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.
Category: Port Days
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
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
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
The haircut now out of the way it was time to pack the car for the 45 minute drive to the Ocean Terminal. It was a bit of a squeeze, with 4 large suitcases, a couple of suit carriers, dress carrier and hand luggage. We were there just after 12:15 and pointed at the priority queue for embarkation. Less than 30 minutes later we were in cabin 5149, with Jane eyeing up the Pol Acker. I steered her away from that with the promise of lunch. By this time the bags had arrived, so we rescued them from the corridor
Who’s idea was it to get up and experience the approach into New York, it all happened very early and it was a bit fresh stood out on the viewing platform on deck 13. It was all pretty spectacular though and probably worth the effort and we has excellent weather for it, a crisp and clear November morning. After the excitement was over it was back to the room for a lie down before heading off the ship and into Brooklyn. Immigration was painless, but a bit tedious with all the booths manned initially, but then for some inexplicable reason
It was a glorious day to be in Tortola, hot and sunny. We were up nice and early for breakfast and a quick jaunt off the ship. We don’t have any excursions booked today, so we just went for a walk around Road Town, with the intention of possibly getting a cab to Long Cane Bay for the beach. The cabs were advertising it at USD 8 for the ride. As it was I had forgotten my cap, and there wasn’t a whole lot of shops selling hats so we just went back to the ship for a bit of
Dominica today. We had an excursion booked to a plantation house, which unfortunately had to be cancelled because of road works, so we changed it to a Waterfalls and beach excursion instead. So it was an earlyish start, 09:10 in the Britannia for check in. We then had a slightly chaotic scrum to get on the coaches that we going to take us up into the highlands and the Waterfalls part of the tour. Jack Falls was our destination, a very picturesque waterfall at the bottom of a steep descent into the river valley. The concrete steps down were sound