Ardennais

I thought that £18 was rather steep for York Minster last week. Having said that, we spent nearly two hours there. 

Just been reading about problems aboard Norwegian Dawn. Scary! 

We took a coach holiday to Scarborough last week. 4 very enjoyable nights there, and trips to Whitby, Goathland, Beverley and York. My expectations weren’t high as it was so cheap but fair play, it was fine. We also had afternoon tea at Bettys. 

How lovely! I’m really enjoying your posts. 

1 minute ago, zap99 said:

We book select and get CPS parking included. I can't be bothered with messing around to save a few quid.

We’ve always done that too, but we have a Princess cruise booked and P4C is around £100 cheaper. 

Just now, devonuk said:

There’s no security at all… if you’re happy go with it 👍

Well I don’t even lock my car at night, so that probably tells you that security isn’t something that I even consider. They’re all jam-packed there so I don’t know how somebody could actually get to the car in the first place! 

4 minutes ago, devonuk said:

They’re running out of room to park around Southampton but they won’t tell you where they’re going. This is where mine was parked last time in Totton which was moved several times in the fortnight I was away 😡👇

That wouldn’t bother me one bit! 

36 minutes ago, devonuk said:

I once used P4C as my go to for parking. Never again after mine and others recent experiences 😡

What happened?

I remember my husband and I standing on the our balcony as Ventura was leaving Southampton in January 2020. It was a Friday and I said something like “we’ll be back here in six Fridays”. It was a wonderful cruise and the 35 nights flew by - we had done a few 18 nighters before then. I would happily cruise to the Caribbean and back on Ventura again. 

Easter holidays in Wales begin on Friday 22 March - end of Spring term, not half term. 
 

Iona is a family friendly ship and rightly caters for children. I love seeing children around, but what I find annoying is the reduced service when at full capacity. Even worse, the passengers on these school holiday cruises have paid more. 

7 hours ago, Adawn47 said:

@Eglesbrech

I'd never heard of momento mori, so looked it up. Very interesting.

You're never too old to learn, every day is a school day.

Avril

Same here!

9 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

 

Apologies for the delayed report. No internet problems, just a self inflicted issue that will become apparent as you read the report 😳😂

Day 46 - Saturday 17th February - Roatan, Honduras, Central America

 

At first glance, it didn’t look as though there would be much to see when we berthed. The whole area (Mahogany Bay) seemed to be trees with a few scattered buildings, but no town as such. We could see a beach resort but assumed that this was a hotel. Going ashore we were to be pleasantly surprised!

 

The cruise pier was very wheelchair friendly as it was just smooth concrete. There were smartly dressed ‘security’ personnel in white uniforms who were very welcoming. At the end of the pier was a modern air conditioned shop (like an airport duty free shop) and then this lead out to a wide pedestrian slope up to a cruise village. The security staff were on hand, even with a wheelchair, to offer assistance to anyone who might need it. The cruise village was very large with lots of shops and a bar, all well spaced and nicely landscaped. Again, fully pedestrianised, very wheelchair friendly and all the buildings were air conditioned. 

 

From the cruise village there was a wide concrete path leading to a private beach resort called Mahogany Beach. It’s private in that it’s for the sole use of cruise ship passengers, but it’s free. Judging by the number of sun loungers it can accommodate thousands, but as we were the only ship in the Aurora passengers barely touched the sides. It was lovely and, yet again, very wheelchair friendly. I even managed to get my wife onto the beach! We had a wander around, walked down a jetty which looks back across the resort and then sat in a beach front bar with a rum punch. There was even a cable car between the cruise village and the resort for those who didn’t fancy the short walk! We returned to the ship having had a very enjoyable morning in a lovely place. 

 

No time for lunch because I was booked on a tour - Snapshot of Roatan. This was a bit of an odd one. We were crammed in to one of those awful minibuses that they use in the Caribbean and first we were taken to a not terribly impressive viewpoint. Then the next stop was Archie’s Iguana sanctuary. That was quite a place. Hundreds of the things in all shapes and sizes freely roaming around. They are only caged up to a few years old to protect them, but once released they hang around as they know they will be fed by the visitors. Quite an experience. There was also an enclosure on the waterfront with absolutely ginormous fish in it that the guide fed, along with an amusing pelican who knew that the odd bit of food may come his way as well!

 

From there we went to a beach resort where over the course of a few hours quite a variety of things occurred. After a welcome iced tea we were taken along to watch a traditional tribal dance by some locals, and then shown how two food items, one savoury one sweet, were made from yukka (or similar sounding name) and coconut. Next a short boat trip into a mangrove reserve and then around a shipwreck, which also afforded good views of Aurora. 

 

Dropped back at the resort we were then taken to the beach bar where the flamboyant bar tender explained the Coco-Loco cocktail and the buy one get a free refill offer. This was my undoing. I was chatting to a very nice chap who also adopted the ‘when in Rome’ philosophy and as we downed the first one it didn’t seem that strong. The second one was stronger and then my drinking buddy managed to get a third one free, so not to be outdone……

 

In all honesty the rest of the day was a bit of a blur and I shall not make that mistake again 😂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great photos! Sounds like a very enjoyable day.

Just now, Ardennais said:

I was tempted by that last year. How would you rate it?

I am referring to the ice cream afternoon tea of course!! 

14 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

I appreciated you not mentioning us by name until we got home.

We stayed in a hotel overnight on the way home so didn't get home till Sunday afternoon.

It was a lovely surprise when you said hello in Ripples where we had just eaten an ice cream afternoon tea.

I was tempted by that last year. How would you rate it?

@Interestedcruisefan is your best source of info. I think he did this cruise last year and he flew out to Barbados yesterday for the same cruise again. 
 

Hopefully he’ll post something soon! 

No, Iona was a 7 nighter, Northern Europe. 
 

February half-term 2025:

All of Wales:  Mon 24 Feb - Fri 28 Feb

Essex: Mon 17 Feb - Fri 21 Feb 

Durham: Mon 24 Feb - Fri 28 Feb

I’ve checked Essex and Durham as being representative of South/North as I know from experience that Northern England tends to have the same Feb half term as Wales. Scotland is another different story, as you probably know!

I presume your cruise is a 14 nighter, and in theory, children in state schools shouldn’t really be off school for a fortnight. The reality is however very different (and a bl…y nuisance for secondary school teachers as I well remember), and I imagine that a lot will take their children out of school for 14 days of educational experiences (sun) in February! 
 

Do you want to avoid children or just avoid a busy cruise? Iona Feb term last year was heaving! 

Can I ask, do the main cabin doors of accessible cabins open automatically? As I said, my mother found the door extremely heavy this time around (standard balcony), so I was wondering how some of you cope with when using mobility aids. 

My mother found the cabin doors extremely heavy - something that she hadn’t noticed before. 

For our Cunard cruise last month, my mother filled the questionnaire. She stated that she was talking a walking stick and foldable walker (in case of tiredness) but that she didn’t need assistance in an emergency. She was next door to us. 

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

Day 42 - Tuesday 13th February - Sea Day

 

After all the excitement of the previous day and our Panama Canal transit we were happy to have a quiet relaxing day, not doing very much at all other than reading. 

 

I am almost afraid that by saying this I might be tempting fate, but I finished the course of antibiotics last night and my throat seems to be a lot better (although my hunch is that the antibiotics might not be what has sorted it - probably more down to time). I can still feel a slight discomfort when I swallow, but it’s negligible. I still have a bit of a tickle but not the hard cough that so many on the ship have. Having taken tablets of various descriptions for well over a fortnight, I’m now just going to let my immune system do its stuff and hope for the best. 

 

Prior to going for breakfast I decided to sort out some washing. We are now 42 days into the cruise and the laundry offer that we had on our day in Bermuda (when it was too early to take advantage of it) has never been repeated since, so I’ve given up on it and put another bag of 10 items (mostly shirts and tops) in the service wash. This of course means that the laundry offer will now be in tonight’s Horizon 😂. I also sorted out 3 loads to do in the laundrette and managed to get two underway before we headed to breakfast. Unfortunately todays port talk was on too early at 9.30am so we missed it, which is two that we have now missed as yesterdays was on during the Panama Canal transit (can’t imagine that many went to that one). 

 

After breakfast I returned to the laundrette and found that someone had opened the door on one load and it was sat in dirty water. Infuriating, so I had to put it on a second time. I was able to transfer the successful load to a drier and get the third load on, but this meant that we’d have to miss todays talk by John Laverick - “Reliving the excitement of travel on the first P&O Cruise Liners”, which I’d wanted to see. I dare say it will be on the TV at some point, but you never know when and the picture and sound are both so bad it’s off putting. 

 

As this is a long cruise we had to do a muster today, but all this meant was getting our cruise cards scanned at Anderson’s, so took all of around 10 seconds. Returning to the laundrette to catch the end of my two loads, as they finished I realised that the problem I’d had earlier was due to a faulty machine, so once I’d taken out the successful third load I had to put the first load in a different machine for a third time 😡. Anyway, by lunchtime all 3 loads were washed, dried and put away (anything requiring ironing goes to the service wash - I am on holiday after all)!

 

We had lunch in the MDR and then a bit more reading prior to attending the second performance by the Aurora Vocalists (passenger choir). Not as good as the first performance but still an entertaining half hour. We then headed to Raffles for our afternoon cuppa and had a nice freebie strawberry meringue to accompany it. 

 

At 5pm there was the second performance by the Welsh baritone in the Playhouse. Neither of us enjoyed the first performance (even though my wife was drooling at the Italian stallion pianist) and, frankly, we both took a bit of a dislike to the singer (gut instinct) so we spared ourselves from round two. Shame really, as we don’t fancy tonight’s theatre show at all, so it’s turned into a bit of a dull day. However, the rest has probably done me good. 

 

We managed a pre dinner drink in the now cool Crows Nest, although there’s still a bit of a damp carpet whiff in there. MDR for dinner. I had the blue cheese panna cotta followed by spoon gammon shank. More canteen than restaurant but we were fed! For pud I had Crepes Suzette. Big mistake. A soggy crepe with tinned tangerine segments and not even a whiff of the claimed Grand Marnier in the ‘sauce’. 1/10. Thankfully I had predicted that it would be poor so asked for some Dulce Leches ice cream with it and that was lovely. Our assistant waiter is off sick with a sore throat. I hope that he didn’t get it from me although, mercifully, my wife still hasn't. 

 

As mentioned previously, the theatre act didn’t remotely appeal so back to the cabin to read prior to lights out. Tomorrow Costa Rica. 

 

 

I think you mentioned that the baritone is Jeremy Huw Williams. I’ve seen him perform several times and quite like him! He was once married to Manon Jenkins, Ffion Hague’s sister, and so was William Hague’s brother in law! 

Still free school milk for all Foundation Phase pupils in Wales (4-7 year olds) and the Tory opposition are actually pressing for it to be provided for older primary pupils too. Local primary schools have milk fridges to keep it cold. 

Welsh cakes are sweet. We make them on a griddle and eat them with butter or butter and jam. I don’t know anything about oatcakes but they appear savoury to me. 

Not Norway, but Hamburg last month - we had a toilet stop and it only took cash. The guide had to give some guests a few Euros. 

3 hours ago, laslomas said:

Not sure how this morphed into - dentists, but I will add my experience of this. I had been registered with an NHS dentist for 10 years. When I last called to make my regular appointment I was told the last NHS dentist (my dentist) had left the practice so the only choice was to book with a private one. I didn't. There are none available in my area now.

This happened to my daughter a few years ago. Luckily, she was able to find another NHS dentist, but I don’t think that would be possible now as it seems that the few NHS dentists around here are full.