3rd to 9th September, 2018
Well, here we are again, all at sea on the P&O cruise liner, Arcadia, having left Southampton on our way to New York and the Canadian Atlantic or Maritime Provinces. We have a 30 day round trip ahead of us ending up back in Southampton on 3rd October.

This is our second P&O cruise and the difference is noticeable as this ship is just under 3 times the size of the Adonia, the last P&O vessel we were on and we keep getting caught out in thinking we are already where we want to get to on the ship only to find we have half a ship to go. To give you some scale, she is about 80,000 tons and has just over 2,000 guests, so not huge by some cruise standards, but a bit bigger than we have been used to. I would add that there are ships out there that come in 3 times the size of this!

Our cabin, or stateroom as it is sometimes rather optimistically called is fine, with a balcony and is the usual well-designed conglomeration of cupboards and drawers, so everything is stowed away shipshape and Bristol fashion. Everything works well and we are well settled in for our trip.

There is lots to do each day and Val has so much to choose from she has had to make a schedule to ensure she makes it from shuffleboard to quoits to table tennis to a fitness class. I have been enjoying the table tennis and going to the gym and the chance just to sit down and do basically not very much. This is all crammed in between eating, though we are trying to be good here. Val has an early morning snack so she can take her pills and I make my way down to the dining room for a served breakfast (as against going to the self-service restaurant), which is all very civilised with porridge, orange juice, a cooked breakfast and some toast and coffee. I suspect some of you are thinking ‘so that is being good, is it John?’, but I do forego lunch.

The dinners are remarkable with a wide menu available and the chance to try something later in the cruise if you don’t choose it first time. There is a choice of starters, soup, a salad, main courses, dessert, cheese and biscuits and coffee, so you can see now why a trip to the gym is needed. That said, they do not overload your plate and we do not always have every course.

Of course, one of the most important moments in a cruise is who else is sat at your table as these will be your dining companions for the duration. We are on a table of six and the other two couples are pleasant and the conversation has flowed well so far. I have written before about the strange inability the British have of actually asking you any questions about you. For example, at breakfast this morning, I was sat next to two gentlemen and I can tell quite a bit about where they live, the jobs they had, how much of a pension one of them has, the fact that his wife has claustrophobia and won’t travel on the Tube, where their son lives and where they went on holiday this year. They on the other hand never once asked me where I lived, what I used to do for a living or whether I have been on a cruise before. It is bizarre. Idon’t understand why they don’t ask me back. I am going to continue to experiment at breakfast (you sit with different people each day) to see how long before someone actually asks me a personal question.

We usually go to whatever entertainment is available in the Palladium theatre after dinner and saw an excellent band yesterday who covered many great rock and roll tracks which went down well. I should add that I have it on good authority that the average age of guests on board is 78, so Val and I are feeling very young. I hate to think how many hip and knee replacements there have been! Sadly the level of the obesity crisis is high among the guests and a great incentive to us to keep to our fitness regime. I would put the percentage at at least 50% obese and another 30% overweight. What has happened to us? Where is our self-control?

We have had two Black Tie evenings where everyone gets dressed up. All very easy for the men, though I think the ladies enjoy the opportunity to put on their best frocks. I have stuck to my 5:2 diet, which seems to be holding out, much helped by a daily visit to the gym, so there is an outside chance I will come back thinner than when I left, which I suspect doesn’t happen often on a cruise!

Ok, as ever, I am posting this many days later, so more on the ship, passengers, table tennis triumphs and eating, fasting and exercising soon. Next stop – New York!