Monday, June 26, 2006
Greece Floats Past....
After the meeting, we went back into the Bistro Dining Hall and had lunch before finding another couple of sunbeds up on the deck to laze away the afternoon and watch the coast of Greece drift past. I got my Greece Lonely Planet Guide out and looked at the map and tried to figure out exactly where we were. In the end I took the book and marched around the ship trying to find a member of the crew who could tell me, the first person I stopped was a waiter, but predictably, he didn't have a clue.
In the end I walked up to the end of the ship and still didn't meet someone in a crew uniform, so I went inside deck 9 (I really wish the ship had one additional floor, because the front top section of the ship was called "Deck 9 - Forward" and this was the only place that topless sunbathing was allowed - wish it was Deck 10 - Forward - trekkies reading this will probably realise why!! lol), and down the stairs and bumped into some guy wearing a Thomson uniform and asked him. He said "who'd you think I am, the Captain"? but he did indicate a general area on the map and said he thought that we were probably around there. I learned later that this guy was actually the Thomson Cruise Director - I do half pick them, don't I?
There was a quiz in the afternoon hosted by the onboard entertainment team who were really good and entertaining. The guy doing the quiz this afternoon was this Thomson Rep called "Kane" who was a loud mouth comic from Blackpool, he always had the audience eating out of his hand. Me and Pin both attempted the quiz as a distraction from sunbathing, and then I noticed a distinctive Island on the horizon with a lighthouse on a peninsular. I checked the map and worked out that this must be Zakynthos and so I finally worked out exactly where we were.
In the end I walked up to the end of the ship and still didn't meet someone in a crew uniform, so I went inside deck 9 (I really wish the ship had one additional floor, because the front top section of the ship was called "Deck 9 - Forward" and this was the only place that topless sunbathing was allowed - wish it was Deck 10 - Forward - trekkies reading this will probably realise why!! lol), and down the stairs and bumped into some guy wearing a Thomson uniform and asked him. He said "who'd you think I am, the Captain"? but he did indicate a general area on the map and said he thought that we were probably around there. I learned later that this guy was actually the Thomson Cruise Director - I do half pick them, don't I?
There was a quiz in the afternoon hosted by the onboard entertainment team who were really good and entertaining. The guy doing the quiz this afternoon was this Thomson Rep called "Kane" who was a loud mouth comic from Blackpool, he always had the audience eating out of his hand. Me and Pin both attempted the quiz as a distraction from sunbathing, and then I noticed a distinctive Island on the horizon with a lighthouse on a peninsular. I checked the map and worked out that this must be Zakynthos and so I finally worked out exactly where we were.
The Swimming Pool on the Lido Deck. They covered this up of an evening when there was entertainment out on deck.
The ship hardly moved at all those first few days, whenever I've travelled on a boat before you can tell you are on board even when tied up at the quay, but the Emerald's 26,000 tonnes didn't move at all. Even at sea, there was no detectable motion. In fact it was only on the fourth and fifth days that we noticed the ship swaying slightly, and that was because the sea was a little rough, whipped up by winds with whitetops on the waves.
// posted by Vash @ 10:56 AM 
