We are settled in once again. We have our favourite cabin on 7 deck and many of the crew remember Jane. A few of the remember me – but not many! The Master of the ship is Cunard’s first lady Captain Inger Klein Thorhauge. She and Captain Aseem Hashmi alternate – 3 months on board and 3 months on leave (I think).
One of the speakers, Malcolm Nelson, is a former senior Customs Officer. His lectures are based on his career at Heathrow catching drug smugglers. We’ve seen him before but he appears to have a great deal of new material. He is excellent.
And the ship’s Port presenter, Rachael, is also very good. In the past, Port presenters tended to promote tours organised by Cunard, but now their presentations are much more balanced. Rachael’s talks describe the ports and surrounding areas, the architecture and the places to visit with no hard sell on their tours.
At dinner two more guests appeared, Maggie and Gordon from Surrey. Still 3 empty seats!
We had that Nelson bloke on our last cruise. I found most of his stories vaguely unbelievable. One of my mates is an ex very senior Heathrow customs officer. Apparently he was widely disliked at Heathrow and most his material is stuff that happened to other people.