This morning the confirmation paperwork for the cruise holiday I mentioned a few weeks ago landed on our doormat, and with the day off work (man flu) I had nothing better to do than flick through a load of brochures, excursion timetables and deck plans. Fun times.

Opening the big packet of info from Virgin Holidays was a bit of a surprise at first: Mrs. Hippy & I had done most of our planning around Mediterranean cruises and I thought we’d settled on one of those, so I was a bit confused to see a bunch of Royal Caribbean brochures spilling out into my lap. Turns out the “C” in “RC” isn’t mandatory, and the ship we’re sailing on, “Independence of the Seas”, actually cruises the med.

The brochures & leaflets were boring but I did spend an entertaining afternoon plotting our route on Google Maps, so the second stage of Operation: Cruise hasn’t been a total wash. I’m almost beginning to look forward to this ridiculously expensive boat ride.