Carol Marlow live from Adonia

Well our Maiden Cruise on Adonia continues with fine weather and some excellent port calls in Lisbon and Gibraltar.

I was able to join our passengers on our Gibraltar excursion to the Botanical Gardens, which were really beautifully kept and displaying more than 1000 different species from different places around the world, including a large bed of plants that had been grown up from seeds from Kew Gardens! We then went up the rock in a cable car, and met some monkeys, which luckily were more interested in running off and eating a bag of peanuts than they were in the contents of our bags.

I enjoyed an excellent dinner last evening in Sorrento - baked mushrooms in a cheese sauce with garlic bread, followed by sea bass and prawns, and finally a wonderful chocolate tart from the trolley....(and I really did promise myself I was going to have fruit salad...!)

And then after dinner I discovered the table tennis tables, and enjoyed a game to try to work off a few calories 

I had a chat with our passengers in the Curzon Lounge this morning, telling them a little about P&O Cruises' colourful past, and what we have in store for them over the next year or so. I was also able to share with them the highlights of the ship's naming on Saturday, with some film of Dame Shirley performing her Godmother's duties.

I then had the pleasure of hosting a table at our Portunus Club lunch for our Gold Tier members, and we had a lovely time reminiscing about previous Captains and exploits on our ships.

Later on today passengers were out on deck playing shuffle board and relaxing on the Promenade Deck, whilst others were tackling the jigsaw puzzle in the lounge.

Relaxing on Promenade Deck with Susan Clewlow

Shuffleboard with Jim, Malcolm, Diana, Barbara, Harvey, Shirley, David and David

Tackling the jigsaw with Valerie, Doreen and Barbara

Out on the aft deck I found Mr and Mrs Nichols enjoying afternoon tea, so went over to make sure that their profiteroles were up to spec - I'm pleased to say they were!

I then went in to see the Headliners Theatre Company perform their first ever play - Private Lives by Noel Coward. It was a triumph! How the lead actor learned 68 pages of script is beyond me, but it was a wonderful performance by all the cast, and one which we will need to consider performing on our other ships when we can. And the set was very chic - as shown by these two dodgy looking understudies (not needed on the day) practicing their lines!

The understudies for Private Lives rehearse! Featuring Cruise Director Neil Oliver

So then back to the cabin to change for the formal dinner - and there was Julmax, my cabin steward, as ever there to keep everying neat and tidy.

And after another excellent dinner, so to bed to do emails from the office and look forward to my last day on board.

Carol