Josy1953

Our 1st cruise was on Carnival Holiday in 1983. She last sailed in 2020 as the Magallen, I don't know where she was between Carnival and CMV before she was scrapped in 2021. I only know about the CMV life because a friend should have sailed on her but the cruise was cancelled for some reason. I miss the old sailaways with the bands. The most memorable one that I remember was for Britannia's maiden voyage.

As non-smokers we avoid any of the smoking areas on any ship that we sail on. I think that the first cruise line to bite the bullet and designate a ship to be non-smoking will be inundated with interested passengers. The last P&O cruise that we were on there were heavy smokers in the cabin next to us and they made the balcony unusable for us because the smoke drifted over the balcony separators.

We have done 2 cruises with Princess this year and we did not see long queues for check in. We are elite so were sent to the elite check in queue but people arriving when we arrived at 11:00 for the 1st cruise and 13:30 for the 2nd cruise were being given a card and asked to take a seat but there were not a lot of people sitting waiting to be called forward. I imagine that when the transfer coaches arrive from the London airports particularly from trans Atlantic flights which usually arrive early morning there could be a lot of people arriving at the same time.

The pizza restaurant is now uncharged for your 1st 2 visits each cruise,all subsequent visits have to be paid for but we find that on sea days it is worth paying for a decent pizza rather than going up to the scrum aka the buffet. I agree that the International cafe in the atrium is very good, the only problem we found on our last cruise was chair hogging. There were a a number of occasions when we couldn't get a seat when we wanted a coffee because people had left books, cardigans and sweaters on chairs and then disappeared. One day as we went into breakfast I counted 6 tables where jackets, books and sweaters had been spread across the chairs, they were still in exactly the same place 3 hours later after we had been to a port talk, followed by a presentation by a Falklands veteran and then had a stroll round the "tat"shops. I think that selfish reserving of tables and chairs should be stopped by the staff who could remove the items after a specified length of time with no-one coming back to them.

I love Cadiz, it is my favourite Spanish port

A lovely sunny morning and already 14° here, predicted to go up to 19° later. I saw a really funny thing in the road this morning, a small cat was chasing a sparrow up the road and the sparrow didn't seem to be able to take off, a black bird swooped down, landing on the cat's back, the cat tried to shake the blackbird off but it clung on until the sparrow managed to get away.

Thanks for explaining that to me, it's never too late to learn something new.

I hope that you soon get rid of the bug it was a shame that you couldn't join the VE Day celebration

I was surprised that Scotch whiskey only accounts for 2% of the market. I am not a whiskey drinker but DH was likes the occasional glass of scotch. When I retired he was given a bottle of Macallens at my retirement party ( The company that I worked for always gave the partner of the retiree a bottle of their preferred alcohol or bouquet depending on their sex. He now drinks Macallens when he wants to indulge.

Reduced baseline prices are all well and good, but given the cutbacks are they cheap in real terms, only if you want the very basics maybe. You may be right but in my opinion it is a Carnival decision to have a cheap option to tempt newcomers to the cruise market. Those of us who have been cruising for many years have seen a lot of cutbacks and are reaching a point where P&O are too far behind other lines for us to continue to sail with them.

I think that the move away from P&O has already begun. We now only do 1 cruise a year with P&O. We met up with recently with a number of people who we originally met on P&O cruises and they are all doing the same as us. If one of the other lines did regular winter cruises out of Southampton I doubt if we would do any P&O cruises but DH can't fly so we will continue with winter cruises on P&O.

Another early morning for me courtesy of the birds who decided that 4 am is a good time to start singing. The good thing about being awake so early is that the washing is alr easy out to dry on the line. We have clear blue sky at the moment and it is already 9°c. Have a good day.

Is it important to know who the captain is on the ship before you board ? I have never been concerned enough to wonder who the captain will be. We have had captains who have been almost invisible and we have had captains who have been out and about around the ship throughout the cruise but they make little difference to our enjoyment of the cruise

A beautiful sunny morning here. It is still a cool 11° but it is forecast to get up to 17° later so an improvement on the recent temperatures. I am being optimistic and decided that it is time to bring out some of of my lighter clothes. Have a great day whatever you are doing today.

Our bowls match was late starting because several men on both teams were too interested in checking their phones for Stoke's score and then discussing it.🙂