Adventure of the Seas in on a heading of 52 degrees as she makes her way toward Southampton. The coast of mainland Portugal is roughly 500 miles east of us at present. The sea is very calm although it is very cool (bordering on cold) out on the balcony first thing. There are some light clouds blocking the sun but looking ahead of the ship it looks a lot brighter. I spy some dolphins making there way southward. To warmer climes if they have any sense.

We breakfast in the main dining room. A nice couple from Somerset are to our left and then another nice couple from Essex are seated to our right. Topic of conversation? Mostly cruising...no surprise there then. Peter decides to head to the gym earlier today. I grab my Kindle and head down to deck 4 to read. I find a quiet spot but the gusty breeze is just too chilly for me and so I head up to the Solarium which is more enclosed and much better. The sun breaks through late morning and so I head up to the pool deck. It's surprisingly warm in the sunshine. Peter joins me later and we order some frozen cocktails as this might be out last chance to enjoy them out here in the sunshine. At 12.05 we forward clocks on one hour for the final time. We are now back on UK time.

We lunch in the Windjammer. It takes us a little while to find a table which we share with a couple from Canada (ex-Sheffield) who happen to leave near to Niagara Falls. You meet all kinds of people from all walks of life on ships. We head back to the pool deck after lunch where Sue and Malcolm also are. We manage an hour. With the time change the afternoon has lept on quicker than it should have done. One of the staff tries to arrange a Lady Gaga dance class on the main deck which I am glad fails to materialise as there are no willing participants.

It's the last formal night of the cruise tonight and so we dress accordingly. We join Sue & Malcolm in the Imperial Lounge and Jennifer (Bloody Mary) and Dougie join us shortly afterwards. Everyone is in good spirits which probably has something to do with the spirits consumed. We are slightly late heading to dinner which is very good again. Highlight for me was the Hot Harisa Soup.

There is a Black & White Masquerade Ball in Studio B tonight. We had brought our own masks with us as we had heard about this event prior to boarding. Seems not many others had. They were handing out cheap plastic masks at the entrance but no-one seemed keen to participate. At least our Venetian Masks drew some comments. The event was a bit of a let down. One comment was it was full of 'coffin-dodgers'. It was big band music with ballroom type dancing which did favour the older cruiser. Not our scene at all and so we left pretty early to head to the casino.