Cruise Conclusion

I have written a little about our cruise over the past few weeks, mainly incidentally as I thought this would be better than a chronological diary of events, which I did not make with notes anyway. I hope this is not a boring travelogue for you but I do need to bring this to conclusion.

On our first day when we boarded the 'Island Princess' in Barcelona we walked from our hotel, the Rialto  in 'old Barcelona'. We had arrived the night before at about 11pm by way of a transfer. The driver was not communicative really, understandable because in was a Sunday night, the flight was an hour late from a two hour stop in Dubai, and he did not speak English well. We were totally exhausted after 3 flights of about seven hours each and breaks in Kuala Lumpar and Dubai.

Being Sunday night I knew it was last chance to enjoy a wine or other beverage in celebration of arriving, as I was determined to do at least a couple of AF days beginning Monday, the day of the week I take the methotrextate which is advisable not to have with alcohol. I had thought about it and bought a bottle of wine in Dubai and a bottle of Scotch whisky in duty free and carried it in our hand luggage. We had wine served with our dinner on the plane but I knew I'd be wanting a slash after we checked in.

How right I was. I was hungry too but the only things around in the hotel at that hour were vending machines so rather than make an expedition into a strange city late at night I exchanged for some coins at the hotel desk and bought some bottled water (there was none in our room), not wanting to chance the tap water on our first day out. I had memories of landing in Santiago Chile and going out to get some food first thing and picking up a serious gut wog.

We didn't feel like wine, but the Scotch did the trick, just the spark we needed. Next morning after a great breakfast in the hotel we checked out but arranged to leave our suitcases in the hotel luggage room while we walked around old Barcelona and lunched in a plaza not far from the hotel. We were totally charmed by the exotic surroundings and the friendly relaxed atmosphere.

Picking up our bags I asked the concierge if he liked Scotch whisky. "I drink it for breakfast" he replied. He was thrilled when I gave him our bottle explaining that we weren't allowed to bring spirits on the boat. He suggested we get a cab to our terminal as it was quite a walk with the suitcases. We had been told we had to be boarded by 5pm and the ship sailed at 7pm. It was a long walk of about two hours, not to the port itself but our terminal was right the way up one end, it was warm to hot and we kept walking rather than cabbing as time was on our side and the suitcases were on wheels and the scenery was spectacular to a couple of tourists from Gembrook. There were four cruise boats in a line from terminals A to D, which was ours.

It was exciting to line up and get our luggage checked in and eventually board the boat about 4pm after presenting our credit card details and being issued our cruise card which opened our stateroom and was used for any on board purchasing of beer wine spirits tea coffee bottled water shore excursions or whatever else you may choose to buy above what we had already paid for with our cruise purchase such as meals and shows and entertainment. You could by a beverage card for $49US per day per person but we chose not to.

It took me a couple of days to adjust to being on a ship with a lot of people. The fact that I didn't take alcohol for the first couple of days did not probably help, I was a little uptight. Not long after arriving and making ourselves familiar with our stateroom and unpacking and putting the feet up, a compulsory safety drill took place in the early evening. People from every section in the ship had to respond to the alarm and go to their appointed gathering site while all the procedures and life jacket and raft protocol was explained in case of some disaster. This had the effect of making everyone ready for dinner afterwards and at 8pm there was a huge queue at our designated dining room for anytime dining. We took this option over same set time dining which was in a different dining room but the food was the same, as we discovered one night early on when in the queue we were taken by the head waitress as we were prepared to share when a group booked for set time didn't turn up. On that night we shared table with Chuck and Donna from Boston, mature age honeymooners second time round, and a retired couple from Canada. There were also a few up market restaurants on the boat at which you needed to book and pay a surcharge of US$10 each. We ate at one of these one night as you had one no surcharge as part of the cruise fee. The food in all these places was excellent and there was no shortage of it. We sat next to a couple from a Caribbean Island, honeymooners again, and the guy ordered two main meals as well as entree and desert, and there was no problem. The service was also excellent. You could also eat breakfast lunch and dinner in the foredeck buffet if you wished to be casual and there was always pizzas available next to the bar near the pool and a hamburger an chip servery there as well, and icecreams. A lot of the same people hung out there for a lot of the time, on deck chairs around the pool and facing the movie screen which went every night.

We watched a few movies but our favourite entertainment was the shows. It was live singing and dancing, on a well equipped stage in a real theatre, with various themes such as Motown, Country and Western, Bayou, and others that escape me but Lib would remember better as she particularly loved the shows. We got to know the singers and dancers who were professional top class. I was taken by a young lead singer named Meagan who was trained qualified in New York and was exceptionally good. A Japanese dancer Nicki was brilliant, trained in ballet, as was one of the leading men, and a leading black American lady singer was also tops. All these I have mentioned came on shore excursions with us during the day, probably part of the remuneration package if it fitted with their rehearsal routine and if there were vacancies in the tours, so you'd find yourself rubbing shoulders on the bus with someone you's watched performing brill the night before. There was all manner of other entertainment such as comedian, casino, art auctions, bingo, dancing classes, string quartet, singers and piano players in various bars. It was amazing.

On I think our third evening we had our first evening meal in our dining room and we were at a table of eight. Next to us was an English chap who happened to be the ship's expert tour destination advisor. As I explained in an earlier post I had booked the first few days shore excursions on line before we left. I didn't want to book tours from every port as they are expensive and I felt that from some ports we may be able to do our own touring. His name was Lynden Jolley and he was a wealth of information and he told us that unless we were serious students of archeology ( and wanted to see Appollo's birthplace) we didn't need to book a tour at Mykinos, we could easily walk around the town and have a nice relaxed day which we did. He also said we could do Athens on our own and told us we should see the New Museum and of course the Acropolis. He suggested a tour at Ephesus would be advisable as it would get us into the recently discovered terrace houses with expert commentary (Our guide Umit, a large man who has been taking tours since 1993 and spoke very good English was terrific). He said we could do Istanbul ourselves but said it would be easier and more informative with a guide, (which it proved to be in the Blue mosque and the Sofia). He said Venice, no need to book a tour, there's so much to see on foot.

Our tour finished in Venice. Lynden had said be up on deck for the sail in to Venice, it is one of the most spectacular in the world. We sailed in in the morning and he was right. We spent that afternoon walking around the enchanting old Venice and returned to the boat for a final night before disembarking the next morning. Lynden had told me to arrange a transfer from the boat when we went of to explore Venice the first afternoon, to our railway station at Venezia, from where we had train tickets to travel to Milan (When he picked us up the driver asked me was I any relation to William Carey the missionary and when I said I was he treated us almost like royalty, saying he had just read a book about him).

So in conclusion I say the cruise was a total success. My only complaint really was the high price of beverages which were not included in the fare. Wine at dinner, US$27+ a bottle. Scotch on the rocks at the bar $8. As I said it is not permitted to bring alcohol onto the boat from the ports and drink it on board. A one litre bottle of spring water, US$5. I got wise after a few days of that and filled the bottles with tap water, which was said to be potable and I figured they couldn't afford to have crook water coming out of the taps on a cruise ship. Hygiene is emphasized constantly. The steward puts fruit in the room everyday free if you ask him too and fills an ice bucket in your fridge daily. I reckoned the tap water in the staterooms would be the same water they were always offering from big icy jugs in the dining rooms and buffet.

That's it for the cruise, for now, it's off my chest. The next post hopefully will be about the trip to Milan and the overnight stay there and our following week in Crete, before my memory dims too much.