Planet Ruby Starrs

Notvery good or exciting photos... its all on to stay upright let alone record theexperience..... In the middle of the Norwegian sea and it was extremely wavy.... at at best it was 5 meters and at worst it was over 8.  There were a lot of quite sickly people on board.   To be fair we weren't too bad but we did have to resort to sea sickness tablets. We crossed the Arctic Circle and the ships entertainment team put on the crossing ceremony.  To be honest I had forgotton and when I walked into the Lido deck tbere were so many people there I thought we must be getting ready to abandon ship🤣🤣🤣. But no,  it was worse - the team were all dressed up as neptune and pirates and after chasing various staff members round the (emptied) pool, to behead and ice them - they then started inviting guests to have ice cold water put down their backs to celebrate crossing the circle. ... I declined. But its another one of those surreal ship experiences.... ...

Back on the beautiful Balmoral... this time on route to Iceland. We left Newcastle and for a while the sunshine followed us. We spent the evening refamiliarising ourselves with the boat - Getting over the disappointment we had technically been given an upgrade... a nicer cabin - but with a restricted view..or a more positive way of looking at it - an extremely good view of a lifeboat. We would rather have a smaller cabin and clearview... We did go and ask at customers services but they couldn't accommodate us. Never mind we should appreciate what we have. We scanned the coast of Northumberland looking for the familiar landmarks, the power station was evident and somewhere along there must have been Amble, but we couldn't see it.  We clocked Bamborough Castle and then Lindisfarne. The Farne islands slipped by, the sun set and the house band started to play. The disperance between last weeks festival shenanigns - good tunes - festival - food - basic...