British Isle Cruise--Day 17

August 11, 2015—Day 17, At Sea

Finally, a sea day at last—a much needed respite after the early morning wake-ups of the past few days.  Of course, my body clock said otherwise, and I was still awake very early. 

The night before, my dad had problems turning the TV off.  In the middle of watching a movie, the screen turned a bright neon blue with the words “Please stand by.”  When he tried to turn off the TV, none of the controls would work, neither the remote, nor the buttons on the TV itself—the TV remained on with that bright blue screen.  He called Passenger Services and was told that they were aware of the situation, that it was throughout the ship, and that they were working on it.  Hoping it would be resolved soon, my parents tried to go to sleep.  Unfortunately, when there is a really bright blue neon screen facing your pillow and pretty much glaring into your eyes even when they were shut, it’s really difficult to get any sleep.  At around 3:00am, my dad got dressed and went down to visit Passenger Services to tell them that the TV is still not fixed and asking when it would be since neither of them could sleep.  Unfortunately, the conversation didn’t go well as the only person at the desk told him that he wasn’t the only person on the ship having a problem, and that her computer wasn’t working and she didn’t have WiFi, and that if he had a problem with the TV going off why didn’t he just unplug it.  My dad informed her that he was a passenger on the ship and that he wasn’t about to go messing around with their TV and that if he did something and the TV was damaged or fell, then no doubt, Princess would blame him for messing with it.  She finally agreed to send a maintenance person up to his cabin.  When the maintenance person got there, he had problems getting to the back of the TV to unplug it, but finally was able to do it.  The TV was finally off, the glaring neon blue light gone, and my parents could finally get some much needed sleep, although not much since unfortunately, I woke them up at the usual time. 

The issue of not being able to turn off the TV was a topic of conversation around the ship.  Throughout the day, I heard people talking about it and this seemed to be just one more issue to add to the others that have occurred.

After breakfast, we headed for the casino since it was one of the few times it would be open.  The afternoon was spent packing—yes, this vacation was nearing the end, and we needed to start getting ready.  On almost all other cruises I’ve been on, there seemed to be a sea day before disembarkation day, but for this cruise, we would be at our last port of call, so we needed to get the packing done today.  Packing when there are still a couple of days left means trying to juggle what to leave out and what to pack, but by late in the afternoon, we were done.

We had dinner once again in the buffet, and since we were scheduled to meet for our excursion early, we made it an early night.  Tomorrow, we would be in Paris!