My hip has been playing up for a while with a bit more pain than I have had recently so I had decided not to leave this ship today, we hadn’t had any excursions booked so it was going to be a quiet day on board for us. We went down for breakfast first thing before heading off to the Grills Lounge for a nice coffee. While I was sat there sipping my flat white Jane commented that I was sniffing a bit and I had noticed that I had a bit of a sore throat, so it was decided

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We arrived in Bergen at about 7am, not that it made any difference to our plans. We hadn’t any excursions booked for Bergen so had decided to stay in our room for the day. Being stuck in the room in quarantine, you end up getting into a bit of a routine. Mainly around ordering meals, the daily round of requesting new mugs and glasses but mainly meals. We ended up waiting 90 minutes for lunch as that had gone missing, but a chasing phone call brought about by rumbling stomachs resolved that.. We had a phone call from our erstwhile

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First things first, I headed into New Milton for my cruise haircut and to get some last minute toiletries, this was more of a time waster to allay the pre Covid test nerves than needing anything. Eleven AM arrived soon enough and it was time to leave Jane’s dad’s for the drive in to Southampton and Dock Gate 10 for the Covid tests.  The queues at the Mayflower test centre were non existent and after showing our passports and Covid vaccination documentation plus confirming our names, DOB and mobile numbers it was swab up the nose time and headed off

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Portuguese Tiles

The entrance into Lisbon was gorgeous with the sky on fire as the sun rose over the April 25th Bridge. It’s getting warmer, but it was pretty cold grabbing the photo in my pjs as we sailed up the Tagus. We had an early start today as we had the “Taste of Lisbon”  walking tour booked, departing at 09:15 so we had an early breakfast in the PG dining room. As it was a tasting tour we kept it light, just eggs Benedict for me and avocado on toast for Jane. We were slightly delayed leaving the ship as there

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Rain

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.

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Cartagena

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,

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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

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Atrium Piano

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

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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

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Friday 27th August My alarm went off at 06:30 ready for our trek to breakfast. Breakfast was in the MDR from 06:30 and since we had a disembarkation time of 08:30 I thought we’d better get in there early. Breakfast was nice as usual, slightly limited menu as it was disembarkation day. There seemed to be some issues with the air bridge for a time and announcements were made asking Purple 2 passengers to wait in their cabins while it was sorted, we’re green 2 so it looks like we’ll be slightly delayed. It looks like they never resolved the

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