Saturday 15 January

The Rotterdam left us in the early afternoon on its way back to base at Fort Lauderdale, so we had an unobstructed view from then onwards. The sun streamed in through our patio door and it was actually too hot to sit outside on our balcony.

One thing that did disappoint me was that, while using the laptop on our desk near the patio door, the wifi signal from the Rotterdam was stronger than the one on Azura. It reminds us how poor the provision is on Azura.

We had dinner as usual, but the neighbours we had had the day before Grand Turk weren’t there, so we couldn’t ask them the question we’re now pondering over: on our last evening when we have to put our luggage out for collection, will we then not see it again until we arrive at Manchester Airport? If so, that could be both good and bad – good in that there will be no need to lug it about to get it checked in, but bad in that there's the slight possibility that it ends up at Gatwick or Glasgow rather than Manchester!

While we were in the queue waiting for the doors to open, the man next to us said that there had been quite an outbreak of Covid on board Britannia, the other P&O ship doing Caribbean cruises at the moment, but I can't find any mention of it on the web.

On Cruisemapper it shows that Britannia is now on a changeover in Barbados. Cunard's Queen Victoria is also there (both cruise lines are part of Carnival Cruise Line) trailing Britannia to act as a hospital ship if required. To have a virtually empty cruise ship trailing Britannia and possibly us as well if need be seems an expensive way to resume cruising.

What did occur to me, looking back on our day on Grand Turk, was that what our dinner neighbour said the night before we arrived there was absolutely right – the place is dead flat and, while it’s like a desert island paradise of sun, sea and sand, once global warming really talks hold, the whole island is surely doomed.

But on to today.  This is a sea day and we have only a few ambitions today. One is to find the loyalty staff and ask them what we are actually getting in terms of loyalty benefits on this cruise. Some time ago, P&O moved the goalposts big time regarding their loyalty programme such that we got virtually wiped out and had to start again. It was no doubt because they have such a loyal, devoted customer base that too many people were racking up too many loyalty points over the years so P&O had to put the brakes on.

We think we may be entitled to at least half a bottle of bubbly and half a bottle is better than none, so we can only ask. We would also normally be invited to a loyalty event on board with free drinks and that hasn’t happened, because they don’t do on board parties at the moment – whoops – or should I say gatherings?!

There are members in our family circle who have been known to get hold of 6 free drinks at such an event, but I think that Elizabeth and I have only ever managed to get something like 4! Anyway, once again, we can only ask.

Our view at dinner

Each evening we get the flyer telling us what the highlights of the following day will be. Well, these days, the highlights are fairly thin on the ground, but there is mention for today of a bit of a dance party tonight in the atrium. That’s the central indoor area and focal point of the ship, so what is going on? Is the ship moving slowly over to Plan B?! We did read also of some action in the spa treatments suite, but our excitement was short-lived as it turned out they would be giving a demo of an anti-ageing product to get rid of facial wrinkles. So, although hands-on spa treatments are still off-limits, they don’t mind trying to flog their products!

Our second ambition today is to go to a quiz. So far they have only really been in the large outdoor pool area which is very noisy. The only ones we can see for today are a solo competitor’s quiz and one more general one a little later but both would cut across our pre-booked time for dinner.

Another day dawns

It is with mixed feelings that I tell you that, at 10.30am, they will be screening the Premiership match between Newcastle United and Watford in one of the bars. Now, this is a must-win match, but, then again these days each match is a must-win one, but they don’t ever seem to manage more than a draw and that is so rare that it seems like a win!

We will see.