Day 7 Friday 20 March 2009

Day 7 Friday 20 March 2009

The Norovirus has been spreading quite rapidly through the ship, and precautions to prevent the spread of this infection are now in full swing. We had intended to watch the advertised show “Apassionata” in the Theatre last night, but three of the dancers were ill with the virus, so that was cancelled, and a substitute show replaced it.
We went to the Afternoon Tea Dance in the Queen’s room at 3.30pm and enjoyed that, although they served the cakes before the sandwiches, which seemed a bit strange to us. Everything had to be served, by the white gloved waiters, including the tea, which made it quite a lengthy process. Still we are determined to try everything there is to do on the Queen, and that was just one of them. We probably wouldn’t bother to do it again, as the cakes and scones were not WW in any way, shape or form.
After that we returned to our cabin for a rest, before dinner. We booked a table at The Carvery in the King’s Court, as we needed to eat earlier than what we can do in the Britannia Restaurant – also last night was Formal again, and Deb and I didn’t feel like getting into the “glad rags” again.
So far the food has been good in the main, although probably not as good as we had anticipated. We find the King’s Court food areas at lunch time somewhat off putting – very cafetaria style, and many of the people on this ship are quite “piggish” and very rude with the staff, especially now they have the restrictions on food handling. It is interesting to “people watch” at these times, and very easy to label the ones who are inconsiderate and rude.
We have seen many US citizens who fit into this mould, and also the Germans on board.
After dinner Deb and I went to the show in the Royal Court Theatre and were entertained by the comedian John Evans again – he is extremely funny, and we enjoyed his show. They also had a saxophonist playing along with the orchestra who was co-opted into the show because of the illnesses on board.
After that show we went along to the Illuminations Theatre to hear a Classical Concert with Helen Leek on Piano and Claire Overbury on Flute play 10 different pieces from French composers through to Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Kovsakov which we thoroughly enjoyed.
After that we retired for the night – once again we put our clocks back another hour which meant we were in bed fairly early. I thought that I might have been coming down with the dreaded gastric virus – but think it may have been my intolerance to lactose that was affecting me. I confess – I had scones with jam and cream, and some summer pudding with cream for desert, and my body doesn’t handle cream at all well these days. We decided that we weren’t going to call the medical officers until we had determined whether or not I was reacting to the cream. Having managed to have breakfast and lunch today without any further incidents – I think we were correct in doing so. Anyone with the disease is isolated in their cabin until they are deemed free of the bug and I don’t think I would have liked that very much.
This morning it was blowing a gale on deck – 14 knots. We did our walk around the deck along with all the other walkers, prior to breakfast, then went to the library to get something to read. After that we went to the Golden Lion Pub for morning trivia, and then up to Sir Samuels bar for coffee and cake, then back to the cabin for a rest before lunch.
After lunch I have been writing this for the blog – Deb is having a rest. Tonight is elegant casual dining, and we will go to the show in the Theatre at 7.00pm before dinner. They have a singer, and as many of the dancers that they can muster for the show.
Tomorrow we arrive in Dubai in the morning. Dubai is another change-over stop with many passengers disembarking, and I assume – more will embark. We have a tour booked for the afternoon. I changed some American dollars for UAR money – in case we want to buy something. Because it is a Saturday we won’t be able to access a post office to post home our postcards and parcels. There isn’t the same access to mail on the Queen as we had on the river cruise, but we can get our emails so that is good.
Hopefully, we will get some nice photos in Dubai – apparantly we will be docking behind the QE2 which has been sold to Dubai, for a refit.