Day 3 - Tuesday 2 April

Well, it's now later and no wonder Elizabeth was still in the Land of Nod when I last was on the blog.  All the time I was writing I had this nagging doubt that the clock on the laptop was playing up.  It has stubbornly remained 1 hour behind, but now it was apparently out by around 5-6 hours.  Turns out it wasn't, because Clever Dick Mr A was also relying on his bedside travel clock to keep him right, forgetting that it was still on UK time!  No wonder too that it wasn't getting light round here by 7.30am as it was actually 2.30 am and Mr A had been blogging to his readers between 1 and 2.30 in the morning - now that's what I call devotion ....

It's now 10 to 8 and time to get some breakfast before the hordes appear, so I will return.  In the meantime you can enjoy a photo of the good time girl that is my dear wife ....

The sun was setting and it was already gin o'clock!

We've had a lazy day with no photos to support it, I'm afraid.  We had a long, leisurely breakfast in the Ocean View Cafe, a spell in the solarium, a hot chocolate in El Bacio where, to my huge disappointment, no chocolate chip cookies were available but a load of other varieties instead.

Sea is a flat calm - and we didn't have to pay extra for that!

A beer at the Sunset Bar at the back of the ship was followed by a light lunch of cheeseburger / hot dog and chips and a siesta.  We also started to work out at which time of year we might be able to squeeze in visits to the villa and also investigated what our main holiday might be in 2020 and when.  It's all to do, as they say and life is never dull.

The ship's library which is on our deck.  The decor and lighting on board can be truly captivating

We've already had the obligatory "soak the bathroom floor through faulty use of the shower" episode.  On this cruise Mr A had the honour of ensuring that this happened.  Tonight is the Welcome Party in the Grand Foyer (well, it isn't that grand actually, but that's not worth complaining about!)  That means we have another hour, so time to enjoy a spell of late afternoon sun.

The crew tidy up the outdoor areas after the crowds have gone to dinner and they look lovely in the evening light

Tomorrow brings us to Grand Cayman, so a chance to see how my tax evasive accounts are doing, but we won't be buying any beers on shore as the drinks prices resemble those in Scandinavia - not what one expects from a tax-free paradise.  Our choice of activity is for us to walk to Seven Mile Beach (not all seven miles of it, I hasten to add) or to see if we can get an excursion to the much-vaunted Queen Elizabeth Botanical Gardens at below the ship's price of goodness knows how much each.

Cabanas for cosying up together

Things have really taken off this evening.  We got to the Grand Foyer in good time to get a seat at the bar.  With our precious 'free drinks included' it's like having your very own open bar, so Mrs A was in her element.  Not only that but she encouraged Mr A to get himself into the groove by reminding him what he might like to have rather than just one glass of Shiraz after another.  Our own private party started with a Bacardi and Coke and a G&T. No prizes for guessing who had which.  This was followed by a rum punch and a glass of Prosecco.  Now they do a fairly mean rum punch on Celebrity and it's bound to taste all the better for being free, yet it is but a pale imitation of those which Chris and I enjoyed on that tipsy tour afternoon at Nelson's Dockyard on Antigua while watching Chelsea in the Champions' League.  That was an item on my bucket list that I didn't even know was there!

Two slightly out of focus people at the bar

We got up slowly and headed off to the dining room.  Now we're on an 'eat when you like' regime on this cruise, so we turn up whenever and they do their best to find us a table.  However, we do complicate it a bit by asking for a table for two.  It's not that we're anti-social, you understand, well we might be, but ever since the cruise when we were happy to share a table and Mrs A sat next to some geezer who reached down under the table and pulled out his photo album and proceeded to show her his etchings that we've become rather wary of the eclectic mix of strangers that one can encounter on the high seas on this sort of jaunt.

Solarium

Anyway, I digress.  We had turned up to eat towards the end of rush hour so had to take hold of a pager and wait for it to throb in Mr A's pocket.  After around 10 minutes Mr A felt a reassuring throbbing in his pocket and we were shown a table for two.  On a 'drinks-inclusive' package you ask for a glass of this or that at dinner and they will keep filling it up, so the Shiraz and Zinfandel were flowing in full spate.  In spite of that, we still managed to hold a fairly coherent conversation about cricket with the Indian wine waiter, although he said that work commitments on the ship meant he saw very little of it.  I started to feel guilty for ever bringing up the topic but he seemed to enjoy talking to us and he also managed to save himself some journeys to and from our table as he was able to replenish our glasses while we talked and we would drink while he did, so it was an arrangement that seemed to suit both parties admirably.

Solarium again

They didn't quite have to chuck us out at the end of dinner, but with tables being set for breakfast all around us we felt we were about to overstay our welcome and toddled off to bed.  Clocks back one hour tonight so and extra hour in bed to catch up after another heavy day's cruising.  Seems they don't do Daylight Saving Time on Grand Cayman, so we're now 6 hours behind the UK during British Summer Time.

View from the Sky Observation Lounge as dusk falls .....

And so to bed, as Samuel the Pepys would say .......

Sky Observation Lounge.  Nobody there as there are no entertainment events there at the moment.  The crowds are elsewhere