Tom's Cruise Blog

Well, we’re home with nothing left but memories. Oh, and a big credit card bill! – it would appear that we did not stint ourselves while on board….

We managed to swap our original disembarkation time to 8:45, the earliest slot. So we got up, after a not-very-good last night, at about 6:15, showered, had breakfast, packed up our hand baggage, and exited the cabin before 8 o’clock. There was time for one last cup of tea on the Terrace and then we found some seats in the Tamarind Club to sit and wait. It was just after 8:45 when the disembarkation team announced that all luggage had been transferred ashore, and passengers holding green disembarkation cards (which included us) were invited to make their way to the gangway on Deck 5; where we waited. And waited, and waited some more. It turned out that not all the luggage had made it ashore when they made the announcement, and in the end we were queuing for maybe 30 minutes or a bit more. So it was about 9:30 when we stepped ashore. It then took us about 10 minutes to locate our bags, but in recompense for that, collecting Val’s car keys from CPS and finding the car was very quick. In the end we were driving out of Dock Gate 4 at about 9:45 – a little bit later than we had hoped.

The journey home turned out to be hard, as well. We chose to go up the M40 to J15, then on the A46/A45/A46 to the end of the M69, but when we got to the A46/A45 junction it was closed – it appeared that there had been a pretty major accident on the sliproad, and there were a number of police cars, ambulances and several fire engines in attendance. The slip road onto the A45 was simply shut. We then proceeded to get very lost around Coventry, and I would guess that this added another 30 minutes onto the journey. In the end it was about 2:20 pm before we got home.

We were tired and a bit niggly and the next few hours were had work for both of us. I put it down to the traveling, but on Sunday I suddenly developed a massive cold. As I write this (Monday evening) I’m surrounded by boxes of tissues, waste paper bins to put used tissues in, and all the paraphernalia required by a suffering male. Note however that I have not used the ‘F’ word (‘Flu’); I know enough about my colds that I’m sure this will last just a few days. But trying to go back to work today has been very hard. Val, thankfully, has been OK so far. This is the second time I’ve come off Ventura with a cold – it happened in October 2008 as well. We think it’s probably because I work at home and never meet anyone; then I go on a big cruise liner with 3,000 other people, and I catch whatever is going around that my poor under-utilised immune system hasn’t encountered yet. (I bet Carol Marlow doesn’t get colds, what with all the thousands of people she meets on ships all the time…..)

Well, that’s it. Now we are looking forward to our Arcadia mini-cruise in September, and of course we will be saving hard for the 17 night cruise back on Ventura in late May 2011. Guess what – I expect I shall be blogging from it….

Read Full Post »

[Posted on 7 June, after I discovered that somehow this entry hadn’t been posted.]

We’re getting near the end of the cruise now – I’m writing this on the morning of the last full day aboard. It’s the second of two sea days after leaving Gibraltar before getting back to Southampton.

Yesterday was a mixed day: it was quite grey and overcast during the morning but brightened up through the afternoon. The wind was from the north and Ventura was steaming northwards, so the wind across the open decks was quite strong. However, there was quite a bit of shelter on the Terrace (a bit of swirl at the very aft edge, perhaps), and we found it very pleasant when we repaired to a spot there at about 3 o’clock. What with mugs of tea at the beginning, some sparkling mineral water, a move to a sun lounger by the Terrace pool for about an hour as it got brighter, then a move back to the Terrace Bar as it got even warmer, a beer, some wine, some more water, and a final cup of tea, we spent about four hours there out of the wind and in the sun; one of the pleasantest and most relaxing times we’ve had on the cruise. Unfortunately we had forgotten a vital precaution – because it was overcast before lunch we hadn’t bothered anointing ourselves with sun cream, and somehow we didn’t get round to it during the afternoon. As a result we looked like a pair of boiled lobsters when we went to dinner.

I haven’t mentioned the weather much in these posts. The first few days were quite pleasant, with quite a bit of sunshine though not very warm. Lisbon however was quite grey and cool – there may even have been a bit of rain that day. I don’t remember the sea day after that, but I recall Palma starting a bit overcast; however, Val reports that her excursion to Valdemossa was sunny and quite warm. The afternoon was pretty pleasant. It was sunny and warmer in Barcelona and Cannes, and quite hot at times in Florence and Rome. The sea day between Rome and Gibraltar was also good, and Gib was positively hot – temperature somewhere around 30 degrees ashore – although we did run into quite a bit of sea fog after leaving. Then yesterday morning was, as I’ve said, a bit grey but the afternoon was better. Today however is quite overcast and cool, as we pass through the Bay. All in all we haven’t been disappointed with the weather.

Back to yesterday. I ought to mention a few things we did. I went to another Tate Talk in the morning, on the Pre-Rapaelites. This was very well attended – I wouldn’t be surprised if there were almost 100 people there – and it was very interesting. Then we attended an ‘Audience with the Captain’ in the Arena theatre hosted by the cruise director.  The theatre was pretty full for that. Captain Burgess was very entertaining – he comes across as quite witty – and he regaled us with the history of his career and a few anecdotes. Anyone who’s cruised on Oceana or the previous Adonia may remember him – he was Staff Captain and then Captain on those ships during the large parts of the noughties. He only joined Ventura for the first time in May.

Then we went to and enjoyed the Curry Luncheon in East (£5 pp cover charge). This was excellent – scrummy food, well presented and not too much (although we didn’t have desserts). Val had Chicken Satay starter and another chicken main course; I had a beef kebab starter and a lamb & spinach (lamb saag) main course, and these were all delicious. Recommended, if you get the chance.

Back to today. We’ve been given our disembarkation cards (brown – 10:50am – which we were able to change to Green, 8:45) and we’ve started packing. It’s nearly over.

Read Full Post »

I mentioned in the last post that we were due to be joined for dinner by Carol Marlow, managing director of P&O, and this did indeed happen. She spends some time on each ship at regular intervals, to meet passengers, crew and officers and by chance joined Ventura during this cruise. She flew into Gibraltar earlier in the day and is sailing back to Southampton, so she’ll spend three nights and two full days on Ventura. She’ll be with a different group of passengers for each dinner, and our table was chosen, pretty much at random, for her first dinner. We were all very pleased.

The meal went well, and conversation flowed easily. She’s obviously done this sort of thing many times, and she introduced herself (‘Carol’) and quickly put us all at our ease. She also arranged for a couple of bottles of wine for us all, which was good of her and, I suspect, helped ease things; although I did see that she drank very little.

Conversation was very general – this wasn’t the occasion to attempt to cross-examine her on pernickety points. She asked us all about our previous cruising experience, of course, and about our future plans. She seemed interested when I mentioned our Solstice cruise, and our views of that ship, especially as compared with Ventura. It turns out that she has been on Solstice – she said that the main figures in the industry get to visit each others’ ships – so she knew the layout of Solstice. She’d asked if anyone had eaten in the speciality restaurants on board Ventura and I’d replied that we’d decided that we weren’t ‘fine diners’, after our less-than-satisfactory meal in Muranos. She said that she’d eaten there, and I got the feeling that she agreed with me about the ‘cast of thousands’ approach to service in the speciality restaurants on american ships.

She did ask if there was anything that we were unhappy about, and the general view was that the one thing that was upsetting people was the ‘sun lounger hog’ problem, which has been very visible this cruise. At 9 o’clock yesterday morning Val and I were having an after-breakfast cup of tea out on the Terrace Bar, and we counted twenty loungers already ‘reserved’ with towels and bags and all unoccupied. Jimmy and Anita have been especially bothered by this problem, as getting out onto the deck in Jimmy’s case (in the wheel chair) requires easy access, but so many of the loungers are a) reserved, b) empty, and c) positioned at odd angles, which causes them especial problems. Carol apologised for this, and there was a bit of a discussion as to what could be done about it. Our feeling was that the problem has to be addressed by the crew, perhaps with strong messages about it. Someone pointed out that in the theatre there are explicit statements that ‘the only way to reserve a seat is to sit in it!’; perhaps a similar message about loungers would a) reduce the problem, and b) allow the crew to remove towels, etc, without worrying about possible confrontations.

One other topic was raised, and that was that the overwhelming majority of passengers on cruises are white; there are very few passengers from either a Caribbean or asian ethnic background. This isn’t a Ventura or even a P&O issue, it’s general: even on Celebrity there are very few african-americans. Carol replied that she recognised the issue. although by chance as she had come aboard she had seen several non-white passengers. However, she also said that it had been an issue from her time with Cunard. One thing she had done during that time, after a comment by a passenger of Caribbean origin, was to get some pictures of non-white passengers into the brochure, so perhaps a similar approach will be taken for P&O.

All in all meeting her was a good experience. I was conscious that she was very much ‘at work’, and her manner was both sociable and business-like. It was a good experience.

Read Full Post »

Gibraltar today, for a very hot afternoon. We did an excursion – ‘Secrets of the Rock’, and enjoyed it. We did a cable car ride  to one of the peaks, a walk past the monkeys, a visit to St Michael’s Cave, then a visit to the tunnels dug for defence in the great four-year siege of Gibraltar. It was quite hard work – lots of walking around the nature reservation, the caves and tunnels, in the heat – but enjoyable. I have to say that I was pretty unimpressed by the monkeys. The guide thoroughly demonised them at the beginning the excursion, telling us all the dreadful things that could happen if we came within eyesight of one of them, but in the event they just looked somnolent and bored. Perhaps, like entrepreneurs in ports all over the world, they know there’s little point in bothering with British  cruise passengers – they’ve got no money and nothing worth stealing!

We should have a very unexpected guest at our dinner table this evening. Carol Marlow, managing director of P&O cruises, joined the ship today, and (quite by chance) our table has been picked as the place where she will dine tonight!

Read Full Post »

What a difference a few hours makes, at sea. It’s now just after 7pm, so it’s only twelve hours since we were crashing through heavy seas and strong winds. Right now however we are sailing through a flat calm with little wind except that caused by our own passage. At about 5 o’clock this afternoon the captain announced that, all being well, we should make our expected arrival at Gibraltar after all, so our excursion – ‘Secrets of the Rock’ – should be safe.

Earlier today we had a chat with the excursions desk about the embarrassing moments at the gold wholesalers in Florence. The more we think back to it, the stranger it seems; it’s obvious that the tour guide, or the tour company, must have had a arrangement with the wholesalers. It reminded me very much of ‘carpet demonstrations’ during calls at Kusadasi on eastern Med cruises with Celebrity. We didn’t enjoy it, and for us it spoiled the excursion a bit. (Val has just pointed out that the carpet demonstrations were mentioned in the excursion blurb whereas what happened in Florence was a surprise. But maybe we’re fragile flowers….)

One other thing I ought to mention, and that’s the internet connection speed. I took my MacBook Pro laptop and bought the 250 minute package, on the first day, and got an extra 20 minutes added. (This cost £62.50, plus an additional £2.50 set up charge.) Because we bought the full package we were given an ethernet cable so mostly I’ve been connecting through the ethernet socket behind the TV in the cabin. However, in the spirit of research I’ve also used the wi-fi connection down in the atrium, and I’m pleased to report that both connections have been very fast and robust. Of course, I’ve been preparing blog posts off-line and just connecting to post them, but it looks as if I shall have quite a bit of time left to use up on the last couple of sea days as we turn north into the Atlantic.

(Postscript – having written the above I was then unable to post the update because the internet connection dropped! Further attempts to connect, both later in the evening and early on Wednesday morning, suggest that the problem lies with their login server; it’s not bringing up the login page for connection to the internet.)

Read Full Post »

Today was Rome. We were doing our own thing in this port and the plan was to take the train up to Roma Termini and just walk around. We assumed that we would have to get a port shuttle to the dock gate. In the event that’s what we did, but it turned out that from where Ventura was berthed it was possible to walk to the harbour entrance (though it must have been about half-a-mile). This is what the day’s Horizon said about the shuttle service: “…there will be a limited complimentary shuttle bus service in operation for those passengers with limited mobility…… The port gate where this service terminates is just a 10 minute walk from Ventura and passengers are kindly requested to give priority to those with limited mobility for whom this service is intended.” So I took that as a strong hint that able-bodied passengers should at least consider walking, which surprised me as I had always thought that Civitavecchia port was one of those where passengers weren’t allowed to walk around. In the event, however, we had no trouble using the bus. There was a Disney ship in port, and I did notice that there were in fact two port shuttle buses in operation – one for Ventura and one for the Disney ship. They were labelled as such in the morning, though when we got back the labels read ‘All Ships’.

We got to Civitavecchia station at just before 9 o’clock, got two BIRG tickets for €9 each, and then found we’d just missed a train (08:57). The next train was advertised as being at 09:27, and indeed it arrived from Rome before that time (it terminated at Civitavecchia) but it didn’t depart until about 09:40. It must have made up some time because we were in Roma Termini at about 10:45. We used the excellent toilets there (€0.80 charge – small coins only), bought a map, and finally got out of the station area just after 11 o’clock. So it actually took us about two and a half hours from getting off the ship to getting out of Termini station. Next time we’re in Rome we may think about doing the ‘Rome on your own’ excursion, or perhaps taking a faster train – there was one at 09:13 or so, which got to Termini at about 10 o’clock. You can’t use the BIRG tickets on that train, but it would have given us an extra hour.

As for Rome itself, we mainly just walked around. We did visit one church, Santa Maria della Victoria, to see the Bernini sculpture of the Ecstasy of St Teresa, and to admire the whole baroque thing. Then we just walked and walked. We got to the top of the Spanish Steps, walked down them (and we still don’t understand the attraction, to be truthful), and then walked down Via Condotti. Here we were faced with the modern shopper’s dilemna: should one visit Gucci before Prada, or the other way round? And what about Dolce e Gabbana and Louis Vuitton? I was outlining this dilemna to Val when a lady in from of me gave me a glare, and I realised from her clothes and demeanour that she was probably someone for whom these were real choices….

We walked on, down via del Corso to the Victor Emmanuel monument, then on down to the river which we crossed into Trastavere where we found a little restaurant and had an enjoyable lunch. Then after that we just walked on to Trastavere station and got the train back to Civitavecchia. There was one thing missing from the day, however – we hadn’t had any gelatti. But we found a gelaterria artigianale – the sign of gelato excellence – right outside Civitavecchia station, so bought one each (pesca – peach – flavour) and ate them while sitting outside the gelatteria. Then we had just a gentle stroll to the dock gates, straight onto a shuttle bus, and we were back on the ship at about 5:45.

During yesterday evening the wind freshened considerably, and by the end of the evening the ship was moving about a lot. This continued overnight, getting significantly worse, and we had a considerably disturbed night. With 50 knot winds, and sea swells of around 4 metres, Ventura was definitely bouncing around, and on two occasions – at around 2am and again at 7am – she hit a wave at the wrong angle resulting each time in a considerable bang and loose objects in the cabins falling over. However, as the captain said this morning, he’s taken ships though much worse weather and the ship was never in any danger. This morning, however, all the deck level activities have been cancelled (the pools have all been drained, for example), and the sea-sickness bags have been placed on the stairwells and in the lifts. This may also affect our time of arrival at Gibraltar tomorrow.

Read Full Post »

Today was Florence, and we were booked on an all-day excursion, ‘Exclusive Florence’. Starting at 8:30 we drove to Florence in a small (25-seat) coach, arriving at the edge of the city around 9:45 or so. We had a busy program. It started with a visit to San Miniato al Monte, an 11th century basilica just to the south of the city; and then we moved on to Piazzale Michelangelo, again on the ‘wrong’ side of the river, but giving good views of the city across the river. Then we drove to the edge of the ancient city and got to walk into it across the Ponte Vecchio. Our first call in the city itself was at Palazzo Davanzati, which is a medieval building (not renaissance), and which gave an impression as to how Florentines (well, the richer sort) lived in the centuries before the Medicis arrived. After that came an odd interlude: we were taken to a gold wholesaler on the second floor of a building, with a retail premises inside their building. We had also been told that this was where we could use restrooms (i.e. toilets) even though the sharper-eyed among us had noticed some of these at Piazzale Michelangelo, and possibly also at Palazzo Davanzati. This was a strange and rather embarrassing few moments: we had no real interest in looking at or buying expensive gold jewellery (we saw at least one item priced at €1,400, or example) – everyone just wanted to use the loos and get on with our visit to Florence. So we made our apologies and scuttled out, and enjoyed about 25 minutes or so of free time. (Val has pointed out that many people may well have followed the ship’s advice and left their credit cards on the ship, so they wouldn’t have had the means to buy anyway.)

After we were collected it was time to visit the Uffizi Gallery. This turned out to be a bit long and labourious, even though the art we were looking at was stunning. It was also not helped by the fact that our guide obviously knew a great deal about the art, but had problems putting it into english. It was also very warm in the gallery. But the paintings were stunning – we were looking at many early renaissance works on religious themes, especially the Virgin and Child – and there’s no doubt it is sobering to look at a beautiful object and realise that it was created five or six hundred years ago. We even saw Botticello’s Venus. Unfortunately there was only time to glance very briefly at an exhibition of works by Caravaggio and painters like him. I’d have preferred more time for this; “too many Virgins”, I concluded….

By this time it was after 1:30 and we were all very ready for lunch, and this was indeed the next event on the schedule. We went to an upper-floor restaurant in a very good hotel near the Duomo to take this, and we had excellent views of the Duomo during what was an excellent mal. It took perhaps an hour, and then we were back on our feet for a walk alongside the Baptistry, Duomo and Campanile. We’d have liked to spend more time there exploring and possibly going into the Duomo but that wasn’t in the plan, so it was back into the little coach for our last stop of the day, Santa Croce. At the end of another talk that was rather hard to understand we had a little bit of free time, and we were able to find a gelateria artiginiale where we bought gelatos. Funny how it’s the physical pleasures that win out over higher matters! Then we were back on the coach at about 4:20, and arrived back at the quayside by 5:30 or just after.

All in all, while there were many things about the excursion that we enjoyed, we also felt frustrated about certain things. We would have been perfectly happy to finish the excursion near the Duomo – we didn’t feel that we learned anything extra from calling at Piazza Santa Croce, and there wasn’t anything especially interesting near by for the tiny bit of free time that we had. Whereas if we could have finished at the Duomo and had perhaps 45 minutes free time there, that would have been much more satisfying. And the visit to the gold wholesalers was simply embarrassing. Interestingly, this wasn’t in the published programme for this excursion.

Now for a couple of Livorno practicalities that might interest readers. First, there was no free shuttle bus. There was a shuttle bus into town, but there was a charge for it: €5 per person, for the day. So I suppose you could shuttle back and forwards a few times, all for €5. Then taxis: I counted what looked like about 25 taxis, of all sizes – some of them were mini-bus-size, in fact – parked at the end of the quay when we berthed. The 30 coaches that were being used for excursions were parked right alongside the ship, on the quayside, and there was a board on the quayside, roughly amidships, saying that that was where the shuttle bus would stop. However, because we were off the ship so early, and back just before ‘all aboard’, I didn’s see the shuttle bus in action nor do I know how people got on with the taxis.

Read Full Post »

Today we were at Cannes, and had a glorious day – sunny and warm but not too hot. Ventura anchored at about 8 o’clock and tendering started very shortly after that. We went ashore mid-morning; we walked around (mainly along La Croissete) for an hour or so before heading up into Le Suquet (Cannes old town) at midday where we found a street-side restaurant and had a delicious lunch with coffee. Then we headed back to the pier for our excursion to St Paul de Vence at 1:30.

We came away from that with mixed feelings. First, the drive there, along the riviera sea-front,  was a bit annoying – we just wanted to get to St Paul de Vence. Then when we arrived we were crocodiled into the villages, feeling useless and stupid – as Val said, “I feel like I’m being treated like someone who can’t be trusted to find their way around a French village”. But we were able to detach ourselves fairly quickly and just wandered around. The village is very pretty, there’s no doubt, but Val found herself thinking that the pretty bits of this village were in fact quite interchangeable with the pretty parts of Valdemossa that she visited a few days earlier – old buildings, narrow streets, and tourist shops. She was wondering how she’d be able to tell the photos apart in  a year or so. On reflection we think our that we would have had a better Cannes experience if we’d spent another hour (or two) at the restaurant and enjoyed more food and some wine (possibly a lot of wine), and then gone back to the ship, found a sunbed and slept it off. Certainly when we did get back at 6 o’clock we found a table at the Terrace Bar, drank water and then wine, and then spent a wonderful hour, in the sun, watching Cannes disappear behind us. That was possibly the best hour of the day.

Livorno tomorrow, where we have a deluxe excursion to Florence.

Read Full Post »