Plumbing work

Tuesday 19^th November

 I half woke up in the middle of the night (well, 8am) to go to the toilet. I woke up completely when I stepped into the bathroom and found it sloshing with water.

The problem had started on Day 1 with my first shower. By the end of it I found myself 2-3 cms deep in water. It took about five minutes for the water to disappear. By the next morning I discovered that my toilet was full of water. It seemed to be slowly dripping from the cistern into the pan. I reported both of these faults to my room steward. He no doubt reported them to his supervisor, who informed maintenance (or did it also go through Head of Housekeeping first?) who appointed a workman. Luckily I returned to my room just as he’d supposedly fixed the toilet and was able to tell him about the shower – which hadn’t made it through to his job sheet. All fixed? It appeared so until this morning! I suspect the workman had only checked the outlet pipe, not the inlet one. During the night the toilet must have filled up again and the movement of the ship sent the water sloshing into my bathroom. At least it was clean water!

Housekeeping turned up quickly with an industrial vacuum to suck up the water, and disinfectant for the floor, while a maintenance man removed the panel on the corridor side and worked on pipes and valves. It was a relief to wash my feet (and then go back to bed for another couple of hours of sleep).