Lisbon

Thursday 1st December

The rain fell early but the sun finally shone by the afternoon. This has been a cruise with very little sunshine, unusual weather for the time of year. I was weary from visiting too many ports, too many dramas on the dance floor and chatting too much. I decided not to go into Lisbon as I have visited several times before and no doubt will come back again. I slept late. I spent the afternoon in bed, mainly reading with about half an hour of sleeping, and felt much better by dinner time. I generally need one or two days like this on a cruise. I enjoyed the view of Lisbon from my balcony. From the building work going on, it looks as though the port is being extended.

I went to dinner in the dining room and then followed my usual pattern of dancing and chatting. I have not been very impressed with the dancing on this cruise. I recognise that I have been very spoilt by having a fantastic dance teacher at home, and I don’t expect that standard. However, I do expect the system of Dance Hosts to work fairly and it didn’t. Only one was absolutely transparent in his movements around the floor. We knew that we would eventually get a dance with David, and that everyone would get the same number of dances (except in the sequence sessions, where not many people knew the dances). The others either played favourites and ignored some women completely or else they did not know how to keep track of whom they had danced with, and so missed out on ladies. It became tiring. I see no point in just sitting around waiting for someone to come along, especially as the dancing is not very good anyway, so I often went to bed earlyish, especially after Frances had left at 10pm.