The room was rattling and squeaking all night, so when I woke at about 04:50 it took me ages to get back to sleep. I eventually resorted to digging out the Kindle and reading a couple of chapters of my latest novel before my eyes finally started to droop again.
It turned out to be a beautiful, if slightly breezy, day and, after breakfast in the QG restaurant, we braved the Grills Terrace to see if a bit of sunbathing was possible prior to my only Insights lecture of the day at 11am.
There was quite a breeze, so opening the door to the terrace took some effort, but once outside it wasn’t too bad — even better once I’d manoeuvred Jane’s sun lounger to face the sun properly. I stayed out for about an hour before leaving Jane to her own devices while I took care of some blog housekeeping, which was easier to deal with out of the sun.
Moses and Medwin were still finishing off the stateroom, so I retired to the balcony to do my work before heading to the theatre for General Sir Simon Mayall’s Gallipoli Part II lecture. He obviously loves his subject and spoke knowledgeably about the failures of Gallipoli. Yet again, the time flew by while listening to him.
Meanwhile, Jane grabbed what was likely the last opportunity to enjoy the sun before tackling the miserable task of packing — only her stuff, mind. I still had to do my own packing, which I planned to start after lunch.
We were the only ones from our table who made it to lunch. The beef carpaccio was really nice and a fresh start before moving on to the pork and coconut curry. I asked our waiter if it was spicy, which he assured me it wasn’t. I assured him that I like spicy food anyway, but it turned out to be fairly spicy indeed. Dessert consisted of four scoops of ice cream. I know… but Jane decided not to have dessert, which in reality means she was going to eat mine, hence the extra scoop.
Packing mostly done, we headed back up to the Grills Terrace for one final bit of panic tanning. There was still a breeze, but not enough to stop the sunbathing — just enough that you didn’t realise you’d overdone it.
Tan topped up, it was time for Commodore O’Clock, where Ankit delivered on Jane’s promised teddy bear cappuccino. I, meanwhile, had a Doom Bar as usual. Jane followed the coffee with a Mai Tai, so no surprises there.
I then enjoyed the final bath of the cruise. The Q3 bath has been something of a revelation to me. At 6’6″, I’m a big old unit, so there aren’t many baths I can comfortably fit into, but this one is about as close to perfect as I’ve found. I also discovered that the scalloped sides stopped the bath overflowing when resurfacing after dunking my head under the water.
Jane made me double-check that she had the correct clothes ready for disembarkation, as her OCD was kicking in and the thought of missing some vital piece of clothing once the bags had been collected was stressing her out.
Dinner was excellent. We ordered the tequila king prawns and saffron rice dish that we’d had earlier in the cruise and had nearly perfected. This time we asked Raul, the Maître d’, to increase the spice levels to match the seafood linguine he’d previously prepared for us. This time it was perfect — delicious with just the right amount of heat.
We said our final farewells to our tablemates, put the cases out for collection, checked Jane’s disembarkation outfit one last time, and retired for the night.
Disembarkation – Day 15 – May 18th
I’ll stick this here rather than creating a whole new post.
I didn’t sleep particularly well, probably due to stressing about the possible transport disruption expected because of the teachers’ industrial action taking place outside the port.
We were up early, with last call for breakfast at 08:00, so we arrived around 07:45 and had a light breakfast of Bircher muesli, sourdough toast, and several coffees. Before long it was 08:25 and time for us to disembark.
We weren’t in any rush as our cab was booked for 09:30. The actual disembarkation process was very quick and we’d collected our bags by 08:45, managing to claim a couple of seats while we waited.
There are no baggage trolleys in the terminal, although several porters will happily relieve you of €12 per bag to transport them out of the luggage hall. Somehow, I managed to balance the shoe bag on top of the two spinner suitcases and wheel those, along with my garment bag, outside.
At about 09:00 I received a note from the cab app saying my driver was four minutes away, so we ended up at the airport before my designated pickup time, which was good.
The BA check-in desks weren’t open yet, so we had a bit of a wait before they did. While queueing, I got chatting to Darren Campbell, who was just in front of me. I asked how he’d found the cruise and he mentioned feeling like he’d been put on the naughty step a little for not eating all his meals in the QG restaurant. He said he or his wife simply didn’t fancy some of the menu options.
I expressed some surprise at this, as one of the major selling points of QG is the food, and if you don’t like what’s on the menu you can simply ask for something else. He hadn’t realised that was possible because nobody had properly explained how QG works. He certainly knows now for next time, as I made it very clear that if the ingredients are available and the chef knows how to cook it, they’ll usually make it for you as long as you give them enough notice.
He had originally been booked on the 21:00 flight and was trying to switch to ours, but unfortunately it was full. He did, however, manage to get onto the 15:00 flight instead.
ESS was just as broken at the airport as it had been at the cruise terminal when we embarked — long queues everywhere — but we made it through with enough time to reach the lounge for a glass of fizz before the flight home.
Now we’ve got a mountain of laundry to do and can start dreaming about the next one in March.
V609 – Greek Islands Daily Programmes
V609 – Greek Islands – QG Menus