alicat58

The next few are on the central square. It was very busy there.

Lovely colours on the buildings.

Just one of many buildings on the square.

And some more.

Canal side pictures.

Idyllic spot.

Gorgeous setting.

6 photos.

Bruges is as you know in Belgium and they have a thing about beer. I am more of a wine person but will have one beer on a very hot day if I have walked a lot.

That is nothing!

OK, that is a lot of beer. No wine options.

I did not quite get the angle right on this. How can a beer be that alcoholic! They were all like that.

Lol.

Not beer but in the entrance of one of the beer places.

Should I say from the sublime to the ridiculous? Extremely alcoholic beer and alcohol free gin. What is wrong with these Belgians?

OK, so much or beer.

No entry would be complete without at least one church.

Stained glass windows are better with the big camera but I managed sort of here.

Amazing carvings on the monks benches.

We went into another church later but I will spare you more church photos.

Next entry all about beer.

Bruges

We have never been to Bruges before. I scoured CC for info about getting there and thought the only option would be paying €100 for a taxi for the two of us. I was apprehensive about the coach that runs between Zeebrugge and Bruges despite what some (Wansbrough included) said. In the end I decided we will go for that option. So you get of the ship, get on a bus that takes you the 200m to the gate. Daft! There was a Tui ship in port with us.

Once you get to the gate you turn right and about 200m along there was a little caravan that sold tickets. The tickets were €20 pp. The buses are NOT blue like the pictures on their site. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the drop off point which is close to Minnewater park. You walk along the canal to a pedestrian crossing and then turn left and cross into the park. It is a lovely walk through the park. They do give you a map with a walking guide. The map also has discount tickets on but we did not use them. We did not go on boat.

Bruges is absolutely beautiful.

In the park.

Somebodies house next to a canal (and thanks to Stefan telling me about the size he uses).

This is part of the monastery area. There is a sign up to ask people to be quiet.

Fountain.

Just along the canals.

This pretty place was part of a shop.

6 photos, more to come.

Hi Caryl

Hope the diner went well.

The piano man had a 70s hair cut. Longish and fluffy!

I had a look at the excursions to Honfleur and it looks as if it will be similar to our Bremen experience. They charge a fortune, make you sit on a very uncomfortable bus and it is about 45 minutes drive. I actually considered us renting a car because there is a rental place right in port. Depending on the price it might be a better option for you as the Le Havre day is a long port day because people go to Paris.

I stole some photos from hubby to give you an idea.

As you can see really pretty.

There is a church and the ceiling is like the wooden ribs of an old boat. I have mentioned Sarti. You can wander down towards the beach. There is also a nice park and of course all the restaurants. Not only around the area above but just behind as well.

We stayed in May 2014 in the Ibis Styles just around the corner. There is a large pay parking opposite the hotel should you decide on getting a car.

Use the OBC ad upgrade your drinks package :halo:.

Bruges up next.

Riana

Have fun and tell us how it went when you are back.

Riana

Hi Stefan

Really enjoying your review. May I ask which hosting site you use for your photos? I use Flickr(smugmug) and the medium photos are a bit small but the large ones are too big.

Don't worry, we don't play those games either. What was fun though was that they had either the DJ playing dance music or the latin guitar duo playing around sail away time. there was such a good buzz. We don't dance either but we loved the music and watching.

I cannot agree more about the excursions. We were a bit worried about taking a taxi in Colombo and took a tour. We spent most of the time on the bus driving past stuff. We did not even go to the places you had. The guide did not tell us much. He also took us on a totally unnecessary walk and showed us guava. We demanded they stopped at some of the places where they only wanted to do a drive by. It was a case of taking photos through the dirty bus windows.

We took taxis in all the other Indian ports and just negotiated. Our Goa experience was a bit of a nightmare. Our driver had to turn the aircon off to go up hill. He also ignored a road sign that clearly stated road closed just to get to guys working in the road where there was basically a massive sink hole or something. We were back on the boat around lunch time without other issues and had sufficient time at the churches in old Goa.

Riana

Amsterdam and then I am giving it a break till tomorrow.

So , the mayor of Amsterdam has a problem with tourists apparently and specially those on large cruise liners. The result is that the larger liners dock outside of the centre of town. My impression was that it is possible too dock centrally for ships the size of the Mediterannea.

The cruise terminal is basically a marquee. Costa had a shuttle to the station but not into town. I did not even look to see whether there was a change. We decided to get a taxi because there were so many. What we did not ask for was a price into town. Suffice to say that we were not impressed when the short trip cost us €70. He dropped us off in the vicinity of Dam square because we planned to go to the royal palace. Ii can tell you that hubby is still moaning about this and thinks Amsterdam is the worst place ever and not to be visited again. We have been for a long weekend years ago. I will just never see the Rijksmuseum .

Here are a few photos inside the palace. €10 pp entrance fee. You have to hand ruck sacks in.

Central hall once you go upstairs. All the rooms you are able to visit are on this level with just one small area on the ground level and a video you can watch if you really want to know stuff about the building and the royal family (I think).

Large sculpture with lots of detail. I think it might be Medusa at the bottom with the droopy bosom.

Might be Queen Juliana. Not sure. They have no idea how to light paintings.

Murals above the doors.

I guess Atlas.

We left the palace and wandered around a bit. Hubby was grumbling about everything. It's filthy, careful you'll tread in that vomit, who the H**l would want to sleep with that..... We had a beer and he continued moaning about how filthy everything was. The mutual decision was made to try and get an Uber back to the ship.

It was difficult for the chap to find the entrance to the drop off area because the post code did not take us there. You could see the ship but the entrance was not marked at all. He charged €17 even though he was driving up and down to find the entrance.

I think if we ever stopped off at Amsterdam I will need a plan B that does not take us into town.

I will try and finish things off tomorrow by telling you about Bruges. Let me say that there are lots of photos because it was gorgeous.

Riana

More Bremen:

Waterfountain statue. The woman in the fountain was trying to get her dog in to have a drink and the poor thing was petrified but very thirsty. Why she could not cup her hands and give it some water I do not know. Some people have issues with brain cells. Now I am going to post a further photos of this fountain because it is funny.

This poor beast has either bad hay fever or a streaming cold with stuff squirting out of its nose. Really?! I did not capture the water spouting out of their eyes.

Wow, look at the brick work.

A bit of bling for you. This is above the entrance to an area with what looked like lovely artisan shops. But thanks to Costa there was no opportunity to browse. Hubby was for once grateful to Costa. He is not keen on browsing.

There were two of these. This one says "Roetger(or hoetger) nacht" and the other one says Roetger tag. I could not find out what Roetger(or hoetger) means. Obviously something about night and day. Anybody who speaks German who can help out?

These statues are in the court yard of a hotel entrance. Goodness sakes, there must have been a boob man on the loose. Wonder why nobody bothered fiddling with the male statue.

Anyway, that was Bremen. I would suggest if there are other options that will get you back to the ship in time, take them. We were far too rushed. I am thinking a road trip to Bremen might be an option for us sometime. It looks to be a lovely place.

I nearly forgot. I did not get a photo because I did not have small change. There was a guy who had his very large tabby cat happily sitting on one of those old lady(sorry ladies) shopping trolley/cart things. Gorgeous animal but I was amazed that it looked so relaxed with all the people buzzing about. My boys would not cope with it at all.

Amsterdam next.

More Bremen. I tried to post the photos large but it was not working. I don't know how other people manage. Poor technically challenged me!

Monster outside the cathedral. I think he might be a griffin. There were all sort of weird ones.

Stained glass window. You can see this is a modern one.

Central altar.

This chap was at the end of the banister leading up to the central altar.

Looking back towards the rose window. Look at the patterns in the ceiling.

The pulpit.

Even though I have more of the inside of the building you must be cathedralled out so I will move on to something else next.

Bremerhaven: I looked at our options and decided that the Costa transfer might be the easiest because we were only there for half the day. The distances between the posts are so short I have no idea why it could not be a full day. We booked this upfront so unfortunately I cannot remember how much it cost.

I was reminded once again why we usually avoid doing these Costa "things". This was not an excursion and it was not a shuttle. The bus took us there and back. Now, you will note I called it a bus rather than a coach. It is exactly what it was. A municipal bus. We had to ask them to turn the aircon on because we were nearly dying in there. It was not possible to open the windows, so it was hot and stiffling. It took nearly an hour to get there and due to a traffic jam on the way back it was even longer. We all protested very loudly when they said we have an hour and a half to explore before we need to get back on the bus. It was not our fault that they were extremely disorganised leaving port and that we left at about 9.15 though we were all on the bus ages before. We had to meet in the theatre at 8.15!

In the end they gave us nearly 2 hours in Bremen. It still meant zooming about to see a bit of this beautiful place.

They dropped us off n front of a Radissons hotel which is nearly on the central square so that was at least good.

Oh yeah, you all know the story. I stood for quite a while before the statue was unadulterated by people posing or rubbing it. You can see the donkey has a very shiny nose.

They were setting up stalls all over this area around the town hall(I think) and main cathedral. There are a few squares linked together all around. It is very pretty.

It would have been good if that little tent thing was not in front of this chap.

More buildings on the square. Lots of outdoor restaurants all over the place.

Lots of flower stalls around the corner from the main square. Excellent prices and lovely stuff. Wished I could bring some home.

This was actually just off the main square as we were walking from the drop off point.

You are going to have to be patient with me because I have more photos.

Another entry to come.

Back again.

Hamburg. I don't have many interesting photos so I will just give you an idea about how we got about.

The cruise port is not in the city centre. You will find many taxis outside but from previous experience they are very expensive. We decided to take the Costa shuttle. It cost €10 pp and the distance is actually greater than in Le Havre where we paid €13 pp. The shuttle stops at the bus terminus which is right next to the Hauptbahnhof station. It runs regularly. I managed to get a map in the cruise terminal before getting on the bus.

We have been to Hamburg before when we did the repositioning cruise from the Med a few years ago. We also had a few post cruise days in the city. We planned to visit the Botanical gardens last time and never got round to it. This was all I had on my list for the day.

It was walkable from the busstop. Even for me. We spent an hour or so there. We did not know about or find the rose garden but hubbies hay fever kicked off very soon after entering so he was keen as mustard to get out. If you are into gardens it is definitely worth a visit. The glass houses are also free to visit.

It was a short walk from there to the main shopping area next to the Rathouse and inner Alster lake. We stopped for lunch and decided to walk back to the bus station. It is actually quite close to this area when you walk through the shopping district. We did not wait long for a bus and was back on the ship in next to no time.

I'll tell you a bit about Bremerhaven and going to Bremen next.

Riana.

Her I am.

Ok, so the next day was a sea day. Our usual plan for the sea days are to sit around and do next to nothing. Well, I read and hubby watches stuff on the laptop/iPad.

We had a different plan for this sea day. It was book another cruise for us and the engaged couple. No we are not paying! Future SinL has never cruised and is keen as mustard to try it. Daughter has cruised twice at age 11 and 15. She thinks we are boring to cruise and has different ideas about holidays. This plan was hatched when I decided that celebrating my big birthday in Provence will be a bad idea because I realised it was already European school holidays.

So off we went and there were already people queueing though opening time was only 10 am and both consultants were busy. We decided on the Magica for 2 reasons. The cheapest inside cabins and stopping at Palma. Hopefully our favourite restaurant won't be on holiday then.

We told the cruise consultant that we wanted to book 2 cabins but would like to get our Perla Diamante discounts. No problem she said, lots of people book one of the Perla Diamante members in one cabin each and the non-member with them. OK, we did not suggest it but this was our cunning plan anyway. She did say that when we are aboard and we swap over we need to inform them for safety purposes but then the two in "steerage" won't have access to the club restaurant. Hmmmm. Now please tell me people how do we overcome this issue and don't make any sarcastic remarks. Currently I am booked with future SinL and daughter with her dad. Mum and daughter still has the same surnames but there is a 35 yr age gap.

We made a provisional booking and then had to create a Whatsapp group to discuss whether we went ahead. We got a coffee , had a chat, they confirmed to go ahead and we went back to the cruise consultant. Massive queue now! We went ahead , paid the deposit and it was just about lunch time! We are still waiting for the kids to pay.

We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing.

A little about the weather and cruising in the North Sea. It was bright sunshine the whole day. Lots of people in the pools inside and outside. The sea was like a mill pond.

My impressions about the ship: We really liked it but it is quite an odd ship in many ways. Other people has mentioned lots of "wasted space". There are a lot of bars on this ship, more than you would expect for the size. We wandered around in the evenings and often there was no entertainment though the Diario Di Bordo stated something in all of them most of the time. The small theatre slightly below the theatre was mostly late to start entertainment with a result that we only saw the inside when we went for our safety drill. To our amazement the duo we thought was really hopeless(her in particular) was in the grandbar! There was a pianist in the atrium. He was behind the bar in the same position as on the Deliziosa and Luminosa. He was OK but extremely repetitive. He played the same routine night after night in the same order. We did not really manage to catch any of the others because they started too late for us.

I mentioned that we had an area on the side of the main restaurant on deck 2 for Perla diamante members. What was different was that they served appetisers while you looked at the menu. I was quite impressed with these. They varied every day and was served at lunch time as well. There was no cheese trolley for those who might be interested and the cheese was precut and not great. I have also mentioned that we were then moved to the club restaurant on "Amsterdam" day. It is on deck 10 and really nice except for the fact that it has a walk way around it with other passengers gawping at you as they stroll around. e ended up not eating in there many times.

Breakfast in the buffet. Well, how things have changed! Costa is back serving hot food in the buffet for breakfast. I did not try anything but saw bacon, scrambled eggs, potato pieces, pancakes etc. The cold buffet items are all still present. I did not look for the omelette station. We did not try any of the lunch time meals in the buffet and did not have any of the food from the grill this time.

We went to the pizza/burger place twice. It was busier than any ship we have been on and not only staff for a change. The Maitre'D is one of the guys who was a waiter in the club restaurant on the Luminosa end of last year. He recognised us before we recognised him. A bit embarassing. The pizzas and burgers are really good and we have no problem paying for these for the variety. I know people moan about having to pay for pizza on an Italian ship but these are way better than the pizza they used to serve in the "olden" days and made to order per person.

I'll get to Hamburg next.

Riana

Hi Everybody

Thank you for reading along.

Just a few comments and answers for the moment.

Tenpin: I am glad you are enjoying seeing that you missed going on this one. We are booked on the Magica for 29/9.

Wansbrough, I have updated from a Samsung S6 edge to a Samsung S9+. It is much larger than the previous phone but I chose it because it is supposed to have a good camera. The photos look really good on my large PC screen.

Maryann and Caryl: Honfleur is really pretty and worth visiting if you have not been. I would not take a Costa excursion though. We did not consider it because we actually stayed there for a few days on a land based trip a few years ago. The area around the harbour inlet is very picturesque with the buildings reflecting in the water and yachts sailing in and out. There are loads of restaurants in the area and just beyond. You can also visit the Sarti museum which is as odd as the man was. I love the music though. Daughter played some of the pieces for piano exams. When we stayed we also took a boat trip from there to the big bridge that crosses the Seine estuary( for the life of me cannot recall the name but been across it many times).

We have done many road trips to this area so stayed in Caen, Bayeaux and Honfleur. We also stayed at a hotel on Mont St Michel one night.The hotel was diabolical but it was the most amazing experience to be on the mount when the tide came in and all the birds came home to roost. It was also bitterly cold. I think it was February. We cooled our wine on the window sill outside.

I'll get back to my RV later.

Riana

Have a look on the Costa UK site. You'll see wich ones they are deploying on the exotic cruises. Interesting!

Riana

Hi Caryl

Thanks for your comments. It is quite difficult to post the photos on CC. I have not mastered posting them directly from my phone though some people do. They use Tapatalk I think. I have the app installed but I have not been able to post photos.

I put my photos on Flickr which I think might now smugmug. I used Photobucket in the past but they stopped their free access and wanted to charge something ridiculous. I only use these guys to put photos on CC. Its easy enough to save the photos to Flickr and then there is a little pathway how to add to CC. If you decide to try, let me know and I'll explain how. I am a bit of a technically challenged soul and it took me forever to figure it out. Every time I get back to it I have the same problem. Cannot understand why it cannot be easy like Faceb**k.

I cannot tell you how many threads I have lost on this infernal site. I know some people write it in word and then copy and paste but the punctuation and spacing comes out weird.

I'll get to chatting about our experiences on the ship. Lovely ship. We are booked on the Magica at the end of September.

Hopefully I will manage more on the weekend. I now have two pussy cats howling around me asking for their supper.

Riana

Le Havre part2.

The Cathedral. I have to say it is really impressive. The outside is so stark and block like and the inside is totally different to all the European cathedrals we have visited. Not as amazing as La grada familia but worth a visit.

Outside. Once again the sun in the wrong spot but it gives you an idea of the outside.

The front door area.

Inside looking up into the steeple.

At the entrance. I am not sure what it is used for but it had water in. You can get an idea of the size of the shell from the chairs on the other side. It was huge.

It is very big inside.

Not very many statues inside.

We decided to visit Muma after this. This gallery is supposed to have the most Impressionist paintings outside of Paris. Well, we got there and it was still closed. It only opened at 11 am.

We walked along the sea front here. The Mediterranea was docked just across the water. If it was possible, it would have been quicker to swim there. Even for me. We eventually went in and paid our €10 each. Their website said €7. To be brutally honest, don't bother. It is a very higgledy-piggledy place. There was one small Rodin sculpture. I think one small Monet and a gazzilion Boudin paintings. I think he was a local and his widow gave all his paintings to the gallery. There were a couple of nice Renoir paintings. Having recently visited the Tate Britain for no charge because we did not go to the special exhibitions(yes I know that is London), this was a jolly poor show.

We left the gallery and decided to walk along to an area where all the restaurants are supposed to be. ( I forgot to mention that I got a reasonably good map in the cruise terminal free of charge). It started raining. Fortunately it did not rain very hard. We popped into another very old cathedral. I won't bore you with photos. It was so pocked marked outside. Poor thing really suffered in the wars. It was actually gorgeous inside.

It rained even harder when we came out but we soldiered on. We found a restaurant and had......pizza and salad!

It stopped raining after lunch but we decided we exhausted what is easy to see on foot and headed back, got on the shuttle and the ship.

I did not take a photo of the container art in the harbour. I thought it was quite cute but hubby thought it was a waste of time and money.

I will leave you for now and probably get back on the weekend.

Riana

Day 2 Le Havre:

The Captain must have done a very slow sail across the channel overnight because it is really not that far.

Our plan was to get a taxi to the station and then a train to Rouen. I have been keeping an eye on the train schedules and had concerns about the rail strikes in France and did not pre-book. We had a look on line whilst still in Dover. There were very few trains running and we were concerned about not getting back to the ship. There was a Costa excursion which I decided against booking. It was one of those 2 hours there and 2 hours return and 30 minutes in Rouen type things at a ridiculous price.

So it was plan B.Have a wander around Le Havre. I read about the post war architecture and the Muma art gallery. There was of course a Costa shuttle. This dear friends cost €13 per person plus the service charge. Totally outrageous but hey-ho we paid it. The drop off is in a good spot. It is on the square just near the "Volcano" building.

Why they had to have those ugly metal things next to the best bit I have no idea.

I am very impressed with the camera on my new phone.

Across the street there is a monument. The sun was somewhat in the wrong spot but here goes.

Just across this area is an inlet where they were teaching kids to sail later the same morning.I don't know whether this was at some stage linked to the harbour area but it is now totally enclosed.

You can see what I mean by the sun being in the wrong spot.

We decided to walk to the concrete cathedral. I know it has another name and a famous architect but I am too lazy to look it up today. I'll post a few photos in the next entry.

Riana

Hi All

I was contemplating whether I should write a short review about this cruise or not. It is getting a little boring being virtually the only one writing reviews on this board. I thought I'd give a bit of information on the ports because I struggled to get much off CC this time. If anyone wants to ask questions about the ship I am happy to try and answer.

Dover: It is about 2 hours drive from home which made it much easier to get to on the day. Hubby organised some parking for the week using Tesco points. For our American friends who might not know about this, they are supermarket loyalty points. The place was called Relyon and about 10 minutes drive from the port. They have a shuttle to drop you off and collect you. It worked out really well.

It was so quiet in the port building that we managed to walk right past the desk to the entry of the ship just to be sent back! Our cases were collected outside as per the usual routine. We were on the ship in next to no time and went off to our cabin on deck 7 to collect our pink drinking tickets, Costa cards! We had a Mojito to start the holiday. It was 15h07.

We then decided to explore a bit and went outside to the back pool deck to have another Mojito. I fancied a snack and as it was tea time I got a few little buns from the buffet which was pretty empty.

We were a little disappointed that once again we were not allocated the club restaurant but had a separate section in the main dining room. It was slightly odd. The entrance was on the side and they had a curtain between the two rooms. It felt a little like been in business class on BA. No difference to the seats but you have a curtain to separate you from the lot in economy. The food was actually pretty good with quite a few new dishes. The Bruno menu was unchanged and a little boring. The desserts were lacking in my opinion. As before all the usual "pay for items" where included free of charge. In the club restaurant they only have the prawns and steak additional as free items. There were a few good servers but one guy did not endear himself to us. Asked for chips with the prawns to be told no you cannot have them. minutes later a table behind us received plates of chips. They were a large Italian group. Mmmm, he then came and apologised wanting to bring us some but we actually finished our meal by then. We were moved to the club restaurant on the day we were in Amsterdam. We ended up only going twice. Lovely servers and recognised the Maitre'D.

We went to the show that evening. I thought it was OK. Hubby did not. They had a rather large dance group and two singers.

The white cliffs.

Next up Le Havre.

Riana

George I am glad you are still young and able to manage to stay up for those parties :D. Just you wait, not so long and you'll be off to bed after supper as well.

Caryl, I wonder whether it is the same animation team we had on her when we were in the Far East in January. They also tried to get hubby on the dance floor. He calls it ritual humiliation of passengers. I have no idea why some people will do some of the things they are asked to. daft if you ask me.

Riana

Thanks Maryann

I am toying wit the idea of writing something about our recent cruise from Dover on the Mediterranea but got back home and basically started working(from home) the same day and not stopped since.

I might have a look later in the week and see how I feel.

Riana

Ps Thanks for the congratulations. The latest cruise did not help the diet!

There was a white night party on the Mediterranea 2weeks ago. They were selling tickets for it! We are usually in bed when these start so I don't know what you get if you pay. There was also a black and red night and the mask evening when they flog masks. The guy was a hopeless sales man. We sat close to the table and lots of people tried them but nobody bought one.

I have to say I ignore these themes and just get on with what I feel like doing. Getting old and lazy.

Riana

Hi Stefan

Great report and lovely photos.

Did you have lots of activities on the pool deck in the late afternoon? We had great fun when we did the India cruise on her last year.

Keep it coming.

Riana

Fair amount of Americans and Canadians on our current cruise on the Mediterranea. I think more getting on in Amsterdam today.

Alicat

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Loved that ship. We had a lovely Baleariac Islands cruise on her last year.

Nice to see you back Ron.

Riana

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