purplesea

Rain has cleared away and although it is still windy the sun has reappeared.🙂

I had no plans for today, but have booked another cruise for the end of the year, on Arcadia. I am looking forward to it, especially as I haven't been on her before. 

16 hours ago, Photo Andy said:

Thought I would bring you all up to date. It is Sunday night and we are back in UK at home. 

Eventful final few days.

Wednesday in Alesund, we walked up Mt Aksla with many people from P and O Iona and an Aida ship. The footpath was very busy,  I took my camera / tripod images of Alesund  but not from the cafe as it seems permanently closed. Walked back down into the town and fell off a pavement and injured myself up, mostly my right hand knuckles, deskinned and bloody, avoided any facial injuries, a quick check and nothing seemed broken. Back on ship cleaned up, then back out into Alesund to buy some dressings, tape and scissors. (I used to work in the NHS doing tissue viability so self dressing is not a problem). Have you ever tried to pass through ship security with a pair of scissors longer than 40mm? They looked at the dressings we purchased, the tape and my bloody fingers etc. They allowed the scissors on board but we could not open the packet until in our cabin and could not take them out of the cabin. We were meant to have a pm cruise on a fjord but just did not feel up to it. 

Thursday - heavy rain, fog and 35mph wind and the ship had 2 attempts to enter Haugesund but no luck. On the upside we were refunded our excursion money. 

Friday, packed, had a table for dinner at the Keel and Cow, lovely meal, clean plates. 

Saturday, our disembarkation time was 8-55am, in the car and on the way home by 9-30am. 

This was a great holiday, the hand injury was my fault, but Iona was excellent, food, crew, venues etc. Missing a port excursion seems to be an issue in Norway, just stay cool and enjoy the ports you can visit.

BW

Derek.     

Thank you for your review.

Hope your hand is healing well.

We didn't make into Haugesund when on Britannia last September, but stayed in Flam overnight and left the following lunchtime.

2 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Websites such as National Rail Enquiries will often suggest going Cross Country to Reading and then GWR from there. Apart from the fact that Cross Country is hideous, this is quite a roundabout and expensive route. The other option is Southampton to Salisbury (around 30 mins) which connects with the Waterloo to Exeter route. If the timings work, it can be quicker and cheaper - and you avoid Cross Country which is always a good thing!

It used to be one change at Westbury, travelling up from Cornwall, but more often than not it now involves at least 2 changes. Exeter and Sailsbury. GWR are not much better than Cross Country!

Welcome to the forum.

I live in the far west of the country and we always travel up the day before. For our return we often travel back by train, we don't drive up. I usually book train departures for late morning/lunch time to allow us plenty of time to reach the station, which gets us home late afternoon/early evening.

Morning to you all.

Hope everyone is well or on the road to recovery.

Where has summer gone? We're back to winter down here, heavy rain and wind.

No plans for today, except stay in and dry!

Have a good week.

Morning everyone,

Had a lovely afternoon and evening at my daughter's BBQ. Three of my other children (they're adults but still act like children when they're togother) were there too, so was nice to catch up!

A bright sunny day here again, althoug not expected to be as warm as yesterday. Will make the most of it as rain is forecast for tomorrow.

Watched the second half of Eurovision too, but though a lot of the performances were OTT with the stage effects!

Looked out from time to time during the night but didn't manage to see the NL.

Hope you all enjoy your Sunday.

Morning all, 

I too am disappointed to have missed the NL as looking through my phone this morning they were even visable here😲 There are some really nice photos locally too. 

A trip out to Tesco in a little while and then heading over to my daughter's as she's having a BBQ later this afternoon. 

Enjoy your weekend.

On Arvia last month there were blue platic take away cups in use at Vista's, instead of paper/cardboard ones for use, return and reuse. I'm not sure if they were in use for any of the other Costa venues, but did see several around the ship.

I remember having a welcoming brass band at Bergen in 2012 and in Skagen we were welcomed by a group of singers as it was Britannia's maiden call at that port. They also had a marching band for our departure.

I had/have insurance with our bank and have got a policy booklet which covers all the required information as well as a letter.

I have had to take out a seperate insurance, as the bank will not cover my medical condition. With that insurance I have printed out the relevant details and downloaded the whole policy on to my ipad.

28 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

A discussion on another thread has reminded me of a bit of nostalgia. Do you remember going to new ports and the welcome you got back when ships were seen as a very welcome addition to the local economy.

 

The first time we went to Cartagena we were given a flower from ladies in costume and there was a band.

 

Frederica we had music, costumes and were given sweets.

One port in Iceland, I can’t remember which, gave us some sort of soused fish. I don’t recall the port but the fish was shall we say unique.

 

Closer to home in the early days Invergorden put on a full pipe band and highland dancers (don’t know if that was the local chamber of commerce or Celebrity).

 

Any memorable “welcomes”

On our first visit to Maderia we were welcomed by dancers in their national costumes and a band playing.

Granada has had a steel band playing.

Norway seem to be more pleased to see us depart as several ports there play music and wave flags as we leave!

Morning everyone,

Hope you're all well.

Bright, sunny day and currently 14c with expected temp of 19c.

Had a text message from my daughter yesterday saying she's doing a BBQ on Saturday and inviting us over.  I asked if she wanted me to bring anything, and got a reply at half six this morning could I make a pudding. So a baking day is now on the cards.

Have a good day, enjoy the sunshine and take care.

Morning all,

Hope you feel better this morning Sue @P&O SUE 

Bright down here, but sun's still trying to get out and a cool 13c but expected to reach the dizzy heights of 18c.

Got someone coming round to sort out our conservatory door, and I need to get in touch with BT as we are having problems with our phone line and the internet, but nothing else planned.

Enjoy your day.

57 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

Thanks all, I’m really surprised how long it’s lasted, it’s knocked me for six! I fell asleep about 3 times yesterday!

They do say that sleep is the best medicine.

Wishing you well.

19 minutes ago, P&O SUE said:

Evening all, my weekend went downhill after Saturday. From Sunday onwards I’ve had a horrible stomach bug, goodness knows where I got that from, John is ok 🤷‍♀️ I was so looking forward to the long weekend but I’ve done nothing except sleep and read. 
Back to work today but I worked from home cos I’m still not right. Sadly couldn’t visit mum today because I didn’t want to risk passing it onto her. They had a VE Day thing there and we were hoping to catch the end of it which was a singer. Mum enjoyed it anyway. 

Sorry to hear this, hope you feel better soon.

Britannia has lifts forward, mid-ships and aft. 

My mother is a wheelchair user and the only time we had a major problem with lifts was on disembarkation day. We were 4 hours late docking and lots of people decided to self-disembark, meaning that the lifts were full of people with luggage.

46 minutes ago, Windsurfboy said:

 

Please let us know how you get on. Does it exist do many people leave books

I was on Arvia at Easter and as I had taken books with me to read, didn't check it out till nearer the end of the cruise. There were quite a few books when I went to leave mine. I took one and returned it a couple of days later and there were a lot more then. Obviously a lot of people, like me, were not taking books that had been read home. Therefore, I should imagine if there would be quite a selection at the beginning of the cruise too.

It's in Andersons.

9 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

That's my theory out of the window then😂

Espcially as the previous year we were on deck 15 and had a boarding time of 12.15!

50 minutes ago, the wandering two said:

53 minutes ago, the wandering two said:

Due to board Iona on Saturday, we're Mediterranean tier & been given 3.15 check in.

Doesn't seem to be any sort of pattern as we've had earlier times on previous sailings, regardless hope to be on for lunchtime, yes it's a seven night cruise but with these timings it's a 61/2 day cruise! 

 

20 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

Good luck, you may be lucky but we wasn't last week. 

They say it is allocated by floor, we were deck 8 on Britannia with a 3.15 boarding time, so I assume it goes from top to bottom. 

We tried our luck but had to wait, so no complaints here, we knew the rules. 

Andy 

Due to board Iona on Saturday, we're Mediterranean tier & been given 3.15 check in.

Doesn't seem to be any sort of pattern as we've had earlier times on previous sailings, regardless hope to be on for lunchtime, yes it's a seven night cruise but with these timings it's a 61/2 day cruise! 

There is no logic!

We are in the Mediterranean tier and were on deck 14 on Arvia at Easter and our boarding time was 3.30 pm.

Thanks for your review, and glad to hear that you all had a good time.

I too enjoyed Iona, but as it was shortly after the pandemic, so she was only sailing half full and certain corridors were closed off for quarantine.  I would like to sail on her again though. Just wish she had a more varied itineries.

We had rain overnight again. It was looking very dull when I got up, but although it's bright blue sky the sun is out. It's about 12c now but expected to get up to 15c, so not too bad.

Been to Truro and back already this morning, as son needed a lift into work. Also stopped at The Range on my way home to pick up one or two things we needed. Now sitting with a cup of coffee before getting on with the rest of the day's chores. 

Not sure what our weather is going to do as we had rain overnight, and it still looks very dark although there is blue sky and sunny spells. It's supposed to be sunny with a high of 14c, but we will see!

1 hour ago, kalos said:

Morning a busy day doing little yesterday apart from awaiting text messages 

from the granddaughter who had took our 8 month old to the hozzi on the 

advice of NHS-111.

She had been stressed two days and yesterday refused drinks and came out

a rash.

Even on a bank holiday they had to wait 3 hours to be seen by doctors,

Who after ruling out the rash as nothing nasty put the baby on 

antibiotics for a Strep throat , which can be common they said when babys 

are teething .

Anyway The granddaughter rang us to say ,babys now settled, sleeping and

eating and seems to be happy.

That news made us feel happy as well.

Hope you all have a lovely day -Take care 🙂

Glad to hear the baby's OK.

On Arvia at Easter we were told that there were 1250 children on board!