Last sea day

Thursday 8th May

I love sea days. There is such a calm, lazy feeling about them. I get up in the morning and the day stretches ahead. It's always a surprise how quickly it is filled by other things, until it is time to dress for dinner and dancing.

One task for this day was packing. I refuse to make it into a major concern. I find that I can usually pack in just over an hour, so I generally leave it for the timeslot between afternoon tea and dinner. It took rather longer than usual this time, perhaps because I was tired. However, it was all done with no drama.

The normal procedure is to pack suitcases and leave them outside the door some time before 11pm. These are collected and put into the disembarkation hall for guests to collect as they leave the ship. Each passenger is given bag tags with a colour and number, and guests disembark in that order and know where to look for the bags.

I had a 1pm appointment near home, and felt that my given disembarkation time may not allow me enough time to make it. I therefore chose self-disembarkation. This means dragging my suitcases off myself. It is no more difficult than dragging them from the train station to my home, so I like the option of choosing my own time to leave. It also meant that I did not have to leave dancing early in order to pack those clothes and get them outside the door. The downside, of course, was that I was fiddling with suitcases later at night than most other people!