January 16th,17th.

Last evening began with cocktails and canapés in the Queen’s Room by invitation of the Captain to all ‘world cruisers’. It was a splendid event and Alan I found a nice table for two not far from the main display of hot and cold canapés, ice carvings and a huge cake iced with a map of the world and all our ports of call. We mingled with guests and Officers for an hour whilst champagne was plentiful, before heading of to the Queen’s Grill for dinner. A show in the theatre followed before we joined passengers at the Rio Carnival Ball where all were encouraged to wear our brightly coloured ball masks. Alan chatted with the Executive Chef of the QM2, Klaus Kremer (seen here). By this day we had sailed 3901 nautical miles from F.L. and had a further 765 to Rio.
At 12.10am on Wednesday, 17th January the temperature was still 80 degrees and the humidity 79 degrees with calm seas. We eventually went to bed! Early morning and Alan enjoyed a lecture about Rio whilst I had a lay in until lunch time! I thought I ought to get back to the gym in the afternoon as when I weighed myself I discovered that I had gained four pounds since we boarded the ship! We didn’t do much the rest of the day, but prepared ourselves for an early start for docking in Rio de Janeiro at 4.00am in the morning, and ready for our 8.00am start. We were advised against wearing jewellery on our tours etc. as crime is quite high here.