What a wonderful day.

Before I go on, I need to clear something up. Acapulco is a DUMP and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. It has a very expensive part of town (where Sylvester Stallone and Timothy Dalton have houses and have filmed and where Bob Hope and Liz Taylor used to stay) and a very cheap part of town (where the ship moors). It has one historic building (the fort) and several shopping centres. But, man, is it ugly. Acapulco has to be one of the ugliest seaside cities we go to. It may have a glamorous history from the fifties and sixties, but these days, it’s a dump. Don’t get me wrong, the people are lovely, and although they speak Spanish, most of them speak, if not English, then Spanglish, which is perfectly understandable! But it had a major influx of money and prestige In the sixties and seventies, when aesthetics were not particularly sought after, which has resulted in an agglomeration of ugly concrete high rise hotels that stretches right around the bay, along the beach, obliterating the view from behind and also of the bay from elsewhere. Seriously, U-G-L-Y, you ugly, Acapulco. It doesn’t matter how lovely your golden beaches (all public, no such thing as private beaches in Mexico), and they are lovely, and it doesn’t matter how luxurious your hotels and their congruent swimming pools, and they too are lovely, and it doesn’t matter how good the food, how cheap the souvenirs, how friendly the locals, and they are, they are and they are. It’s an ugly dump – a mixture of expensive concrete and cheap shanty wood and metal structures, side by side. There are at least three McDonalds, plus all the other major Americans – Burger King, Starbucks, Walmart, you name it, it’s here. These do not count as redeeming features.

An hour’s drive takes you to what our tour guide repeatedly called the New Acapulco for the 21st Century. He said it at least a hundred times. This translates as ‘just as ugly but one bay over’ and with more greenery between the ugly, i.e. a golf course. Oh good. That’s better then.

We got up at the crack of disgusting (7.30am) to catch our excursion bus for a trip called Highlights and Baby Turtles. The hotels were the highlights and, although our guide, Juan, and our driver, Mario, were brilliant and quite funny, that’s pretty much it. Just hotels, oh, and the conference centre. I kid you not. It was all just so much filler on the way to the turtles, but no one minded much.

We stopped at the top of the cliff at the edge of the bay to take photos of the bay, which is very pretty, as long as you keep the hotels out of shot. Some of the less developed islands in the bay look rugged and interesting, but you should photograph them soon, because land without buildings on it doesn’t stay that way long in Acapulco. Last time we were here, I took a taxi up to Senor Frog’s bar to buy a t-shirt. At the time, Senor Frog’s was a ramshackle bar on the side of the cliff with nothing around it but trees and wild bougainvillea. Now, there are four bars and restaurants, with tarmaced car parks, and viewing platforms and toilets and refreshments and stalls selling souvenirs while you gaze across at the bay. In addition to which, Senor Frog’s now has three merchandise shops down in the town, so you wouldn’t need to come up here anyway.

Filler duly filled, we went to the Elcano resort, where they host the turtles. First we were offered a free drink (and coupons for two more, which was a nice touch), and then we waited for the other coaches to arrive. The pool looked lovely, but as we had not been told that we would have time to use the pool, or, indeed, permission, no one had bought swimming stuff with them. I made my feelings on this subject clear to the excursion escort, Claire, and then I took off my denim shorts and went in in my clothes. I’m not letting P&O incompetence get in a way of a swim in a pool that inviting! When I got out, they gave me a towel and then the talk started.

The guy giving the talk, from the turtle conservation charity, had a very strong accent, which rendered some of it unintelligible, even to me, but the gist of it was that the turtles come back to the same place each year (within a couple of kilometres, anyway – they’re not as accurate as penguins!) to lay their eggs on the beach and only 1 in a 1000 makes it to adulthood, although by releasing them under controlled conditions, we increase their chances 100 fold. Then we got to hold some little ones, that fitted in my palm, born yesterday and this morning, mine hadn’t even opened its eyes yet, and then we went down to the sea, where we released each one onto the sand and cheered it on its way to the ocean. We held them between a thumb and forefinger and you could feel their tummy muscles tensing as they flapped their flippers. They were clearly very eager to get to the sea. The surf was up to about four to six feet in places, so I was a bit worried about them, but they seemed happy enough to be swept up, tumbling around in the water until the waves bore them away. In fact, it was the conservation staff’s footprints that caused the most bother! We stayed behind the rope, but their footprints in the sand were rather deep and once a little fella (or fellarette, they don’t DECIDE their gender until they’re about three years old) fell in, he either quite wore himself out climbing out, having to then stop for a rest to recover, or the staff lifted them out, which was the better option, overall.

Then, when they were all safely in the big blue, we retired back to the hotel restaurant for chips and guacamole, tortillas and tacos, which were very popular indeed. In the queue for the buffet, several people came up to me and said how jealous they were that I had gone in for a swim, but I couldn’t persuade anyone else to give it a go!

We then took a circuitous route home, via some more developments that are being built and planned and got stuck in traffic on our way back to the terminal. Once in the terminal, there was time for shopping or having your photo taken with the local parrots (for a fee). Then it was back on board for a late lunch. I then went on deck and found a sunlounger in the shade, where I read my book in between bouts of swimming in the pool. It felt odd to be back on board and done for the day by 1.30pm, but there really isn’t that much to see in Acapulco that we hadn’t already done (apart from the cliff divers, which I wouldn’t go to if you paid me). Added to which, I got quite burned yesterday, so it was good to get the damp t-shirt off my back and air my sore bits.

Tonight is hoedown night, which means country and western garb for dinner. I can’t find my checked shirt. I must have forgotten to pack it. Oops. One man came to dinner dressed in a full Sheriff’s uniform, complete with hat, which I thought was taking things a leetle bit far!

We have a new person on our table, Monica. Her friend was taken off today with a burst appendix, and her husband went with her, which left Monica all alone, so she joined us. She has a great sense of humour and fitted in very well. We are not sure how long she’ll be sitting with us, but she is very good company, however long it is for, and there was a lot of laughter tonight. She is disembarking in Vancouver, as she has family there. She thinks her friends will rejoin the ship somewhere around Seattle, but, personally, I’d be very surprised. Even if the appendix is removed, it has already burst, which means a probable infection. I’m not convinced that will have abated enough in the six days between now and Seattle for them to fly to rejoin the ship. I’d be happy to be proved wrong, but I won’t hold my breath.

Today I met three people from St Neots! Well, Eynesbury and Great Barford, to be precise. One of them has a nephew who runs the farm shop at the end of my road! They even recommended a good Chinese restaurant for me, when I mentioned the firey demise of Yim Wah House. The Golden Cross at Great Barford. Duly noted. In return, I told them about the restaurant in Lisle Street in Central London, The Empress of Sichuan, which has the chef from the old Ming Wai that used to be in Little Paxton and was widely thought to have been the best Chinese in Cambridgeshire.

This evening they are showing a talk with the Captain, recorded a few days ago, on one of the television channels. He’s got a point, though. There cannot be many people who have been thrown out of the Cubs for wolf whistling at a nun… Other tidbits worth noting: We burn about two tonnes of fuel an hour on Arcadia. Catching up from Barbados to Aruba, we used 48 tonnes more of fuel than was planned. He was once on a cruise ship that was trapped in a hurricane for three days and one of the decks actually broke in two. It was able to go back to port for repairs and luckily had no passengers on board at the time. But what a terrifying thought.

My sunburn seems to hurt even more today than yesterday. I’m going to bed.

Despite the ongoing disagreements about how to pronounce it, here we are (consensus: Wa-tull-co). We got off early and headed for a resort hotel called Las Brisas. There was a ship excursion going there, but dad reckoned we could do it cheaper ourselves. So we pitched up, paid our money and settled in for a nice, relaxing day of doing nothing at all.

Huatulco is what happens when there is money available. What a beautiful little town. Absolutely pristine and spotless – our taxi driver says there are over 300 street cleaners working daily to keep the place perfect. The dual carriageway was astonishing clean and tidy, and virtually devoid of lumps and bumps as well. They are currently building a huge road to connect the port to the town. There is currently no such road, so there are no cars in town, only pedestrians.

They like to make people walk here. Just to get from the ship to the shore was a good fifteen minute walk, for starters!

They have stalls, shops, musicians and a lovely pedestrianised area by the ship’s pier. Unfortunately, this area is VERY large, which means the walk to the taxis takes a full half hour. No, really. Half an hour. Granted, that’s at Mum’s speed, but I’m not sure I could do it in under fifteen minutes, myself.

The whole of Huatulco is exquisite. Dad describes it as the most beautiful place he’s never heard of. Built on eleven bays, the sand is golden and empty, the birds are vociferously cheerful, it’s all lovely.

We went to Las Brisas, a five star hotel that used to be a Club Med. I am lying by a beautiful pool on a slightly rickety sunlounger with the pool in front of me, the private beach behind me and the sun trying to force its way through my umbrella. The only fly in the ointment is that the chillout tunes being played are (a) too fast and (b) FAR too loud!

Well, I can attest to the fact that the water is lovely. The main part of the pool is too deep to stand. Only beyond the yellow floats is it under 5’5”. Even Dad came in, which is unusual for him. Mum seems reluctant. The heat doesn’t feel nearly so oppressive now that I’ve just got out, maybe because I’m still evaporating. Dad reminisced about when I was tiny and had a fever and the doctor said to get me wet and just fan me. He said my temperature “dropped like a stone” so it’s obviously a very effective way of cooling down.

The hotel is a bit tired-looking. The sunloungers are faded, the umbrellas have small holes in, the kind that will grow into fraying, eventually. They have also painted the ugly seventies building a rather unfortunate shade of terracotta brown. It’s a frankly dismal colour and does nothing to improve the look or feel of the place. I can’t help but feel that a pale pink or white would be more pleasant and also prettier to look at. The presence of the building currently looms over the pool and it may sound silly, but they might find they need much less loud samba music to lift the mood if they just painted it a lighter colour.

I must confess to being somewhat amazed at the number of Mexicans who have brought their families here. I rather assumed that all the racist stuff I read and heard would be true (whites in the pool, Mexicans as staff), but I’m delighted to say that it is simply not true. The pool is almost entirely full of Mexicans right now, in fact. This may be in no small part due to the fact that despite the fact that this place claims to be 5 star, it is surprisingly cheap, costing only 23 US dollars per person for a day pass. Presumably sprogs cost less, because they’ve brought plenty with them! The Mexican families seem to treat this place as some sort of country club or sports club. They probably come here every weekend (although, oddly, today is a Monday) to use the pools and facilities. It’s probably their “local”.

Samba lessons. Oh, good grief. No wonder the music has become so samey. Or is it aerobics? It’s hard to tell from here! But, no, I’m not going closer to find out!

I couldn’t take the heat any longer so I got back in the pool. Had the whole thing to myself. Lovely. I have been warned that there will shortly be an aquarobics class, so I didn’t stay in long!

I’m astonished how few Arcadians there are here. Probably less than a dozen, unless there are fifty on the private beaches (three) that I haven’t been down to. These sorts of trips are usually very popular.

Lunch was a buffet of pizza, burgers, hot dogs, salads, nachos, fruit and ice cream. I think it worked out about eight quid a head. A bit steep for lunch, particularly a lunch of cold fries (what do you do to make fries cold when it’s 35 degrees in the shade?!), soggy nachos and salad that the birds kept landing on, but it filled a hole. Then I went back in the pool until it was time to head back. Bob* was 4.30 today, which was irritatingly early, but can’t be helped, and we do have over 300 miles to cover to get to Acapulco tomorrow on time, so every hour helps, I suppose.

So the parents went back to the ship, and I browsed the stalls on the quayside, the little beach next to the ship and wound up in the vicinity of a cafe with air con and free wifi, so I sat there and watched the world go by til it was time to go back on board.

Got back and had a very long, very cold shower (am a bit burnt). Found a note on my bed about norovirus. We’re upping our alert level, so that although the self service restaurant is not yet completely closed, hours are restricted and I get the impression we won’t be self-serving per se; it’ll still be a buffet, but we’ll be served, so that the number of people holding the spoons is restricted. I hope it helps, because someone has mentioned the possibility if us not being allowed to enter the United States if too many of us are ill…

*Bob = Back On Board

I give up. It is 18.15, fifteen minutes til dinner. My day has gone thus:

0850 Woken by the 9am announcement. This happens every day. I just go back to sleep.
0950 Woken by CHURCH BELLS being piped into my cabin. They normally don’t do this. They normally keep the bells to the corridors, allowing those of us who aren’t Christian or aren’t well or aren’t interested to avoid them. Not today.
1050 Woken by an announcement from the Captain about the arrival of norovirus on board. Surprise, surprise. Well I never. Someone who embarked at Barbados (remember? 500 off, 500 on?) doesn’t wash their hands properly and now we’re all at risk. Marvellous. Thanks a bunch.

At 11 I gave up and got up, because at 12 we had The Grand Voyage Luncheon, which was a surprisingly pleasant experience. Our officer was Andy Beaton, the Head of Security, and what a joy he was. What a lovely person to spend time with. We spent nearly two hours chatting and laughing with him. He told us all sorts of stories about cruising, and his life before, as a policeman in Hertfordshire, and plied us with free booze. This took us to 3pm.

The more eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that we are now three hours ahead of where we were after a two-hour lunch. That’s because at noon, the clocks were put FORWARD an hour to 1pm. Don’t ask me why we have to change time zones between Costa Rica and Mexico, but we do. So that’s the missing hour.

After lunch, I went back to my cabin and prepared to go out on deck and do some sunbathing, but I was so tired that, at about 4pm, I went back to bed. I promptly went out like a light, so I obviously needed it. And guess what? At 1810? Another announcement by the Captain about norovirus. And, yes, I was sound asleep at the time. But not after he started, as there is a speaker in the HEADBOARD. No, really. When they want you awake, they want you AWAKE.

So here we are. It’s 1830 and all I’ve done today is eat, sleep and get woken up by announcements. Ain’t life grand?

2030 Norovirus is a pain in the behind for the passengers (if you’ll pardon the pun), but I feel bad for the staff. The extra working and cleaning that the waiters have to do is a nightmare, but hopefully we won’t reach the next stage. If the problem persists, they will close the self-service restaurant, and then the staff are in real trouble, because everyone will have to be served by a waiter, for six meals a day (breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night snacks). Every chair has to be wiped every time someone gets up and every handrail wiped and every lift button wiped every time they are used. There are 2000 passengers, and they have a tendency to not stay still. The cleaners and waiters get about three hours’ sleep a night during the bad patch, because there is so much cleaning to be done. It must be a nightmare. So here’s hoping we don’t reach that stage. On the plus side, we have two port days in a row, so that will take the pressure off the staff a little, although there are always those that don’t disembark to take care of.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of people who don’t get off the ship, sometimes ever or at all. They get on in Southampton and they get off in Southampton. It seems totally alien to me to go to a place and not disembark. You haven’t seen a place if you don’t get off and there is nowhere on Earth that doesn’t bear another viewing. In addition to which, newer guide books, such as the Berlitz Caribbean Ports of Call Pocket Guide I have, positively beg the reader to go ashore. I have already explained the local benefit of a disembarking passenger, who eats and drinks and takes a taxi. Many of these places have economies largely or even entirely based on tourism, and if we don’t give them our money, there is nowhere else to get it from. The Berlitz guide has a How You Can Help page which says:

• Disembark at every port.
• Check out tours at the quayside or sign up for locally run tours.
• Use local restaurants and cafes.
• Buy island-made souvenirs and visit museums and churches.
• Only take photos of people with their permission and offer a tip.

It amazes me that any of this needs spelling out, but there’s nowt so queer as folk. Places change, so having been before is no excuse. We went to Phuket many years ago, and went again only months after the tsunami. When we had the chance to go again, of course we went! We wanted to see what had changed, what remained the same, what was better, what was worse, what was different, how much the prices had gone up (answer: lots). We go to Madeira fairly regularly, but last year they had mudslides that tore through the capital, killing over 50 people. So the next time we had a chance to go, we went. Not only to see for ourselves the damage, but also to contribute to the cleanup and recovery by spending our cash on the island. We’ve been to some places many times, but there is always more to see.

But there are people on the ship who stretch their money to the absolute limit. They don’t disembark, they eat only in the restaurants that are free of charge and they spend only their onboard credit and no more. It is possible to do, if you don’t use the internet, wash your own clothes and drink only tap water. This essentially transforms your trip into an all-inclusive holiday. You paid to get on board and you never pay again.

But, with the best will in the world, what kind of a holiday would you be having? Doing your own laundry is clearly doable, if sitting in a steaming hot room for a couple of hours guarding your knickers from those who would do them harm is your idea of fun. No internet, easy enough for the non-technology minded, I suppose. No spa treatments or hair dos or manicures or pedicures or massages is easy enough, I suppose. No alcohol, fair enough, if that’s your idea of fun. No new experiences, if that suits you. You can sail the Caribbean, the World, even, and not buy anything, not see anything, not do anything, not go anywhere and not eat anything. But no ice cream?! Seriously?! Madness, utter madness. What’s the point?!

2200 local time. Holy cow, Osama bin Laden is dead? Really?! Wow. That’s huge.

I stayed up to listen to Obama’s speech live and then I went to bed. Not going to end the day any better than that.

Welcome to Punterenas, Costa Rica. Well, welcome to a container port somewhere near Puntarenas, Costa Rica. Huzzah. P&O strike again! I’m going to have to write that book soon. You know, Container Ports of the World that P&O have Dumped Me In. At least it’s only 20 minutes from town, not like the 45 minutes we had in Singapore.

Anyway, the heat is ludicrous. I wish I could think of another way of describing it. It’s not the hammering down on your head hot we had yesterday, but it’s humid enough to make breathing hard work and you do not want to be standing waiting for a shuttle bus with no shade over you, you really don’t. Even my insect repellent somehow cooked on my skin into white lumps. Very attractive.

The twenty minute drive into Punterenas was very enlightening, not only taking us past corrugated iron shacks with holes instead of glass windows (better ventilation, less greenhouse effect), which later gave way to brick buildings with glass as we got nearer town, but also odd-looking trees that seem quite desperate to get away from the ground and up to the sun. They don’t seem to bother with lower branches. It’s almost as if, when they burst through the soil, they realise how hot the ground is, and immediately start trying to get as far away from it as possible. There is some scrubby grass and brush, but for the most part the first couple of feet are bare. In fact, it was all rather stark and dry-looking. The rainforest proper is about an hour and a half’s drive inland, but what with there being over 34,000 species of insect, I was glad to give it a miss.

Costa Rica is (apparently) famous for its ecology. Anyone interested in stuff that grows should come here. Never mind Galapagos, this is the place to be. Over 1000 species of orchid, 900 species of tree, 9000 types of plant, 850 types of bird, the aforementioned 34000 species of insect and so on. It has three different kinds of terrain, I think: rainforest, cloudforest and dry forest. Cloudforest is exactly what it says. Rainforest at an altitude that puts it up IN the clouds. It doesn’t rain there – there’s a permanent mist instead – which makes for a completely different ecosystem, or so I understand. Although Costa Rica has 0.05% of the World’s land mass, it has 5% of the world’s species. That’s a lot in a small space. It all sounds rather crowded to me, frankly. How they fit in all the coffee and fruit as well, I have no idea (there were about a dozen Del Monte artics lined up on the quayside ready for work on Monday morning). Funnily enough, we didn’t drink any coffee at all. I think the heat was a bit much for coffee, myself. I know people say that hot drinks cool you down, but when it’s over 30 in the shade, there’s no way you’re getting me near a steaming cup of anything!

And then there are the beaches. Miles of them, by the looks of it. It’s not pretty, white, coral sand, like the Caribbean, and it’s not black sand like the volcanic places we have been (although Costa Rica does have an active volcano), it’s sort of dirty grey, sort of pigeon-coloured, not even as golden sandy coloured as British beaches. But a beach is a beach, frankly, and the sea looks beautiful. They were also utterly deserted. Maybe less than a dozen people in sight. Which surprised me, bearing in mind it’s a Saturday. Maybe this isn’t hot enough for the locals?

Those familiar with my ‘thing’ for public art will be pleased to know that there is a series of white stone sculptures dotted along the beach for a couple of miles. They were part of the International Festival of Sculpture in Stone which took place in Punterenas in 2006. I also spotted a steam locomotive in the middle of a roundabout, but I couldn’t get a picture in time.

The shuttle bus dropped us in town, ironically and not a little cruelly, right next to the cruise ship pier we were supposed to have parked at, which was instead occupied by the Infinity, which we followed through the Panama Canal locks. They even got a little white train to take them down the pier to their gangways. There were dozens of lovely stalls and cafes along the front, one of which was showing the Royal Wedding on the telly! So we wandered and browsed and browsed and wandered and when we got the end, a lovely taxi marshal with one arm hailed us a taxi, which took us up the coast about a mile, to the “posh” hotels. We stopped at one called Las Brisas (not THE Las Brisas, just A Las Brisas – THE Las Brisas is at our next stop, Huatulco), where we had a lovely lunch at a restaurant between the pool and the ocean. My request for vinegar caused some brief consternation, but was eventually resolved successfully. The food was superb and cost very little. Then we grabbed a taxi back to the shuttle bus and the shuttle bus back to the ship. There is a small terminal building with more souvenir stalls, some free wifi, and The Most Efficient Air Con In Central America. Unfortunately, it is right down the other end of the quayside, which makes for a surprisingly long walk!

And when we got back, there was the usual gangway struggle. The security lady allowed mum to go on the ‘off’ gangway, which was shorter and less steep. We normally have to have a blazing row first, but this time, she just caved as soon as she saw us coming. The rest of us had to climb the ‘on’ gangway, which was at probably more than 50% to the horizontal with no steps or frets or anything. It was quite frightening and people with bad knees were having all sorts of problems. I took a run at it, because I figured if I lost momentum, I’d be in trouble, so I waited til Dad got to the top before I started my climb. One woman tried to overtake me, but soon regretted it!

I’m not telling them again. We’ve already had this row at least twice and, frankly, they’ll do what they’re asked as soon as someone gets hurt.* If I had to listen to a security person give me that drivel about the ship isn’t configured that way round again, I would be forced to hurt someone. So best avoid the whole thing and just wait for them to figure it out for themselves. It’s 30 degrees in the shade – I imagine there will be a few fairly short fuses around, other than mine …

So, to sum up, Costa Rica is delightful, the people are friendly, everyone speaks Spanish and everything is cheap. I can see why people would come here for a short break, but it is not yet “developed”** enough for a long stay, I don’t think, unless you’re going into the rainforest to stare into the canopy for lengthy periods.

* Post script – at 4pm, they changed the gangways. Which they wouldn’t have done if they didn’t know PERFECTLY WELL that there was a problem.
** read “touristified”

My opinion? It’s a very nice dress. I can see why they mention Grace Kelly when they talk about it. It’s the collar/ neckline. Think High Society. Or her wedding, if you remember it. The trees in the Abbey were a nice touch. I have to say, I am very chuffed they are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Yay Cambridgeshire! Take that, Oxford! Hah!

Things were rather disorganised on board. No bunting went up until after dinner last night and my special Horizon newspaper, telling us what was happening when, specially printed in gold ink, no less, was never delivered. Eventually, I went to Reception and got one. Not an impressive start. They showed the wedding live at 4am. No, I didn’t get up especially, sorry. I watched it at 7am instead! There was an apparently last minute “street party” organised on the back of Deck 9, but I didn’t go. The heat was way too intense to sit outside for two hours singing Roll out the barrel. I sound like quite a misery guts, don’t I?! But I was actually rather excited about the whole thing and was rather sad I was on the wrong side of the world on such a momentous day. I would have liked to have gone to The Mall with my mates and seen it all for myself. But, hey, I’m on a 72-day cruise to Alaska! Not that bad a gig, all in all!

The special True Brit musical show was very good (songs from British musicals with an emphasis on Cockney accents wherever possible – you know, Oom Pah Pah from Oliver! and the like), although it ended rather abruptly, and the sing-song at the pub was standing room only, so everyone seemed to have a good night.

But what a shame. At dinner tonight, we all got a free glass of bubbly with which to toast the happy couple (nice touch). It was a formal night, and we had a special menu, printed with Kate and Wills’ CW logo in gold on a purple background. Lovely. Shame no one bothered to SPELLCHECK THE MENU INSIDE. I mean, you’ve heard me rant about careless spelling from P&O before. In fact, a large proportion of the last cruise blog was devoted to almost daily error-spotting in the menus. There is a now a trend at dinner for people to try and spot spelling mistakes on the Passenger Information Channel PowerPoint slides every day. But this is atrocious. Seriously, I’m really aghast. How little effort would it have taken? We will now forever all own a copy of a menu advertising “srawberry” ice cream for dessert. It is really disappointing and not a little sad.

But what do you expect from P&O? Apparently, not much. Well done, P&O, you’ve really screwed this one up. You don’t get a second chance at a Royal Wedding. I feel it is a terribly appropriate indictment of the shoddy lack of attention to detail that symbolises P&O these days. There’s a general lack of care, whether it’s general customer service, loyalty rewards, spelling or rust-proofing, or even allowing the disabled passengers to use the shorter, less steep gangway to come back on board, no one seems to bother taking their jobs seriously or doing them well and no one puts the passenger first. Personally, I think that whoever authorised the menu to go to print should be fired or at least demoted. They are clearly not interested in doing the job properly, so they should hand it over to someone who will. Utterly shocking. What an ignominious end to what was otherwise a magical day.

At dinner last night, one of our new companions ordered the Mincemeat and orange strudel with Cornish clotted cream. I thought the whole thing sounded somewhat dubious and it turns out I was right. The resulting product was best described by its nervous-looking recipient as “an anomaly” which was an interesting description. I think it was the most polite thing he could think of to say! He was particularly perturbed by the astonishing elasticity of the mincemeat within and the puzzling flakiness of the surround, which was finally pronounced as “too dry”. The clotted cream, however, went down well, which presumably was all that was needed to help poor David clean his plate, despite his evident reservations!

News comment time: the bomb in Marrakesh killed one Brit. Turns out, he wrote for the Jewish Chronicle. His name was Peter Moss. Two Canadians, two Israelis, one Dutchman, six French and two Moroccans, so far. How does it help? This is what I don’t understand. I don’t know who you are or what you think you want, but how does blowing up people help your cause? Will it make the French more disposed towards helping you? I doubt it. Will it make the Moroccan elite more disposed towards you? Hardly. You’ve blown up ordinary Moroccans as well. Will that dispose the ordinary Moroccan people to your way of thinking? You don’t believe that any more than I do. So why kill anyone at all? It doesn’t work. It never works. I genuinely don’t see the point. Even your suicide bomber had doubts, which is why you blew him/her up remotely, so he/she couldn’t back out. The whole concept is alien to me and to most normal, logically-thinking people. In fact, if anyone believes for one second that killing even one person can make the world a better place, I suggest you read Making History by Stephen Fry, which is about the possible repercussions of removing Hitler from history. It’s a short, light read, with a very powerful message. Killing people doesn’t work. Stop it.

The heat on deck today is nothing short of fierce. At 7am this morning it was 81 degrees in the shade. Heaven only knows what it is now. The humidity is staggering, even at sea with a breeze blowing, and the sun is beating down like a hammer. I have been out in it for precisely three minutes, and I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it. Although, if I continue to watch the radars rotating in their hypnotic circles much longer, I’m liable to doze off and burn myself to a crisp.

Heat this fierce is not just about burning or tanning, however. It drains your energy, your will, your ability to move. Even the most minor of effort becomes enormous. Just reaching for a drink or adjusting a towel is a debilitatingly exhausting activity, which leaves you drained and gasping and collapsed where you land. I’m sure it’s only the pint of diet coke an hour I’m drinking that’s keeping me even vaguely upright. The obvious antidote is, of course, to dive in the pool, but there is precious little shade in there either and everyone in the water is carefully staying within what shadows there are, hats on heads, leaving large swathes of water undisturbed but for the ripples they send over from their sheltered corners at the shallow end. I’m also reliably informed that the pool is the temperature of a hot bath, which rather defeats the purpose, in my opinion.

We have spent the afternoon downstairs in the cool of the Spinnaker Bar, which, after I’d made them turn off the music, which sounded, even to me, like some woman was having her teeth removed without anaesthetic, was a lovely place to relax in the cool. There is nowhere on this ship that you can escape music except in your own cabin, and then only if you don’t turn on the tv, which has several channels playing background music, alongside Angels and Demons, A Few Good Men, Legally Blonde and four channels of some wedding or other. This ship is surprisingly noisy, in fact. Good music, bad music (mostly bad), instrumental muzak, pianos that play themselves, jukeboxes, even humming waiters. And that’s just the music. Never mind the technicians sanding and banging on fixing broken stuff or the food trolleys that rattle so loudly that there are probably dead deaf people on nearby landmasses being woken by them. The Spinnaker is often deserted, however, which means that you can ask them to turn off the music and they can’t use other customers as an excuse, because there aren’t any!

Just as we got settled with drinks and silence and cool air, two of our friends went past. One was off to a lecture, but the other came to join us. Her name is Enid and she is an absolute joy to spend time with. We chatted quite happily for about two hours, comparing war stories of being invalided off of cruises, the best tours to take in certain ports and our respective plans for next year. Which amounted, it turns out, to very little.

P&O should actually be a little worried by this. No one we have spoken to has anything booked for next year, except Merle and she’s booked her next ten or so months, but then she only goes home for new visas and passports and spends most of the rest of the time back to backing different ships and companies and sailing the oceans. Just as I would if I had the money! But everyone else is pretty much planless for next year. The recession may yet bite the cruise industry, albeit belatedly, on the proverbial behind, because people book cruises a year or two or at least eighteen months ahead, and now these are running out, people are realising how little money they have left to play with, as a result of two years of earning no interest whatsoever on their money, and they are balking at making further plans until the future looks a bit brighter. I think the Bank of England will have to raise interest rates soon, or the British cruise industry could find itself in real trouble.

Don’t look at the radar. Don’t look at the radar. Good grief, it’s like Hypno-toad. You can’t not look. I’m not sure how much longer I can stay awake at this rate. I’ve now retreated into the shade, but I can still see them turning round and round and round and round and…

A thunderstorm over a rainforest is quite a sight to see. The clouds are huge, heavy and dark and they hang low over the trees and hills, dropping their contents straight downwards like a dumptruck tipping up at the top of a cliff and sending its load over the side to the valley below. The thunder is low and long and angry and rumbles across the Isthmus above our heads. The lightning hides above the clouds, lighting up the dark sky like a fluorescent bulb that’s on the blink – giving a few shuddering starts of light before stopping, as if exhausted, for a rest.

The clouds seem to be damaged by the thunder and lightning. There are strange vertical shreds of cloud that peel off and waft across the treetops, like a straggler wildebeest separated from the herd or a toddler who has lost its mum’s hand struggling to keep up on its own. I’ve never seen anything like them. They seem to get their feet caught in the trees and break up as they fall. I assume they are pure moisture, disintegrating into individual raindrops as they go, but it does look quite sad. It looks like a slow-motion trip and fall like you see in a movie, when you know the character has been shot and will be dead before they hit the ground, only instead of landing in a puddle on a dark bullet-filled night, they disintegrate into nothing at all, moisture meeting moisture as the rainforest drinks.

On the plus side, from the human point of view at least, all this movement causes a breeze, for which we are quite pathetically grateful. Because if I thought it was humid before, that’s nothing to what it’s like just before it rains! The clagginess of the heat and the wet combined sticks to you like a thin layer of glue, and I have no doubt I will have to change every single item of clothing, down to and including my underwear, before going to dinner.

The wind is now strong enough to start knocking down unattended and badly propped-up sunloungers, with that rather over-spectacular clatter you can only get from a plastic sunlounger, and the deck is virtually deserted. Even here, under the sheltery bit, I’m getting quite damp indeed. The rain is really coming down now, as if to prove the point. ‘This is a rainforest, doncha know?’ Big blattery drops smashing down onto the swimming pool and the deck, each bouncing over an inch back upwards, such is their eagerness to smash into the ground. When it’s coming down hard enough to show up on a photo, that’s pretty hard. It’s all very pretty.

The huge (and I mean massive – it makes us look small) container ship behind us and the hills behind them have pretty much disappeared from view into the white mist that has descended, and only the silhouettes of the closer trees remain to remind us that we are still in the middle of the forest, just easing our way out of the last lock at Millaflores, before beginning the run down to Panama City and the Pacific Ocean. We’ve never been through the canal during the rainy season before, and I have to say I’m rather glad we did. It’s quite a sight. I hope, however, when I say “run” down to the ocean, I mean “run”, because we need to get ahead of this storm! There’s a speed limit in the locks, but once we’re free, I’m rather hoping we’re going to really peg it out of here! I imagine the rain will stay in the rainforest, so once we’re clear of that, we should hopefully be clear of its weather too.

The mules are made of metal. I wonder what the rain sounds like on the roof of those?!

And low and behold, as soon as we clear the edge of the rainforest…

We are moving so slowly I’ve had to put my wristbands on. (For those of you who are new readers, I suffer from what is known as MDD – mal de debarquement – which means that, although I’m fine at sea, when I step onto land, my inner ear keeps swaying, so I essentially get landsick for about four or five days. So when we are in port, or get home, are moored up or just not swaying, I have to wear my travel bands, otherwise I get nauseous). I woke up this morning and knew immediately that we had entered the canal because I had to put my wristbands on. In addition to this, my air con has completely given up the proverbial as regards the heat and humidity here in the Panamanian rainforest, so here I am, up and dressed and out on deck at half eight in the morning, getting shoved out the way by fools who have never seen a lock gate before. It rains in Panama for about eight months a year and this is the wet season. You could probably drink the air if you were so inclined. Just put an empty glass down and wait for the humidity to coalesce on it and eventually you’d have enough to drink. The chances of it NOT raining today are pretty slim, although it has held off so far. Saying that, it’s only half nine in the morning, so there’s still time…

The main problem with canal day is telling you about it. Like I said, we travel very slowly and not very far, so the only thing that changes is the statistics.

54 million gallons of fresh water are used to lift us through all the locks and down the other side, where this water flows out into the sea. That’s quite a lot of water. It all comes from the one rainforest lake. If Panama ever loses its rainforest, the canal will dry up within days.

The fee we have paid for today’s transit is US$405,000. He did say what that was in English money, but I’ve forgotten. It’s a fair amount, anyway.

The cheapest toll ever paid was by Richard Halliburton, in 1928, who paid 36 cents for the right to swim the canal. It took him ten days to do. See? There are mentals everywhere. An American, no doubt.

We’re out the Gatun Locks, and moving at what can only be described as a fast jog. You know you’re starved for input when that’s the most exciting thing to note!

Over 950,000 vessels have transited the canal since it was opened and they are now building new, wider locks, to allow all the new, stupidly huge cruise ships to go through. They expect these to be up and running by 2015. You still won’t get me on one! There are 2,000 passengers on here and that’s too many. You rarely see the same people twice. If you more than doubled that?! No, thank you! We’ve heard stories of half hour queues to get into the theatre and an hour to get off at a port. That’s insane. Nope, I’m downsizing after this. I will be choosing my future cruises by tonnage.

If you fancy having a good laugh at my expense, by the way, the Royal Wedding is tomorrow at 11am BST. We are currently at GMT -5. Think about it. Yes, that’s 5am. Ha blooming ha.

Talking of which, there is a notice in today’s paper. Attention: tomorrow we will be holding an old-fashioned street party, complete with fancy dress competition for the best dressed Royal. Nothing like giving us a bit of warning! We’ve been at sea for two days. How exactly are we supposed to rustle up a fancy dress outfit with less than 24 hours’ warning?! Seriously, you must have to practice being this stupid in front of a mirror. There’s no way anyone is NATURALLY that thick, surely?

While we’re on the subject, your film choices today are The Queen or The King’s Speech. Spotting a theme at all?

People were obviously only interested in the locks, because now we’re out, crossing the Gatun Lake, the sunbeds and the pool are filling up and the ambient noise level has increased significantly. It is noticeable that since Barbados one quarter of the passengers are new. 500 got off and 500 got on. It’s astonishing how few faces I recognise and it feels quite disorientating. It’s not easy, because you have to start all over again with getting to know people and I can’t help but feel that the rudeness level has also risen since the changeover. I’m quite sure I’ve been shoved out the way much more since then.

The problem is that this is a very bitty cruise. It seems to divide rather neatly into two-week lumps, which means that people who still work for a living are able to join. It was thirteen days to Barbados and now it is two weeks to San Francisco. I think the rudeness comes from the fact that these are working people who don’t know how to slow down and spend their daily lives pushing people out the way, so they just act the same on here. Retired people understand that there’s no rush in life. Shoving me out the way so that you can get your yellow jelly before I get mine is just pointless. It achieves nothing and all you do is look like a rude, obnoxious git, which is, in fact, exactly what you are. Is yellow jelly really that important, anyway? They just have no sense of perspective. Seriously, how important is yellow jelly, in the grand scheme of things? You’re not going to die if I get my yellow jelly before you get yours. Just chill out and stop shoving. It’s a measure of how much people shove each other aside in real life as to how much they do it on here. Some of these people must demand the entire pavement to themselves. Of course, it’s more noticeable on here that it is on, say, Oxford Street, in the centre of London, but that doesn’t excuse it in either setting. We have become a rather rude society, it seems to me. I know I rant on this subject on every cruise, but it is nonetheless true. The world is getting ruder and P&O cruisers are sadly no exception.

So, in summary, the Panama Canal has green water, the colour of verdigris for the more precise among you, although it gets a bit yellower where we’ve kicked the sand up on the bottom, the air is so moist you can wash in it and P&O passengers can be very rude. Nothing new under Heaven, as the saying goes.

I am feeling grumpy. Be warned. This will not be the cheeriest of missives.

Tonight was a formal night and I made an effort. The mauve dress with a silver bolero, the Stratford-upon-Avon jewellery, the Newbury shoes. But I felt dreadfully over-dressed! I’ve never felt over-dressed before! The men were dressed in their tuxes, but the women just seemed to be wearing separates or simple dresses. I felt quite annoyed. What’s the point in having a formal if you’re just going to wear the same stuff you wear to semi-formal or casual nights?! It was also ridiculously hot, which did nothing to improve my mood. Maybe I’ll just go to bed. I’m certainly not very good company right now!

Tonight the clocks go back again, which is nice, but we are supposed to get up early to stare at the Panama Canal for twelve hours straight. I might not, if it’s all the same to you. Yes, it’s a marvel of modern engineering, but, you know what? It’s not twelve hours of interesting, sorry. It’s barely two hours of interesting, frankly. The ship’s photographers make a video and take lots of photos and then they show it on the telly. We travel about 40 miles in a day. We normally do that in a couple of hours. Trust me, you have never seen so much time-lapse photography in your life. It’s like watching a piece of 1930s cinema but in colour. And, be reasonable. How long can you stare at trees and scenery you’re going past at a walking pace? Even when you go walking, you don’t stare around you all the time, do you? You look at your feet, you look at your friends, you look at a map. The only variety here is walking to a different part of the ship for a change of perspective. The view barely moves. Trust me, it’s dull.

The story behind the canal, however, is very interesting indeed. If you ever get the chance to see A Man, A Plan, A Canal, you should watch it. It’s a fascinating (if patronisingly pro-American) insight into why the French failed (losing 22,000 lives in the process, mostly to landslides) and the Americans did not (losing only 5,500 during the entire ten-year dig and bringing the thing in not just on time but early AND under budget). And why and how the thing was dug, including statistics such as the fact that the lock doors are so finely balanced, they only use the engine power of a large lawnmower to open and close them. But the actual thing is a giant river with a couple of locks. The locks are quite interesting, the trains that pull us through are quite interesting (“mules”) but the main excitement is in the fact that we only have two feet at each end and two feet at each side, so we will get scraped to pieces. As soon as we moor up in Puntarenas, they’ll be out with the paintbrushes. And they’ll have to do it all again on the way back. Seriously, if you have spare cash, invest in marine paint manufacturers! Over thirty ships a day transit the canal and most of them will need repainting when they get out the other side. Invest in white paint, specifically, as that will cover all the cruise ships and the refrigerated freight ships too.

That’s about it, really. *shrug* My sunburn itches. I’m going to bed.

We have just crossed over a line in the water. I kid you not. A virtually straight line in the water. I’ll attach a photo because otherwise you wouldn’t believe me.

We’re guessing it was the edge of an underwater shelf, although the table behind us have a theory about water temperature which I find unlikely, although I suppose not impossible. The greener water we are now in is no rougher than the royal blue we’ve come from, so it’s not that the sand on the bottom is more churned up, the wind speed is actually slightly lower, so that’s not it. If anyone has any idea what would cause this, please let me know! It’s not often something so dramatic occurs on a sea day.