Port Vila

Date: 22nd December 2022

Morning

It was quite a shock this morning to look at my watch and realise that it was Thursday and that the cruise was into its 5th day already and that there were only five days left.

I was up as usual at 6am and having breakfast at 6.30 after which I spent 40 minutes pounding the decks pausing only to take the occasional photo as the ship entered harbour and docked in Port Vila.

Port Vila was a stop on my previous cruise so I decided that I would not be going ashore today but would have a lazy day on the ship (ie much like most days aboard).

Spent a while in the morning washing some clothes in the cabin sink before hanging them on my make shift line on the balcony which could only enhance to reputation of P&O, I should have more than enough clean clothes to make it back to Sydney now (mind you I thought that a few days ago too).

Spent most of the morning reading with a couple of beers to help this along before taking lunch in The Pantry. I have just realised that there are two Pantrys, one on each side of the ship but only one is open at a time.

After lunch I returned to my now serviced cabin to sit on the balcony and watch the activity in the wharf below my cabin.

Evening

Dinner was at Angelo’s Restaurant, unfortunately my table was poorly located with no one nearby to talk to but he meal was fairly good though to be honest I didn’t think there was enough choice and service was glacially slow, I was there for over an hour. Perhaps port visits slow everything down?

In a way the meal taking so long meant that the wait for my next event was less. I decided to go to the Maggie Scott performance in the Marquee Theatre at 7pm. By the time the show started I would say she had an audience of 50 people, probably with good reason, there was no backing band just recorded music so it was like Karaoke with a good singer.  To be honest I thought it was pretty dismal.

After 9pm visited the Blue Room to listen to the band Solid Vibe, the girl has a nice voice but the songs she sings all sound the same to me. so I gave up after a few beers and sat on my balcony listening to Captain Beefheart on my head phones.