Ordered wake up call for 6:45 and room service for between 7:00 and 7:30. The latter arrived before the former! Watched part of the sail in from my room and we docked at 7:30. As my cabin overlooks the bow of the ship, I effectively have the same view as the ship's web cam, which is available online. Temperature on arrival was 25 degrees.

Today I took a ships tour to Corcovado where the Cristo Redentor statue is, then a drive along Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, lunch in a churrascuria and finally a trip up Sugar Loaf Mountain. This is essentially a repeat of a tour I took with Angie back in 2007. It was a great tour, but as it's school holidays here, Corcovado, especially, was very crowded. As we drove along Copacabana Beach, I managed to spot the hotel where we'd stayed before. Also the temperature, according to the clocks along the way, hit 34 degrees. After lunch, we took a brief walk on the beach and then headed for Sugar Loaf. It was much cooler and way less crowded there. When we looked over at Corcovado, it was covered in cloud. We had been very lucky to go up there when we did. All in all a satisfying day.

In late November early December, Aurora went into dry dock for a refit and paint job, which included painting a stylised Union Jack on the front of the ship. It's already coming off on the starboard side. German engineering at it's best! I'll use it as one of my cover pictures soon.

Four of us went to the buffet restaurant for Thai night, followed by a local folkloric group 'Brasileirissimo' in the theatre, lot of energy and colour. Then all six of us won the bottle of wine in Champions Quiz, with a meagre 10 points. Only our sixth bottle this cruise, but it does mean the wine for our table is sorted for tomorrow's formal night.