Izzywiz

20 hours ago, Grumpycruiser60plus said:

Canon..........But no Ball🤡

you have the canon and I have the balls!!!! 😁

Hahaha...wink, wink, nudge, nudge 🥴🥴🤫🤫🤩🤩🤩

Hi Indiana,

I have chuckled my way through all the postings on here but I have to admit that I laughed out loud at my own knocker picture when I found it while looking through my photos. The British sense of humour certainly cheers us up in these miserable times 😀and searching for appropriate pictures keeps the brain active!

The spice of life

 

 

Sea food.... and eat it

 

 

 

tequila sunrise

 

 

 

Bottoms up

 

 

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

 

 

and a nice pair of knockers

Hi Chris,

Have a look at P&O. They do fly cruises to the Caribbean. Gratuities are included in the cruise price where as US cruise lines add a daily charge to your onboard account of, on average, $15 per person per day. Drinks prices are roughly equivalent to UK pub prices when US prices are higher and an 18% service charge is added on top of the displayed price. There are drinks packages available too which may or may not be economically worth purchasing depending on what you expect to drink. A Caribbean cruise is port intensive so you will probably be off the ship for quite a few hours on most days.
Flights from UK airports are included in the price. You check your luggage in at the UK airport and then it is bonded in Barbados so the next time you see your cases is in your cabin. You are taken straight from the plane to your transport to the ship so don't have to go through immigration which makes the whole process very easy.

At the end of your cruise you can stay on board the ship until your included transport returns you to the airport. Your cases are collected on the ship and you reclaim them once back in the UK.

You can be as formal or informal as you like on the ships because there are plenty of dining options but 'formal nights' are observed more than on most US ships. A dinner suit, lounge suit or shirt and jacket are expected in the main dining rooms on those nights but a shirt and long trousers are fine on the other nights. The buffet is informal. For ladies, anything from a long dress and jewels to a smart top and trousers is acceptable.

The cruise package is usually 14 nights and often includes destinations in the eastern and western Caribbean. My personal opinion is that this type of package gives a good insight into cruising and cuts out the possible problems involved with flying out to Florida and getting on a ship from there. We have done that several times but always add on a few days pre and post cruise.....just in case!

Catch of the day

 

 

and match of the day

 

 

 

I just hope that true love doesn't end up as a heart of stone 

 

What a way to start the morning.....such brilliant pictures and captions! I read a lot of the other cruise line forum and there are no threads like these that are on the P&O site. It just confirms my belief that no-one has such a great sense of humour and irony as the British. 

here are a couple more....

Spot the ball

 

 

On the ball

 

I'm a lumberjack and I'm alright

 

it's enough to make you cry

 

Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon

 

 

or join me for Boogie Nights

 

 

A long and winding road...

 

 

 

and I can see clearly now the rain has gone

 

 

Getting my 5-a-day

and loos with views

Loo

 

View

Loo

View

3 hours ago, kalos said:

 

                       

 

Glad you like it Izzy  your photo could have been ..           One Man And His Dog  

 

Lot's of lovely photos to come I'm sure 

 

Hahaha....a much better caption than mine and yes, my brain is working overtime. This thread could run and run. I love it 😍

"Can you hear me mother?"

 

"There, there, darling, Mummy's here"

 

Follow the leader

 

Scratch that itch....oooooo the relief!

 

Gee up, Neddy

 

Big Ears

Fabulous theme Kalos and a great start. I've chuckled at all of them.

His new best friend

Ours was Cairns, Australia,  to Colombo, Sri Lanka on Fred Olsen's Boudicca. We flew out to Cairns on New Year's Eve 2019 and spent a week in Cairns before the 4 week cruise. We arrived back in the UK on February 7th. Since then we have had 5 cruises and a land tour cancelled but, as Indiana reminded me to count our blessings which are many. We are fit and healthy for our age, have a warm home and food plus family and friends that we video conference regularly but most importantly....we have each other. We also have these cruise critic posts which are helping to keep boredom at bay and inspire us to look forward to better times.....soppy or what!😷😁

The driving force for our choice of cruise has always been the destinations first, price second and cruise line third which explains why we have sailed with 18 different lines over the years and had the opportunity to visit over 100 countries. We do land tours as well....Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (unbelievably fabulous) being the last one but that is another story.

We are retired and are making the best of our last years by following out passions, places for me and birds for my DH.

 

I was very reluctant to try a Fred Olsen cruise for a long time, believing that the product would be inferior but we saw a half term cruise (I was a teacher so always had to travel in school holidays at hugely inflated prices) on Balmoral which had 2 ports that were new to us and at a very reasonable price. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food and the efficiency of the staff and so I kept an eye on their itineraries after that and found amazing and unusual places to visit. We came to love the small ships that can get into the less visited ports and that is why we enjoyed the old Royal Princess which became Adonia (4 cruises) and Ocean Princess, Oceania Marina, Oriana and the Fred Olsen ships. We have sailed on the huge ships if the itinerary has been interesting,,,..Emerald Princess to French Polynesia and Explorer of the Seas on a Trans-Pacific cruise plus a few others over the years. Unfortunately, we don't cruise with P&O very often because their itineraries don't really offer us the new destinations that we look for. The one downfall that we have found with FO is the set dining times and it appears that there will be an open dining option on their new ships and another plus is the amount of extra space per passenger. The fact that FO ships also sail from Liverpool, our nearest port, and Newcastle make it an attractive option for us.

 

Anyway, enough of my travelling history. It will be wonderful to get back to some form of cruising eventually. The fjords are stunning whether you go in summer or winter or both. 

Hi Ann, what a shame that your cruise was cut short but, hopefully, you may be able to do this itinerary one day. It is such a different experience from warm weather cruising but so rewarding. 
stay safe and best wishes
Isabel

Thank you Graham. A bit of a mutual admiration society here as I have enjoyed all your contributions as well as those of the other posters. I’m not sure what to do now but am looking forward to what Kalos has in store. In the meantime, I shall continue trying to reorganise all the pictures that I have on the computer.

Stay safe and positive fellow CCers

Isabel

My final posting has some tenuous Ys and some real Zs....

The Ys show our trip on the Yangtze River on President 1

 

 

 

 

and my final Zs show Boudicca arriving in Zanzibar

 

and members of a local Zanzibarian entertainment group that performed on the ship

 

I thought this young lady was stunning...

 

I'm really sorry that this thread is coming to an end as it, and the 2 previous threads,  have helped so much to keep boredom at bay and it has also made me start to reorganise all our photographs to enable us to find things more easily.

As I keep saying, I love all the contributions people make and admire the ingenuity it takes to find items that are appropriate so thank you all for brightening these unusual times.

i have some Xmas/Yuletide pictures to add...

Splendour

 

 

The only time that we have cruised over Xmas/Yuletide (hahaha) was on Royal Princess and we took some decorations for our cabin..

 

Father Xmas visited..

 

 

and we had Xmas dinner on December 25th. It was quite a surprise to find Xmas crackers on all the tables as they are virtually unknown in the US. There was a card explaining what to do with the crackers and, of course, the Brits pulled them with glee and most of us wore our party hats for the rest of the meal. The passengers of other nationalities watched in puzzled amazement at these odd looking Brits but we had fun....

I'm glad you enjoyed reading the diary. I certainly enjoyed posting it as it brought back so many happy memories. If we weren’t so old and if there wasn’t still a lot of the world to see and experience, I would do this cruise again in a heartbeat and would hopefully get some better pictures of the lights.

Please don’t hesitate to ask if I can help in any other way. We love travelling and cruising is a great way to see places. This pandemic has just confirmed my belief that I should do and experience as much as possible and not to put things off until later.

🚉✈️🛳🚁🏖🏔🚠🚐🏯🕌⛪️🏘

Saturday 4th March 2017

Stavanger - 09.00 - 17.00

A.M. Overcast and slightly less cold than previously 

P.M. As above

Sea conditions - moderate swell

Weather through the night- a force 11 gale with winds gusting to 80mph. Very rough seas.......but we survived!

 

We left the ship at 09.30 and walked along to the park before returning to the quayside to join our boat excursion.

When we returned from the boat trip we had a Starbucks (much more expensive than at home) before Jim went off birding and I had a walk around some of the shopping streets and then up into the lovely, whitewashed housing area.

Stavanger.

·         Stavanger is a sea port.

·         Oriana docked right in the centre of town on the 'old side' of the harbour where the lovely village area with the white clapboard houses are situated.

·         There is a tourist information office directly at the exit from the quay.

·         There are plenty of shops, the cathedral, a small park, cafes and museums within a short walk from the ship.

 

 

 

  The Old town

 

 

 

Our ships tour was 'Lysefjord and the Pulpit Rock' -11.00 to 13.30

·         We met on the pier just by the Tourist information Centre.

·         The meeting time was 10.55 but the tour boat arrived at 10.45.

·         The boat was spacious and modern with comfortable seating and large picture windows.

·         There were clean toilet facilities.

·         There was a standing area for viewing on the upper deck.

·         There was a limited commentary in English.

·         The scenery was spectacular......towering cliffs, snow-capped mountains, tiny villages, raging waterfalls and stark tree lined hillsides. 

·         There was a 25 minute stop at a Fjord side café where there were copious amounts of waffles, cream , jam and coffee which were included in the tour

·         There was a small shop selling postcards and other small souvenirs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday 6th March 2017

Southampton to home.

A.M. Overcast with drizzle but brightening up later.

Sea conditions - almost very bumpy through the night.

The clock went back 1 hour.

 We had to vacate the cabin at 08.00 and were allocated the Peninsular Restaurant as our waiting area but sat in the lounge area on deck 8 instead and walked off at 9.45. The ship was a little late arriving into Southampton so all departures were delayed for 30 minutes.

We found our luggage quickly and after a short walk to the car park we were in the car and driving off at 10.15.

 A great holiday!

Brought/forgotten - used/not used.

Forgotten but needed

Highlighter pens

Polo shirts

Casual, thin day wear for around the ship

 

Brought and used.

Thermal vests, long johns, socks.

Water/wind proof jacket

Fleeces to layer

Scarf

Neck warmer

Thick hat with ear protectors 

Thermal gloves

Silk glove liners

Camera tripod

Fur lined snow/waterproof boots

Crutch/walking stick ice spike

Hand/foot warmer gel pouches

torches

Brought but not used

Ski goggles

Crampon studs

General Information

The captain will make an announcement when the lights appear over the PA system in public areas and on channel 1 on the cabin TV. 

The advice was to leave the TV on through the night with the volume turned up if you wanted to hear the call.

 The ship is warm inside so have appropriate clothing for that too. We had concentrated so much on Arctic weather clothes that I didn't pack much indoor wear!

 

 

Wednesday 1st March 2017

Alta all day. We depart at 03.00 tomorrow morning.

A.M. Sunny, clear skies and extremely cold.

P.M. As above....-8*C but, fortunately no wind.

Night time. Intermittent cloud, snow showers and -16*c on deck

 

We woke up just after 08.00 as we had had a late night. Once we had eaten breakfast, Jim went off fishing from the jetty (he had brought his ‘travel fishing equipment with him) and I spent some time catching up on the diary entries.

We met for lunch and then headed into town on the shuttle bus for an hour just to get out for a while. We had an ice cream each in the shopping mall and then came back.

We had just got in bed when the Captain made the announcement that the Lights were visible so, after a mad scramble to get into warm clothes, we dashed up to deck 13 where we got a good view of them but no photos because Jim's camera wouldn't respond........oh well - that's life!

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 2nd March 2017

At sea

A.M. Cold with a mixture of sunshine and cloud

P.M. As above.

Sea conditions – smooth with a light swell.

 

We did see the NLs again at about midnight!

Tuesday 28th February 2017

Tromso to Alta with scenic cruising

Arrival in Alta at 13.30

A.M. Very cold, sunny and clear until mid-morning and then increasingly cloudy 

P.M. The mist dropped as we neared Alta and there was a heavy snow shower before the sun came out in short bursts. -3*C without the wind chill.

 

We were up early again to see the sunrise and then had a leisurely morning enjoying the spectacular snow covered mountain scenery as we headed into the Star Fjord.

 

 

A pod of Orcas

 

After a light lunch in Al Fresco we watched the sail-in, got dressed in the 'Arctic gear' and caught the shuttle bus into the town. Sadly, there wasn't much to see so we spent about an hour in the shopping mall before getting the shuttle bus back to the ship.

Alta.

·         The ship docks at an industrial pier on the outskirts of the town.

·         The town is small and 'modern' with 60s style architecture.

·         There is a regular free shuttle service from just by the ship to the town square.

·         It is a 15-minute journey and a 5km walk.

·         There is very little to see in the town except for the tourist information centre by the bus drop-off point and the shopping mall which is opposite the bus park.

·         The shopping mall has a food court, a variety of shops and a supermarket. I thought prices were very high.

 

 

 

 

 

We had a snooze in the afternoon because we knew that it was going to be a late night and then went to the Northern Lights shore excursion presentation before having a buffet dinner. 

 

We got changed into our really heavy gear and headed to the Crichton Lounge for our 21.00 meeting time.

It was an interesting excursion but I was glad that there was the choice to get the coach back and I was back on board just after midnight having not seen the lights. Jim got in at 01.00 and he had seen them and got a couple of pictures so he was fairly happy.

 

 ‘In search of the Northern Lights' - ship's excursion - 4 hours.

·         I booked this as soon as the tours became available on line so I got the day and time of my choice (day 1, 21.30 departure).

·         I did look at independent tours but, although they offer more flexibility, I found the price to be even higher than the ship's excursion and, as I am on a budget, I chose the less expensive option.

·         Each day's groups had the option to attend a 30-minute special presentation given by the local expert on the day of departure. This was excellent as he explained the cause of the phenomenon and how it is tracked.

·         He also explained which of the 3 possible viewing sights we would be taken to (2 are 50km from the ship and the other is a 15-minute drive) and what would happen once there.

·         There are:

·         toilet facilities 

·         Hot chocolate and cake.

·         10 guides who will help with photography and other queries.

·         Places to be warm

·         Transport back to the ship on request if you want to return early.

The Solvang site.

We were taken to the Solvang site which is the 10-minute drive from the ship.

It was interesting to see into people's houses as they don't draw their curtains and have the rooms brightly lighted. The homes seemed cosy, spacious and modern with good quality furnishings and kitchens.

 

Once at the site we were led along pathways to a large field where people spread out to find a suitable space.

We passed a building where the toilets were situated and a rest area where there was a tepee and 2 camp fires.

No mention was made of the availability of refreshments.

Important.

·         It was extremely cold (-10*C and no wind chill factor.....thank goodness ) so it is important to have the correct clothing.

·         There was very little seating so people were standing for hours.

·         I took a fold-up camping chair which was invaluable and envied by many!

·         You need a long exposure time on your camera (between 10 and 20 seconds is recommended) so a tripod is vital for getting clear pictures.

·         We had hand warmer gel packs which also proved invaluable as the night wore on.

·         The lights are a natural phenomenon and viewings can't be guaranteed. It was cloudy when we got there and I left after 90 minutes without seeing them but my DH saw them after a 2.5 hour wait.

·         The lights appear as a fuzzy, ethereal gas cloud. Photographs enable you to see the intensity of the colour.

·         The ship offers tours that begin at various times through the evening. We chose the 21.30 departure but there were earlier and later options.

·         There were a lot of people from the ship at the site but also from other tour companies.

·         We didn't need a torch and we were requested not to use anything with a bright light while in the viewing field.

·         Coaches returned to the ship at regular intervals once they were full.

 

 

 

 

Monday 27th February 2017

Tromso - 08.00 to 03.00 the following morning

A.M. Very cold with long, sunny periods and no wind. Temp was -3*C.

P.M. As above until about 15.30 when the wind got up and then the temperature dropped noticeably.

 We had left the TV on overnight in case there was an announcement of a 'lights' sighting but no luck yet.

 

The alarm went off at 06.00 and, after a bit of a struggle to put on all the thermal clothes, we made it out on deck for 06.45 where we were able to enjoy the snow-covered fjord sides and the little villages as we headed towards the dock in Tromso.

 

We had breakfast and went out on deck again to see the ship pulling up to its berth before heading down to the cabin to await the call to disembark.

The free shuttle busses were right by the ship and we were on one of the first busses and were dropped off in the town centre at 08.45.

We wandered around for a while and took a lot of photos. I found it quite hard to walk as some places were completely clear and others were covered in thick snow or ice. I was ready to come back and we got the 10.45 shuttle so that I had time for lunch before my tour departed/.

 

Tromso.

·         The 'sail-in' is pretty but not as dramatic as some as the fjord is wider and the mountains are lower.

·         The dock area is industrial.

·         There are free shuttle busses into town that ran at 20 minute intervals until 23.00.

·         The journey is 10-15 minutes.

·         It is walkable but the pavements were very icy.

·         The Arctic Cathedral is on the other side of the fjord so, to walk, would mean going into town and then across the bridge.

·         The cable car is close to the Arctic Cathedral but I'm not sure if that is walkable too.

·         The town centre is relatively small with a variety of shops, cafes, supermarkets, picturesque buildings, open spaces and the harbour area.

·         Prices are high compared to the UK. It was £1 to use the toilet in the small shopping mall!

 

 

 

 

 

 

My tour was Discover Tromso.      13.00-16.00

·         The tour group met in the car park at 12.45 for a 13.00 departure. Our coach was late departing because we were waiting for 1 passenger. The guide and the P&O rep consulted and decided that our tour should leave at 13.15.

·         The guide explained some of the history of the area as we drove up the hill and around the back of the city and through some pleasant suburbs.

·         Our first stop was for 15 minutes at the Arctic Cathedral. We were lucky because, with there being sunshine, the huge stained glass window glowed and was very impressive.

·         We were then taken back across the bridge and driven through the town centre before travelling along the shore line to the museum. We had 45 minutes there to explore. There were a lot of interesting exhibits relating to the Sami People and Arctic exploration.

·         There was a shop, toilets and a café.

·         From there, the drive took us through more suburbs to the Planetarium where we had a show about the Northern Lights. That was our last stop so the coach took us back to the ship. We arrived just after 16.00.

·         It was a nice excursion and I'm glad that we were taken over the bridge and through the suburban areas as it gave a good oversight into the way local people cope with the extremes of the climate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband did the husky sledging tour on his own because he is more mobile than me and could sit comfortably on the low sledge.

Husky sledging. 16.30 -20.00

The bus left the port terminus at 16.30 and took about thirty minutes to reach the Tromso Wildlife Centre. The journey was during sunset and the views were quite dramatic. The centre was out in the country side and we were originally taken into a large wooden building for coffee/tea, cake and to meet our guide. This building was comfortable with tables, chairs, fire pit, toilets and a small shopping area. The guide was excellent and explained everything about the dogs' working life whilst we walked around the site visiting the kennels, breeding area and sleight boarding area. All of the dogs were very friendly and people were allowed to cuddle the puppies. I was on a sleigh by myself with the driver.  The ride took about thirty-five minutes over undulating ground and at times you could see the lights of Tromso in the distance. The ride out in the deep snow was a wonderful, although bouncy, experience.  We got back to the ship at 20.00.