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I woke early again, it wasn’t even light, so I threaded my way past the coffee table, to open the balcony curtains and get my first view of Valencia on this trip. The sun was just rising and it was looking overcast. The chances of getting some sunbathing didn’t look too promising so we decided to pop into Valencia after breakfast. I has my first “full English” of the cruise, which was very nice, substituting the hash brown for an extra slice of black pudding.
Cunard supplied free shuttle buses into Valencia, but because of traffic restrictions in the centre, they were dropping off at the City of Arts and Sciences rather than the Old Town. This is 3km from the Old Town so quite a trek for the old dears that make up the majority of Cunard’s cruising demographic. We weren’t going to the old town though, we’ve been there a few times before, but never to the City of Arts and Sciences. We walked along the wide boulevard past the Science Museum to the Agora, an events venue and on to the Oceanographic Centre. This was a place filled with fishy fun and we spent an excellent 3 hours walking around looking at everything from fish to flamingos, birds to belugas and sea lions to sharks. After that we headed into the science museum. This was not as much fun, as the exhibits were orientated more for a younger audience, so there were no real surprises in there. We were also pretty bushed as there was a lot of walking involved so we headed back to the shuttle bus drop off point to head back to the ship for some lunch.
The bus was full and we managed to get the last two seats, albeit apart from each other. I was seated next to an old dear, a committed cruiser on her third this year. She was not impressed by Queen Anne and when asked why, it seems she hasn’t had a “hot” meal and her cabin is too small. She was traveling Britannia Club, so I can’t comment on the cabin sizes, but on the other queens they are the same as the Britannia Balcony cabins, so not small, circa 236 sqft on Anne compared with 248 sqft on QM2. If was was unhappy with the meal temperature, and it was consistently too cold I would be making a point of sending it w=back until they got it right, especially of I was paying a premium like she was in Club, it’s one of the basic things they need to get right and if you don’t tell them they will assume it is right.
When we arrived back at the ship we headed up to the Pavilion Grill for a burger for Jane and a Bratwurst for me. It was nice enough, the chips not so much so, but the onion rings were excellent. We hit the Gelateria again, a vanilla scoop for me and a mint and choc chip for Jane, who then moaned, all the way through eating it, that it was too much.
By now the sun was on the balcony so we just headed to the room where Jane grabbed the seat in the sun and I chilled with my kindle before heading inside to listen to the footie scores on the TV. I’d had a chat with the Grills concierge, before heading out, to see if there were any places left for the behind the scenes ship’s tour. When we returned to the stateroom there was a letter stating I had a place on the 13:00 tour tomorrow.
We though we’d try the Sky Bar for out early evening cocktail, it has loads of promise but gets found out if the weather isn’t warm enough. I was happy enough though as I still had on my jumper from earlier so I settled down with a Doombar and Jane had a Cosmopolitan. That area has some strange features, the only toilet nearby is an accessible one, but I couldn’t see how someone in a wheelchair could access it. There must be a lift somewhere, but I couldn’t see it. Postscript, I found it, it’s on the starboard side heading forward. From there we went to the Commodore Club where Jane had a Mai Tai which she really enjoyed