problems. We expect to arrive in Venice about 1.00 pm tomorrow. (Barbara) Just went for a late night cup of tea (11.30 pm). It always amazes me that you can get any food and drink you want 24 hours a day. The movie is still playing on the open deck, the dancers are still going in the Atrium with Alan and other people are walking the ship. It is a bit like a large city with the night owls and the early risers. I imagine that it is just a couple of hours a day when there are no passengers around to keep the crew occupied. But the ship burns brightly all night like some ghostly Marie Celeste sliding towards the next port of call. (Bill)