Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[showingdiva]

1 hour ago, Dermotsgirl said:

Not the most inspiring menus today. 
 

seems heavy on the kale, too. 

 

Green bean chef's day off

[Eddie99]

Selbourne, you can tell by the misty-eyed recollections from anything up to 20 years ago that you and Lady S have memories to last you for ever.  The green beans and the early rough seas will fade from your minds but you’ll always remember the feeling that you needed to stand sideways and breathe in to help the ship squeeze through that tight space!

 

I hope you both enjoy your supper (menu looks ok to me) and that your throat is improving 

[Selbourne]

Just now, showingdiva said:

 

Green bean chef's day off

Sadly no. We have been on here long enough now to decipher the descriptions 

 

“Vegetables” = Green Beans

”Seasonal Vegetables” = Green beans

”Selection of Vegetables = Green beans of varying lengths 😂

Edited February 13 by Selbourne

[Selbourne]

Just now, Eddie99 said:

Selbourne, you can tell by the misty-eyed recollections from anything up to 20 years ago that you and Lady S have memories to last you for ever.  The green beans and the early rough seas will fade from your minds but you’ll always remember the feeling that you needed to stand sideways and breathe in to help the ship squeeze through that tight space!

 

I hope you both enjoy your supper (menu looks ok to me) and that your throat is improving 

Indeed. Definite highlight of the cruise so far. We have also got some other lasting memories, including our fabulous day in Miami Beach and Curacao, plus seeing the Sperm Whales off Dominica (although sadly my wife couldn’t be with me for that) and I’m sure we will have others before the cruise is finished.
 

As with almost every cruise we have ever been on, there are plenty of things that could have been a lot better, but these are outweighed by the positives. We are very fortunate to have undertaken this once in a lifetime trip and realise that most people can only dream of such things. 

[jh1809]

2 hours ago, zap99 said:

They seem to be getting a bit creative. If the MDR menus are similar on Arvia, I will be reasonably happy.

Yes, I'm with you rather than with Dermotsgirl.

[Selbourne]

 

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. 

 

 

Edited February 14 by Selbourne

[Ukulele girl]

Thank you for even managing to make doing the washing sound interesting! Hope Costa Rica is good for you both.

[Snow Hill]

11 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Sadly no. We have been on here long enough now to decipher the descriptions 

 

“Vegetables” = Green Beans

”Seasonal Vegetables” = Green beans

”Selection of Vegetables = Green beans of varying lengths 😂

My seed order came yesterday, two varieties of French Green Beans in the order, one dwarf and one climbing, was tempted to try the purple variety but decided against it. 

[elmsliebev]

On 2/13/2024 at 4:06 AM, Selbourne said:

Day 41 - Monday 12th February - Panama Canal (Partial Transit)

 

After our day in Colon we were already within sight of our next days destination - the Panama Canal. Presumably to save on port fees had we remained at the cruise terminal overnight (or even waited in the large estuary where all the other ships waiting to transit the canal wait), we headed out to sea. This was a great shame, as it was as rough as hell. Movement was considerable and disturbed our sleep. Just to illustrate how rough it was, I have taken to closing our balcony door but not locking it. Bizarrely, the door handle rattles when it’s locked but doesn’t otherwise. The lunging around was so great at one stage that our heavy balcony door flew completely open and then immediately swung closed with an almighty crash. Needless to say I had to get out of bed and lock it. I’m amazed that nothing fell off any shelves!  

 

It obviously calmed down, as we managed to get rocked back to sleep and woke to calmer waters as we were back in Colon. We then slowly passed under the Atlantic bridge (widest span of any bridge in Central or South America) and, accompanied by tugs, started lining up for our approach to the Panama Canal. 

 

Although only a partial transit, this was a major factor in booking this cruise. A World cruise (which you have to do in order to do a full transit - we can’t fly so a ‘sector’ isn’t possible) doesn’t remotely appeal to either of us, so this was a bucket list activity. 

 

Having visited the new canal locks yesterday and seen a cruise ship go through them, I was really hoping that we would transit through the original Gatun locks with the assistance of the electric ‘mule’ locomotives and, thankfully, I wasn’t  disappointed. I know that there are many who are happy to cruise in inside cabins, but we were so so glad that we had our own balcony to watch everything. 

 

Because we had booked a late Saver and only one accessible balcony cabin was available, we couldn't choose which side to be on. However, we have been lucky almost all cruise to have been on the port side (as we’ve had better outlooks in ports) but today we struck gold. We passed through the locks on the right hand channel which meant that the ships traversing the locks in the opposite direction were facing us. This meant that we could clearly see how the whole operation worked by watching the locks operate, the ships rise or drop and the clever mules busily doing their thing. 

 

Prior to entering the first lock I dashed up on to deck 13 and 14 to get some shots of us passing under the Atlantic bridge, passing the original (but aborted) French attempt at a Panama Canal, and forward facing photos of the locks ahead of us. The total rise is only 85 feet, but when you see a ship ahead of you in the highest lock it seems several times that! 

 

Once I’d done that we could see everything in comfort from our balcony. I’m pleased to say that it was every bit as interesting and thrilling as I had anticipated and will no doubt be the thing that I will remember most about this cruise (well, hopefully 😂 🤞). 

 

It’s such a clever operation and it’s amazing that it’s over 100 years old, as we were reminded with the ‘Gatun 1913’ inscription on the central building. There has been a comparative drought in Panama over the winter and water levels in Gatun Lake are still 5 feet below normal (hence all the exposed tree stumps that are usually submerged). In order to conserve water, in addition to water passing downwards between chambers, water is now diverted to the opposite direction chamber, so one ship falling helps the one opposite to rise. This makes the operation a little longer than usual. 

 

Two massive tankers passed us heading ‘down’ the locks (Makra and Vega Sea) as we were heading ‘up’. Apparently there was 2 ft clearance either side of us, but looking down from our balcony it looked more like 2 inches! There was quite a big bump and judder at one stage, but hopefully no damage was done!

 

We anticipated up to 90 minutes in Gatan Lake before our transit back down, but the Pilot said that we had to join the next convoy back down, so we basically turned around and headed straight back down! Coming the other way was another tanker and then, after that, a small cruise ship called Le Dumont D’urville which, because it didn’t fill the chamber, was accompanied by 3 small yachts following behind it. 

 

By 1.15pm, some 4 hours after we commenced our upward approach, we were back down at the level of the Atlantic, bucket list well and truly ticked. 

 

We had lunch in the MDR and then both had an afternoon siesta following all the excitement of the morning (and the disturbed nights sleep). It also doesn’t help that our cabin air con is rubbish - something I’ve had to admit defeat on, but would make me wary of booking Aurora for a warm weather cruise again. Having stirred from our slumbers we went for an afternoon brew in Raffles but we were too late for the cakes (probably just as well with Sindhu booked for later). 

 

For dinner we had booked Sindhu. One of 4  bookings for the restaurant that we had made pre cruise. Pre booking is beneficial as you get 20% discount, plus loyalty discount and the pre booking charge is then deducted from your final bill. However, it gets better in that because you’ve pre booked you also then get a further 20% discount off your final food bill which is then further subject to loyalty discount. It’s a great offer that P&O don’t really promote. 

 

As mentioned last time we went, I’m not a huge fan of Sindhu, least of all on Aurora,  but this was the best of the 3 meals we’ve had there so far this cruise. 

 

The 10pm theatre show was Headliners Destination Dance. I remember this from previous cruises as being quite poor, so I wasn’t too keen on going but my wife was. As is so often the case, the performance was slightly marred by the audience members with verbal diarrhoea who simply cannot watch any show without having the need to pass comment to their partner at frequent intervals, but two guys in particular drove us both mad. They stood at the side and just kept talking at full volume. A frosty stare from me failed to stop them and then, much to my amazement, my wife ‘shushed’ them, which I’ve never known her do before, so I then felt empowered to follow that with a less polite instruction for them to “shut up”. Thankfully they both left soon after. As for the show, top marks to the Headliners. This show is all about dancing and all cast members, including the singers, are required to do a lot of often quite complex and fast paced dancing (Riverdance etc). We both thought that they all did extremely well. 

 

Tomorrow is a sea day prior to us continuing our exploration of Central America with Costa Rica on Wednesday. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm so pleased you went through the old canal Selbourne. We were lucky enough to do a full transit in 2022 on Queen Elizabeth (Alaska to Miami) and it was a wonderful day. We spent all day on deck, including lunch and I found it fascinating. We then had an excellent rainforest tour in Costa Rica, and I achieved my aim of seeing a toucan! Thoroughly enjoying your review.  

[fragilek]

On 2/11/2024 at 8:56 PM, Selbourne said:

Our assistant waiter brings me a glass of hot water with lemon and a little pot of honey every night at the end of dinner. It’s not made a blind bit of difference (nor have all the other remedies I’ve tried - hanging up a wet towel at night, brandy etc) but I appreciate everyone’s thoughts!

I am a bit late with this help, sorry!  But the best thing for sore throat is fresh pineapple, there is an enzyme Bromelain which reduces pain and swelling (the enzyme is now used pre and post nasal and throat surgery in the EU).  Also the acidity "eats" into the throat tissue and kills bacteria. It is still my goto as soon as any of us get a hint of a sore throat.  I have tried just the juice, but for us, it is not nearly as effective as fresh pineapple (although several research papers claim it is).  There are lots of clinical trials on this enzyme and it shows positive results for many health issues - including blood clots TIA's and tumors at the moment there is a study underway looking at it's effect on COVID cell response.  I still read all this stuff even though I am retired (old habits and all that lol)

[Ardennais]

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! 

[Selbourne]

Todays MDR menus

[bbtablet]

11 hours ago, Snow Hill said:

My seed order came yesterday, two varieties of French Green Beans in the order, one dwarf and one climbing, was tempted to try the purple variety but decided against it. 

When you cook the purple ones they turn green anyway - it is a conspiracy!

[Goosebear Mum]

11 hours ago, Snow Hill said:

My seed order came yesterday, two varieties of French Green Beans in the order, one dwarf and one climbing, was tempted to try the purple variety but decided against it. 

Purple are great, so easy to see on the vines, and pick!  They don’t remain purple after cooking though, even steamed. 😂 

 

[Selbourne]

 

Day 43 - Wednesday 14th February - Puerto Limon, Costa Rico

 

The clocks had gone back another hour overnight, so we are now GMT-6. As a result I woke very early, prior to our arrival. As we approached Costa Rica it was raining, but very lightly. This had stopped by the time we berthed and we had a dry day. 

 

After breakfast in the MDR and collecting Britain Yesterday, we went up to deck 13 to survey the scene, but our view was blocked by Ruby Princess which was berthed alongside. As I was on a tour in the afternoon, we had planned to go ashore independently in the morning, so we sorted out sunscreen and bug spray before heading off the ship. 

 

It was only a very short walk off the pier but then we had to walk along a stretch of tarmac that was lined with dozens of people trying to sell tours, taxi trips etc etc. The cruise terminal here is effectively a large indoor market. As we don’t bother with crafts or souvenirs we hurried through that to get out into the town. We had to be let out through a metal gate and then past another (smaller) group of people selling tours etc. Thankfully I could see our first destination (Vargas Park) directly opposite. People that we had met on a previous cruise had told us to go there as you can see sloths up in the trees there. In all honesty we would have missed them had it not been for others pointing and a local with a laser pen showing people where they were. Sadly they were all asleep and being high up you could just see a dark mass, so a bit of an anti climax. 

 

Having finished in the park my next target was the ‘promenade’, as there is raised coral in the sea there that was thrown up by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake in 1991. As we were leaving the park I could hear someone calling after me but I kept walking and ignored them, as I figured it would be someone after money. As we reached the sea front the person calling me caught up with us and it was a chap in a motorised wheelchair. He spoke to my wife and put his hand out to shake her hand. She initially ignored him but then he said he worked for the local government and pointed to his uniform. He said welcome and put his hand out again, so she shook his hand and with that he went. Most odd. What was the point? It would have made sense if he’d said that he was there to advise people in wheelchairs and scooters how to get around, but he didn’t. 

 

It’s not really a promenade here, just a narrow path behind a wall and as far as wheelchair accessibility goes it was dreadful. High kerbs with wide rain gulleys that you cannot get across, very few dropped kerbs and the few they had were way too steep, big craters or ridges in the path and the usual thing where you get all the way to the end of a very long stretch only to find that there’s no dropped kerb, or an impassable section, so you have to completely re-trace your steps. The town itself is in all honesty quite a dump, with nothing of appeal in it. It was such hard work with the wheelchair we just decided to get back to the ship. We weren’t bothered by anyone, but there were a few rough sleepers (no doubt drug addicts - apparently it’s a major problem) and it just wasn’t a nice place. There aren’t many places where I feel a sense of relief to get back to the ship but this was one of them. 

 

Things improved with my afternoon tour - Train, Canal and Countryside. First we were loaded on to a full coach which had air conditioning that was only just a bit more efficient than on Aurora! The guide (David) was very good but the speaker volume was deafening. Anyway, he gave a lot of interesting detail about the Country before our first stop, the Tortuguero canal. We were loaded on to boats for a trip down this beautiful wildlife haven. Our guide would get an Oscar nomination for talking up what we saw though. First of all he said, multiple times, things like “Oh wow. This is the jackpot. This is incredible. This is box office”. Excitement was building as we all tried to focus on what he had spotted. Those on the other side were standing so as not to miss out. It got to the stage that  I was expecting at the very least a crocodile with an animal in its jaws or some other spectacle, but it turned out to be a small green iguana. The next big excitement was a tiger heron. It got better though. We saw a few sloths (again, just a dark mass in the tree), quite a few monkeys, some other iguanas, various birds, a few butterflies and it was really very pleasant. It reminded me of the Jungle Cruise ride in Disneyworld, but with real (albeit smaller) animals! 

 

Next we were driven through the countryside past absolutely enormous banana plantations to a train that used to be used for transporting bananas. There were a number of local kids there offering flowers (for money) and we boarded the supposedly ‘restored’ carriages but let’s say they wouldn’t pass the U.K. health and safety regulations. My open window was completely rotten and falling apart, with a large screw sticking out of it. All part of the charm though and it was good fun. Quite a long journey through the jungle and we stopped under some very vocal howler monkeys. The thing that struck me the most was the state of some of the shacks that people live in. Apparently they get a lot of immigrants from Nicaragua and they make their own temporary accommodation which they live in until they get a permanent contract on a banana plantation. At the end we were then taken back to the ship by coach. All in all an enjoyable excursion that I’d recommend. 

 

As neither of us had eaten anything since breakfast and we don’t have dinner until 8pm, at 5pm when I returned to the ship I fancied a sandwich and / or cake to tide me over. I’d forgotten that P&O have this ludicrous policy where you cannot get anything at all to eat anywhere on the ship at this time. We went to the coffee shop to get a drink and as all the food was gone I left my wife to order drinks and I headed up to the buffet. All closed 😡. I asked if I could get a sandwich anywhere but was told that I’d have to wait until dinner at 6pm. I explained that I didn’t want dinner I just wanted a snack and would really like it now and not in an hours time. Thankfully the chef exercised some rare common sense and opened a fridge and produced a small chicken roll. Good on him, but I really think this is a really bad policy of P&Os that does not address customer needs. If people have been out on a tour and not eaten since breakfast, yet don’t have dinner until late, there really should be at least one place on the ship where you can get just a snack. I feel that it is unacceptable that this isn’t the case.

 

Whilst my throat isn’t as painful as it was, it’s still not right and it gets severely aggravated by alcohol, so we didn’t bother with a pre dinner drink. In fact, this bad throat has saved me a fortune (and cost P&O quite a bit) as our total on board spend is running at only about £20 a day, and that’s including the service washes! We are hardly drinking any alcohol at all. I’m confident that I wouldn’t have had this throat problem at home, and we would have been spending far more than we are are on the ship, so the savings that we are unintentionally making are effectively reducing the cost of the cruise even further than the bargain price we got it for!

 

Dinner in the MDR was Valentine’s Day themed. We both had a duck pate en-croute that was very tasty. I had the lamb main which would have been poor had I not asked for extra veg, sauce and lashings of mint sauce. The stated ‘buttered mixed greens’ were (as I could have guessed) green beans. My wife had sea bass (which she enjoyed) with ‘sautéed green garden vegetables’. This was, of course……..green beans. 

 

The 10pm theatre show was vocalist Elias Hendricks second performance. He actually has a good voice and could, I’m sure, give a good performance, but we left his first show after 15 minutes as he was making it a karaoke event for the audience, which wasn’t what we’d gone to see, so not wishing to risk a repeat of the same we skipped it. Tomorrow is the first of two sea days as we slowly head to our next port, Roatan in Honduras on Saturday. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15 by Selbourne

[TigerB]

4 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

 

They may be dirt poor, but I bet they don't have green beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner.😉

[Peterson78]

3 hours ago, TigerB said:

 

They may be dirt poor, but I bet they don't have green beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner.😉

No….. just bananas 😁

[WestonOne]

Apart from some heart stickers, there doesn't seem to be anything special about the Valentine's day menu.

I didn't notice anything for  Burn's night either, though a video I saw from last year happened to include Burn's night where they piped in a haggis.

Edited February 15 by WestonOne

[happy v]

22 minutes ago, Peterson78 said:

No….. just bananas 😁

I was going to say monkeys 

[Selbourne]

Just now, WestonOne said:

Apart from some heart stickers, there doesn't seem to be anything special about the Valentine's day menu.

I didn't notice anything for  Burn's night either, though a video I saw from last year happened to include Burn's night where they piped in a haggis.

The starter that we had was different (duck terrine lattice) and we both had it and it was very good. Looked good and was tasty. The mains were nothing special at all - as often is the case they sound good on paper but the reality is somewhat different. There was a valentines chocolate lovers dessert. It was a heart shaped chocolate mouse cake with heart shaped chocolate pieces on top. It looked nice but tasted poor (a bit like 90% of the desserts IMO)

 

We did have a haggis starter for burns night and they piped the haggis in the previous night. I’m pretty sure that I mentioned that in the blog at the time. 

[Selbourne]

Just asked the shore excursions team for an update on the tender situation for our remaining ports. 
 

Belize and Grand Cayman remain as tender ports, as we had been told from the start. 
 

Thankfully we are berthing at all 3 of our ‘possible tender’ ports (Roatan, Cozumel and Ocho Rios - although the latter may be a different pier due to some damage caused a few weeks ago). 
 

For reasons that were not forthcoming, we are now tendering at Tortola. This was always advertised as somewhere we would berth and was never even shown as ‘possible tender’. 

 

Tender ports are always immensely frustrating as my wife can’t get off the ship, but to only have 3 tender ports out of 28 will be a very good result. 

[Dobbers]

Fond memories of Tortola, sat outside Pussers with a painkiller or two not realising how strong they were 🥳 Our second visit hubby made me go to the botanical gardens instead (he doesn’t like rum)

Shame you’re tendering, there must be another ship in.

[pete14]

3 hours ago, Selbourne said:

The starter that we had was different (duck terrine lattice) and we both had it and it was very good. Looked good and was tasty. The mains were nothing special at all - as often is the case they sound good on paper but the reality is somewhat different. There was a valentines chocolate lovers dessert. It was a heart shaped chocolate mouse cake with heart shaped chocolate pieces on top. It looked nice but tasted poor (a bit like 90% of the desserts IMO)

 

We did have a haggis starter for burns night and they piped the haggis in the previous night. I’m pretty sure that I mentioned that in the blog at the time. 

Chocolate mouse cake? I suppose that is one way of getting rid of them. Watch out for the ratatouille.

[Selbourne]

Todays MDR menus

[Red Ray]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Just asked the shore excursions team for an update on the tender situation for our remaining ports. 
 

Belize and Grand Cayman remain as tender ports, as we had been told from the start. 
 

Thankfully we are berthing at all 3 of our ‘possible tender’ ports (Roatan, Cozumel and Ocho Rios - although the latter may be a different pier due to some damage caused a few weeks ago). 
 

For reasons that were not forthcoming, we are now tendering at Tortola. This was always advertised as somewhere we would berth and was never even shown as ‘possible tender’. 

 

Tender ports are always immensely frustrating as my wife can’t get off the ship, but to only have 3 tender ports out of 28 will be a very good result. 

Lady S will miss nothing at all by not being able to disembark in Belize.