Lisashusband

Have just arrived home and can confirm that the captain made an announcement on Tuesday morning about increased cases of a gastrointestinal illness. Increased protocols were going to be observed from Tuesday morning onwards, cushions were removed from cabins, staff were serving in the buffet including sugar for tea. No butter or sugar on the table in the Epicurean,staff spraying the theatre after each show and an obvious presence of staff everywhere cleaning everything they could. Cabin stewards have been given an assistant this morning to help with the change over. I personally had it from Sunday night and even though I’m a fairly strong guy it utterly wiped me out until Tuesday when the captain made his announcement ( I smiled when I thought that now it’s fashionable I’ve already had it ! ) I was so grateful that my wife was able to help me off the bathroom floor throughout the night as after each bout of sickness I was as weak as a lamb. So yes it’s there and there are increased measures in place but I’m sure the crew will continue to do all they can to minimise the impact but at the same time the passengers have to do their bit too.

I have thoroughly enjoyed your vlog for the last couple of weeks but this last update we could definitely do without as we are about to leave for Southampton to join Ventura tomorrow. Needless to say we have everything crossed in the hope this weather passes through before we sail and if it doesn’t we have a supply of stugeron that would make a chemist blush 😊

They say a picture paints a thousand words so I hope this helps This was our superior deluxe on Azura earlier this year

I genuinely can’t speak for other airlines but we did that flight out to Azura twice with Jet2 the week before Christmas and it was 0630 out and 1230 back from Tenerife

I’m sorry I can’t The only thing I can recall with absolute certainty was the Argentinian Malbec was £28

Ahh well good news Selbourne yes you could pay the supplement to have the suggested wines in various ml sizes

We asked our cabin steward at the beginning of the week and we’ve had a full ice bucket in our fridge every day

This is 1 of the wine flights from the glass house

A wine flight is where you have 3 different glasses of wine ( in this case all the same colour ) for a set price. You will see the same thing in various pubs where you have 3 1/3 of a pint so that you get to experience different ales , in this case my wife has discovered that she like Chianti ! I will take a picture later and show you.

You can book various times exactly the same as booking the normal Epicurean. The epicurean here on Iona has large uninterrupted view windows running the entire length of the restaurant.

Ok it’s the morning after the night before.. The food was very good to be honest and well worth the £24 per head cover charge. Definitely qualifies as a taster menu as it jumps from chicken skin to lamb via trout with pickled beetroot somewhere between. The chef himself served some of the courses and spent a lot of time wandering around explaining exactly what it was that you were eating all this was accompanied by the absolutely stunning views of the fjord from Olden to the sea. Unfortunately there wasn’t a wine flight just a recommendation for each course so we just had a Malbec as I thought it would be the best accompaniment for the lamb. Just as a final note there is a pretty good wine flight in the glass house for £10.50 and that will be our drink of choice for this evening. I hope this was of help Selbourne and if there’s anything else I can help you with then please ask.

We are currently on Iona and we are booked tomorrow evening for this taster menu. I am certainly not very good at reviews but I will try to remember as much as possible and will report back. Have just docked in Stavanger and can report that it’s a beautiful sunny morning !

We came back from this cruise on Christmas Eve and can honestly say we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was 29 degrees on Gran Canaria and 26 in Tenerife, on Gran Canaria they were cutting the lawns and the smell of freshly cut grass combined with the sunshine made it difficult to comprehend that it was December especially as green thumb had just scarified my lawns the week before and left them looking like a battle field.