108 | NORTH & SOUTH | JUNE 2019“The 9pm show?’
“Yes...”
“In the second row?”
At this point, we knew we’d been
sprung.
“You girls were as good as the show!”
We really weren’t. And as the oldest
by far in our group, I left the land of girls
many decades ago. But that’s the thing
about cruising on a 122,000-tonnage
pleasure-craft with 2500 other merry
mariners – you fling yourself into things
you wouldn’t dream of doing at home.
When you get back to your room after
dinner, a show and an energetic hour of
“Silent Disco: Battle of the DJs” (surely
the best fun to be had in headphones),
the one thing you should do before bed
is scan the daily planner that’s been left
on your pillow alongside your good-I
t was our waiter Darko’s handmade
limoncello that did it. If we’d stuck
to a glass or two of silky Italian red
at the Tuscan Grille, we’d not have
been dubbed “the girls in the sec-
ond row” after our singing, arm-waving,
vodka-and-lemon-fuelled response to
the Buddy Holly show in the Solstice
Theatre. In truth, we were one “Rave
On” encore away from dancing in the
aisle. Had “Buddy” Scot Robin not
scarpered sweatily o-stage after his
last piano-thumping number, we’d have
been boogie-woogieing out of our seats,
sea-legs and all.
It was Kate and Cola who were quizzed
at breakfast next day by a couple of
fellow cruisers. “Were you at the Buddy’s
Back show last night?”
“Yes.”night chocolate. Then circle twice as
many activities as you can possibly fit
into 16 hours, knowing tomorrow’s
“Tech tips: all about Bluetooth” in the
iLounge (which you could really use)
will very likely lose out to an acrobatic
mixology demo at the Martini Bar. Tom
Cruise’s bartending act in Cocktail has
nothing on these guys.
Does the fact you have zero aptitude
for arts and crafts stop you from signing
up for the glassblowing class? Of course
not. Anyway, you can probably redeem
yourself at the general knowledge trivia
quiz, assuming there’s a smattering of
questions on literature, geography and
capital cities. There is.
And the less said about the “Abba
Mania” sing-along in the Sky Lounge,
the better.We love the nightlife! Our fab four (above, the writer in orange) boogie down at the Silent Disco; with the headphones off,
it’s actually a cacophony of revellers singing hits of the 60s, 80s and millennium – all at once. Entertainment elsewhere
included some impressive cocktail-pouring skills at the Martini Bar and Vegas-style shows in the Solstice Theatre.