We broke the storm overnight, it was much calmer and although I was woken a couple of times by waves crashing into the bow we slept much better. We are arriving in Valencia ahead of schedule and will be docking at 12:30. They have put on some extra shore excursions for today, but we’re not going to bother. The weather looks pretty poor all day, so we may not even go ashore today.We had a light breakfast before heading down to the theatre for today’s insights lectures. First off was Dave Mallinder speaking on the life of Sammy Davies jnr.
Author: Jimbo
We love cruising and specifically we love cruising with Cunard. These blogs are intended for my own consumption, but they can also act as a repository of useful cruising knowledge for people wanting to cruise with Cunard.
The rain had abated overnight and we’d both had a better nights sleep with the ship docked overnight in Valencia. We had another walking tour booked ashore with an early start so the alarm was set for 07:30 ready for breakfast at eight. The Dock at Valencia is a bit of a distance from town, I’m not even sure that you’re allowed to walk out as a pedestrian, so we had a bit of coach ride to get to the start of our tour, hampered also by some road’s being closed for a Marathon. We start the tour just
We arrived in Cartagena at 8am this morning to glorious sunshine, which has been lacking on this cruise so far. We, again, were booked on a walking tour. This time it was a Tapas Trail, there’s nothing I like better than an eating tour. It wasn’t such an early start today so we had a leisurely breakfast. Not too much, just an omelette, as we’ve made the mistake before and struggled. We made the right decision as the Tapas was very generous, with 4 different Tapas and a beer with each or a glass of red for Jane. Our guide,
We’ve nothing planned today so had a lie in before heading up to the PG for a leisurely breakfast. I tried to keep it light with an omelette again, but the pastries looked too nice so succumbed to a cinnamon danish. We headed back to the stateroom to get some laundry out of the way as today is a quiet day for us. I was tasked with ironing several of Jane’s dresses, she’s left handed and apparently the fixed ironing boards are difficult to use. I find all ironing boards difficult to use so I’m not sure that washes with
My early morning alarm was a little earlier today, I was awakened by the ship’s arrival into Gibraltar at 06:45. This is no bad thing as I wanted to get ahead of the curve ready for an exciting morning’s shopping (btw this is sarcasm/irony) in Gibraltar. I was alone for breakfast, Jane had booked room service ready for the rush out to the rock, so I went alone to the PG to collect postcards from our table mates that required posting at the Post Office, so saving them a trip if they were back late from their tour. I was
It was obvious overnight that we’d entered the Atlantic, my bed was moving around, and not in a good way. The crash of the waves on the bow had also resumed, not to the same extent as when we passed Cadiz, but noticeable. It’s a sea day so I’ve three lectures lined up starting at 10am, so a reasonably early breakfast was required. After a nice omelette we quickly popped to see the Concierge as, like a fool, I’d forgotten the Internet login for Jane’s allowance. That will teach me to register the account as required and not both at
That was a lumpy old night. The wind had really got up and coupled with quite a heavy swell we were rocking back and forth all night, accompanied by crashes and the ship’s bow ploughed into the heavy seas. 5001 is a lovely suite, but not one for travellers that are sensitive to noise. Jane never made breakfast, but I popped up to Lido to grab her some Danishes to keep her strength up. Me I headed up to the PG restaurant for a proper breakfast before today’s lectures. It was the final round of lectures, first up was Dave
We had everything packed and shipped out ready for disembarkation last night and were taking advantage of the extra hour in bed as the clocks had gone back overnight. We’d decided to have a late breakfast as our disembarkation time had been put back to 13:00, so after a relaxed shower we headed up to the PG for one last time for food and collect the menus that our waiter had been collecting for us. After breakfast, we said our goodbyes and on leaving the restaurant Ionel, the Head Waiter said see you later which I thought was a little
I woke before my 07:00 alarm with lights twinkling through a gap in the balcony curtains as we sailed up into Southampton. It was nice to be on calm waters again after the last few stormy sea days. It was also nice to have a phone signal. We were scheduled for departure at “Cowboy Time”, “Ten to Ten” if you weren’t a Lone Ranger fan, so we didn’t need to rush up to breakfast. The PG restaurant was open for an early sitting from 07:00 to 08:30, so after a final shower it was nice to be able to go
It’s all starting again, last week Queen Elizabeth set off on her first post-covid cruise, now it’s nearly our time. It’s two days before boarding and getting very exciting. All paperwork has now been completed and printed off. All the packing has been mostly done, just waiting for a couple of items to be returned from the cleaners. Our departure is slightly different this year, normally we’d head off to the New Forest to stay the night at Jane’s Dad’s place and get dropped off by him at the terminal in the morning. This year John and Bess are travelling