Selbourne

BTW, I have been meaning to ask this for weeks and keep forgetting. I know that @TigerB is an expert on the codes for cabin door adornment (upside down pineapples etc). Someone along our corridor has an orange ping pong ball in their mail slot. It’s been there the whole cruise. Why?

Is there an animal that eats green beans? If so, they’d thrive on here. I swear that they must grow the ruddy things somewhere on deck 4. My meal last night said ‘seasonal vegetables’. What turned up? Just green beans. I’m amazed that we haven’t had green bean ice cream yet 😂

Sorry to hear that. I certainly wasn’t ‘blaming’ anyone, least of all the cruise lines who, as you say, do a sterling job of trying to keep us all healthy. It’s just an inescapable fact that the nature of cruising and cruise ships puts us at a greater risk of these things than many other activities, but we accept those risks when we book.

We can’t deny that this remains an issue with cruises and cruise ships, and your chances of picking something up seem to remain higher than with other types of holiday. As my wife has just said, it’s a good job that this isn’t a normal 2 week cruise, as I would have been poorly for half of it and counting!

The lunch menus are even more repetitive, so we struggle more with those. Like you say, we repeat meals that we like at home, so would rather have a repeat of something that we know we like than something different for the sake of it, especially as the grand descriptions often end up as being something quite underwhelming. That being said, nothing tonight takes my fancy. Only been to the buffet a couple of times (lunch) and the choice there has been extremely poor. I believe that the evenings are better.

I have a photo of our passports, but have read over the past week whilst we’ve been visiting ports that some places insist on original documentation and will not accept a photo or copy. That being said, we’ve been told to take government photo ID ashore in at least half a dozen ports so far and it has never once been asked for! I also wonder what they would actually do if you didn’t have anything with you!

Todays MDR menus

We seem to have docked at the town pier. Certainly not commercial looking. One big advantage of Aurora over the bigger ships is that we seem to get the closest / most convenient berths. We actually bought some Covid test kits with us so I’ve tested and I don’t have that. I would have cancelled my excursions if it was. I think this is about the 6th day I’ve had it and it’s not getting any better. Cold and flu medications and paracetamol aren’t touching it. I have an unused course of antibiotics with me which I’ve contemplated taking, but they don’t work against viruses and as I have a sore throat, congestion and a cough it seems as though it’s viral rather than bacterial. Assuming that you are referring to my haircut (😂) I went for a number 3 (which I do at home) but with number 2 around the back and sides to see if I can eek it out for the rest of the cruise 😂 . The guy was clearly miffed that I had negotiated down from the £29 full works, so was the least motivated and engaged hairdresser I’ve ever had. At least I didn’t have to answer any “are you going anywhere nice on holiday this year” questions 😂

Day 32 - Saturday 3rd February - Bridgetown, Barbados Another very poor nights sleep due to my sore throat, cough and congestion that has no sign of easing. I’m usually pretty OK once up and about and during the day, but the sore throat and cough is ten times worse at night. Thankfully we have a table for 2, as conversation is nigh on impossible during the evenings. We arrived bright and early in Barbados and Arvia was already berthed opposite us (I believe that she’s here for 2 days?). Royal Clipper was next in and berthed between us. When I left the ship for my ‘Coast to Coast’ excursion the cruise terminal was absolutely rammed with people. There was considerable congestion at the door leading out to the excursion busses and, once you managed to get outside, the shore experience team were trying to marshall people into queues and holding queues that were waiting for queues ahead of them to clear. Staff and passengers from the other ships were doing the same. I took a photo that shows just a fraction of it as half the people had gone by now and there was the same volume of people behind me as well! All credit to the shore experience team, as it must have been like herding cats at the worlds largest cattery after someone has left all the doors open 😂 There were 8 empty seats on my coach, so I sat right at the back with empty seats ahead of me. As we set off it was clear to see that this a much more affluent island than the likes of St Vincent and Dominica. There are still a lot of houses for those on the lowest incomes, but also plenty of very expensive looking ones. The first stop was a very scenic beach on the Atlantic coast, where most of today’s photos were taken. Next was a church which was nothing special and made me wonder why we’d stopped there. The final stop was the Botanic Gardens where we had a glass of rum punch. Almost everyone on the bus just sat down in the cafe area but I used my 20 minutes to do a tour, at a pace, of the botanical gardens (where some of the other photos were taken). Please don’t think I was being virtuous, I had my rum punch in my hand as I walked around! We then took a drive back to the ship through Bridgetown, which was useful as it enabled me to suss out the route to take my wife in to town later, which we did after lunch in the MDR. Whilst the walk was definitely easier than in St Vincent or Dominica, it was still not easy pushing a manual wheelchair. If I was doing a specific review of the Caribbean with a wheelchair, we’ve yet to visit anywhere yet that I would score higher than ‘poor’. There have been challenges everywhere, some of them considerable. Scooter users may have less issues as the bigger front wheels won’t be as susceptible to the unexpected small ruts that have nearly had by wife out of the chair a few times, but you can have a dropped kerb at one end of a stretch of pavement but not at the other end! As I often say to my wife, we are so fortunate that we live in the UK where the needs of disabled people are now always designed in, or subsequently adapted wherever possible. As for Bridgetown it wasn’t much to write home about. We may have missed some nice parts though, having only walked around the underwhelming main centre. Another quite long walk with no shuttle provided, which seems to be a theme on this cruise. When we got ‘home’ to Aurora we went to Raffles for a drink and then just relaxed until dinner, other than the fact that I negotiated a clipper cut in the hair salon for £15. I wasn’t going to pay £29 for an unnecessary wash and ‘styling’ when I can do it myself with clippers at home for nothing 😂 A quick update on the air conditioning problems blighting Aurora. Some areas are now so hot that they are pretty much unusable. The Crows Nest and Library fall firmly in those categories, but the stairways and lifts (particularly forward) are also so hot that it feels like the heating is on. The air con in our cabin turns itself off during the night, which means that we wake up too hot in the night. I reported it and am told that it should stay on 24 hours. An engineer has visited but we weren’t in the cabin and I find that many things reported to reception get lost in translation, so we shall see what happens tonight. As I type this the air con is on the coldest setting and it’s still not cool enough for me. Another mediocre dinner in the MDR and as there was no show on tonight (just a film, timed so that nobody eating in the MDR could attend 🤔) we went back to the cabin. Annoyingly we were then subjected to the din from the band playing on the now open roofed deck 12 for over an hour which, after just a few days, has already become irritating. Tomorrow Martinique and it will be the first port in 6 days that I won’t be going on a tour which, given my throat, is no bad thing.

My assumption is that it’s just the former David, but they definitely use the term segments. If it was segments we would move to Baltic mid cruise, which would be handy for the laundry discount on the way home 😉 (as that’s about the only benefit above being Caribbean).

It seems to vary by ship and even sometimes by cruise! On Britannia and Ventura last year we had a very good waiter served lunch, which was a nice start to the cruise. On Iona it was a buffet. Quite a nice one, but not as good as a served lunch. On Aurora we had the old fashioned third rate buffet that they used to do on all ships pre Covid, yet on previous Aurora cruises I believe it had been a waiter served lunch. There are (I believe) around 1,000 higher loyalty tier passengers on this cruise, so they decided that this was too many to do it properly, so it would be better to give their most loyal customers a below par welcome lunch having just subjected them to a very poor boarding experience, where priority boarding counted for nothing as almost everyone was entitled to it! Not that I’m still harbouring a grudge about how poor our embarkation experience was, you understand 😂 !

Although this cruise was only ever sold as a 65 nighter (as far as I know) there are 3 segments. The first ended on 26th Jan. The next one is something like 20th Feb. The passenger choir did a theatre performance at the end of the first ‘segment’ and new members were encouraged to join thereafter. Same with Ukelele classes. We don’t think that the menus repeat in total. You see the same items but not the same total menu (if that makes sense). We are still seeing items appear that we are sure we haven’t seen before, and that’s after 30 days! As for Caribbean lunch, I don’t know the answer. We had our Caribbean lunch very early on in the cruise. I assumed that this was either because there would be others later in the cruise or because they wanted to get it out of the way. Judging by the complete lack of officer interaction or recognition during the lunch, I suspect that it may be the latter!

It varies a lot by ship though. We thought that the MDR food was great on Iona, Britannia and Ventura (all last year). It’s been less good on Aurora. We always find something that we are happy to order for dinner, although the grand descriptions often fall way short of what is delivered to the table. The biggest issue for me is flavourless sauces and gravies and the fact that it’s green beens with everything! We’ve just discussed it and would say that about 20% of the evening meals have been good, around 10% have been poor and the remaining 70% have been mediocre. MDR lunches haven’t been great on any of the ships but, again, have been slightly worse on Aurora. The curries are generally good but don’t appear every day and the remainder is quite repetitive.

Quite close to the terminal but a very narrow walking route along the pier that’s a challenge with a wheelchair. Terminal absolutely heaving with people. More in my daily report…..

Better than I am in all truth. She is enjoying sitting on the balcony reading and the advantage of the balconies on Aurora are that you can always find a bit in the shade. Miami was the perfect weather for us. Blue sky and sunshine with temperatures in the low 20’s. I pushed my wife for several miles with no difficulty whatsoever and we both really enjoyed it. Now that the temperatures are above 25 degrees, I am finding it much harder work, not helped by not feeling 100%. Neither of us sunbath or even sit in the direct sun, so we will leave the ship still looking anaemic whilst many on here are golden brown already! We don’t tan, we just go red, and there’s a bit of family history on my side of later life skin cancer caused by sun exposure in earlier life that can lay dormant for decades. I had no idea that was even possible! So whilst we are enjoying this one off cruise, we are happier in Northern European temperatures 😂

Sadly not, but thankfully my wife is still showing no signs of getting it. Now berthed in Barbados facing Arvia and earlier Royal Clipper squeezed in between us.

Day 31 - Friday 2nd February - Kingstown, St Vincent, Grenadines Another day in paradise although today was Kingstown, St Vincent which I’d already been warned was somewhat removed from the typical Caribbean idyl! I was booked on the Best of St Vincent tour and it was in those mini busses that they use in the Caribbean where there are two seats one side and one the other, with a fold down seat to bridge the gap, but those can’t be used on tours for safety reasons. As I was a solo passenger and 6ft 2 large build bloke, I’d hoped to get one of the single seats, so I was disappointed to see that the first people to get on, a married couple, both sat in solo seats, leaving those of us who were solos having to share. I thought that was quite selfish. A lady sat next to me, and the guide could see that we were a bit squished so offered if I’d like to sit up front next to the driver, which I did. 5 minutes after we left the port the driver had a phone call to say that someone else had turned up for the tour, so we had to head back, pick them up and start again 🙄. Our first stop was a cathedral that was undergoing repairs. At home, churches and cathedrals are often the coldest places in any town, probably due to the stone walls and high ceilings, but in St Vincent’s cathedral it’s just as hot inside as outside! No sooner had we left the cathedral than a medical emergency unfolded. One of the ladies had gashed her leg badly getting back into the minibus. A bit of first aid was applied but quickly deemed inadequate as the view was that stitches were needed, so the hospital was looking likely when someone sensibly suggested that she might be better off back at the medical centre on the ship. Our next stop, the Botanical Gardens, was just 5 minutes away so our driver dropped the rest of us and our guide there and then proceeded to take the injured lady back to the ship. I hope that she is OK. The Botanical Gardens were interesting and after a guided tour we left for a drive up into the mountains. Everyone beeps their horn when driving in St Vincent - almost continuously. I couldn’t work out what the code was so basically assumed that you beep for both positive and negative reasons and other times for no reason at all 😂 No sooner had we climbed the mountain than we began our descent (still beeping at anything and everything) and stopped for a rum punch at a hotel on the way back which, with my sore throat, was very much appreciated. We returned to the ship on time so my wife and I could go for something to eat for the first time today (we don’t have any breakfast if I’m on morning tours). Afterwards I offered my wife a tour of Kingstown, or if she’d prefer a visit to the cruise terminal just to set wheel ashore, but she wasn’t at all keen. The previous strategy was therefore agreed where I left my wife on our balcony reading as I went off to explore the town. For the first time this cruise I seemed to be drawing a bit of unwanted attention. I got as far as the market and then turned back to the ship via the supermarket. The air con in the supermarket was a huge relief from the energy sapping heat outside and a couple of things took my attention. Firstly a couple of small birds flying around inside and secondly they had a stand of large Cadbury’s Dairy milk bars that would be about £5 at home, each selling for a bargain $24.95 😱 When I returned to the ship we both went to raffles for our afternoon hot (or cold) beverage. For the first time, I saw exactly what @Mollag had observed about people abusing the free food in there. It’s meant to be one item per customer with a drink purchase. One couple asked for 2 wraps each and some cakes as well. The waiter was in a difficult position, as they never like to say no, but I’d have been very tempted to send them in the direction of the buffet. As always, we watched the sail out from our balcony (uneventful - no whales or dolphins) until it was well past being dark (it’s still around 25 degrees at night). No pre dinner drinks and tonight we had our second booked visit to the Beach House. My wife had the steak on lava rock, which she really enjoyed. I didn’t enjoy my meal, but this was nothing to do with the food or the Beach House. My sore throat has affected my taste and I had an annoying tendency to keep coughing. We had contemplated sitting outside but it was still hot (25 degrees) and was too busy noisy for us, so we had opted to sit inside in the cooler restaurant. Thankfully we were the only diners in the whole section, so my coughing fits only got on my nerves and my wife’s, nobody else’s! The 10pm theatre show was male vocal group Unity. These singing acts do nothing for me and having been critical of others coughing all through shows I wasn’t going to be hypocritical and do the same myself, so I offered to take my wife and collect her at the end, but she declined. Again, no early night possible with the noise from the band that now plays on the pool deck until 10.45pm each evening. Tomorrow 🎵 “Ooh, we’re going to Barbados” 🎶

We were on a high speed solid hull catamaran

I think you aren’t supposed to go within 160 feet of them. I’m not a great judge of distance but would say we were a bit closer than that. In the clip you see the group of 3 preparing to dive and then two diving simultaneously with the third a few seconds later. We then moved to a sole one that was massive (it looked like a submarine 😂) so probably a male. There were scuba divers surrounding that one. I didn’t film it but caught a snap of the tail as it dived. You can just make out the head of a scuba diver for scale.

IMG_1361.mov

Todays MDR menus

Thanks. My research suggested that St Vincent was likely to be the worst place for a wheelchair. I’m doing a tour this morning so will assess the situation before subjecting my wife to it. I have a feeling that she might want to stay on the ship today

Day 30 - Thursday 1st February - Roseau, Dominica Well we’ve made it to day 30 and February. We have now been on Aurora for almost a week longer than we’ve ever been on a cruise before and still haven’t murdered each other (although with some of the towns that we’ve struggled around with the wheelchair, my wife may feel as though I’ve come close to killing her)! Another early alarm call preceded by another poor nights sleep, with my head cold not feeling as though it has passed it’s peak yet. There was no chance of getting to sleep early as, after many months (if not years?) they have managed to get the glass roof on the pool deck to open. This has been accompanied by a live band and ‘Music under the stars’ thumping out loud music until 10.45pm. I’ve no idea how popular this is on a ship of mostly retirees, but it’s not terribly welcome for those of us who, up until now, had enjoyed fairly quiet cabins and balconies. There were 3 ships in Dominica today and, quite rightly, Aurora secured pole position at the end of the pier in the middle of town. Mein Schiff 4, being a whopper, was relegated to the commercial port some way out and Seabourn Ovation dropped anchor and had to resort to tenders. I was booked on the 0830 Whale and Dolphin Exploration. Over the years we’ve seen loads of dolphins, pilot whales, beluga whales and some distant blows from sei whales, but I’ve always wanted to see some big whales up close. I walked to the tour boat, which was just a few hundred yards from where we were berthed. There were around 30 of us and we set off out to sea to look for whales. We first stopped around 6 miles out to sea and dropped a hydrophone to try to pick up a location. This indicated that we should move other 3 miles in a different direction which we did, but still no sign of anything. One of the young crew climbed on to the roof and shouted that there was activity a mile ahead, so off we went again. We had been travelling and searching for well over an hour at this stage. As we approached I could clearly see frequent ‘blows’ and then as we drew near there were three large Sperm Whales resting on the surface between feeding dives. We could see their backs and fins and frequent blows and then, after a few minutes, their backs arched, followed by their tales coming fully out of the water as they commenced their next deep sea dive looking for giant squid, which can last as long as 90 minutes. We were all delighted and then another, even larger, sperm whale was spotted nearby so we raced over to see that one. Much to my surprise, a small boat was by the whale with a number of people in the water with scuba gear on. You aren’t meant to go within 160 feet of them. Anyway, that one soon dived as well. We then commenced a high speed run back to Roseau, accompanied by a couple of brown boobies who were keeping up with our (approx) 30 knots effortlessly and were watching for the flying fish that we disturbed. Quite a sight and an amusing end to what was another bucket list item ticked off. We had lunch on the ship before I took my wife off the ship to look at Roseau. Other than the market stalls, this isn’t as commercialised (or as modern ) as many of the Caribbean ports so appears quite authentic. Put another way, very third world. Buildings in a very poor state of repair (and dubious construction) and dreadful infrastructure. As for ease of access with a wheelchair, forget it. We managed along the front but the rest of the town required wheeling my wife along the road with the cars. The pavements were poor and had very high kerbs but what made them impossible was the wide and steeply angled rain drains that ran along the sides of the road adjacent to the pavement. You couldn’t bridge all of that with a wheelchair. It was a scary and unpleasant experience for my wife so she couldn’t get back on the ship quickly enough! The heat was energy sapping but I wanted to see more of the place, so I dropped my wife back in the cabin and went straight off again. I wanted to see the botanical gardens and, in particular, the school bus that was crushed under the baobab tree in 2008 by hurricane David. It’s still there. Thankfully nobody had been killed when the tree crushed it. I weaved my way back to the ship with a good hour or so to spare before departure. As always we sat on our balcony for the sailaway and the noise from the band on deck 12 rather ruined the tranquil experience that it usually is. Thankfully it stopped after a while. Prior to dinner I glanced in the laundrette and it was surprisingly quiet, so I got a couple of loads of mostly underwear on which I managed to get into the driers just before we left for dinner. I’m still waiting on a repeat of the service laundry offer before I put a load of clothes their way. The first load that I’d paid £32 less loyalty discount for (10 items) came back beautifully cleaned and pressed, so I don't intend to be taking tons of washing home with me. Dinner in the MDR (which was fairly good) was followed by the 10pm Headliners show - New Romantics. As I know all these songs by heart, I could unfortunately spot every bit where they had either ‘cruiseified’ the original or hit bum notes. Far too many of both for me to say that I enjoyed it but it was high energy and the dancing was better than the singing. Tomorrow is St Vincent.

We are calling there next Tuesday on Aurora, so I can let you know. Not heard anything yet.

Todays dinner menu (apologies- missed the lunch one)