It’s a very special day – 25 years ago today we met, yet the mentalist onboard fails to pick that up from either of us. Maybe he’s not that clever then?
More on that subject later, but first we go to do our rounds on deck nine, about fifty before breakfast but as we see the tables filling up we abort and grab one quickly – it’s not as if there are many – today we have an exotic fruit display too with the catering officers shaving, chopping, blending everything into various stunning creations.
After breakfast we continue with laps but stop after five miles as we did a lot yesterday.
We swim whilst the band sets up, and remain in the pool for nearly their entire set, fortunately they couldn’t see me “aqua dancing” along as they play for lunchtime.
The afternoon brings along a dragonfruit cocktail which is gorgeous, and more swimming.
We get to the early show which as previously mentioned is a mentalist, the weird description Americans use for magician / mind-reader. He has some amazing moves, and four of them I failed to immediately explain, but the majority are easily unpicked – although they way he performs is fabulous and he has the audience eating out of his hand. A later chat with a couple of his subjects answers the missing parts of his “mind-reading skill” – not!
Afterwards we head up to deck eight for our pre-dinner champagne cocktails, and then down to MDR for our pre-arranged anniversary dinner.
I have designed a five-course dinner especially for us, and when we arrive there is a section of the dining room set aside, with rose petals on adjacent tables and scattered around the floor.
We are treated to a fabulous experience, with some of our favourite waitresses and waiters attending us. The chefs have blown up my menu into seven courses, and we enjoy caviar, duck pâté with rhubarb compote, fried foie gras with berry compote, Palma wrapped scallops with pea purée, lobster bisque, steak frîtes with béarnaise and finish with anniversary cake.
By now it’s too late for the second show, so a wander around deck after dinner and we’re done for the night.
