The Adventures of Podge & Tubbs

This is the final post of our 6-week cruise. It consisted of 2-back to back cruises around the Caribbean. This was followed by a 2-week TransAtlantic relocation cruise ending in Southampton. This last 2-week cruise is actually our 8th time being on the Britannia and, we have 8 more cruises booked on her: That kind of suggests that Podge and Tubbs just love the ship. In fact, finances permitting, we would live on the #Britannia though that little thing called money prevents that. 🥹

We rarely partook in the entertainment though we did try out the Limelight Club where we did enjoy Mary Mac, Gareth Gates and Chesney Hawkes, all paired with stunning three course meals: All of them are so worth looking up if you are ever on a P&O Ship.

The crew on the Britannia are outstanding, all of them. It’s probably fair to say that we always get on very well with the crew and they always do go that extra mile. In our case, they very quickly got to know our likes and dislikes from our drink preferences (depending on time of day) and food preferences. In the Epicurean, they even remembered, from our last cruise, which table we preferred. The cabin steward always knew how we preferred our bathroom laid out and always seemed to predict when we would be out so that he could ‘do our room’ before we were back (we called him the Ninja). We were lucky enough to become acquainted with the Hotel General Manager who was always happy to stop for a chat if he saw us in the Crows Nest (we were there quite often, actually, so was he 🤔): He even invited us for a special Bridge Tour where we met the Captain, and Tubbs was able to quiz the officers about the use of the flags! Don’t ask why, I never knew she had such an interest in such things.

As we sailed away from Antigua, we knew we now had 5-days at sea during which, weather permitting, we could totally, totally, relax and really focus on topping up our tans. Naturally the time would also be spent enjoying the hospitality of: The Glass House, The Crows Nest, The Sunset Bar, The Beach House and, The Epicurean.

As with previous sea days, the routine always tended to be the same for us. Our days were mostly spent as ever on a [See The] Sea Day, relaxing on the balcony, enjoying an occasional drink before switching to the Sunset Bar for ‘fivesies’ then freshening up and going to dinner. As the evening drew to a close, we would [predictably] retire to the Crows Nest for a nightcap or two before weaving our way back to our quarters where Tubbs fell in her ‘marshmallow’ bed (as she calls it) and was asleep before I had even poured my last whisky of the night (normally, it was past midnight) sitting on the balcony listening to the sea as we made our way towards Ponta Delgada.

Our sea day habits changed however on our second day at sea with, yet another Senior Officer ‘hosted’ loyalty lunch. More food: More drink. Ooh Err. Better still, when we returned to our suite we were greeted by yet another bottle of wine from P&O. Methinks there may be a message here 😵‍💫!

It may be interesting to note that the Britannia was scheduled for a refit/refresh immediately we returned to Southampton. As part of the preparation for the event, a number of contractors had already boarded and were busy carrying out preparatory work as well as commencing the reupholstering of furniture in the Crows Nest and the Epicurean. In fact, one morning, we came up for breakfast, in the Epicurean of course, and found that half the chairs had been completely reupholstered overnight. To be fair, it was Her Tubbsness who spotted it: I just sat down without a by your leave 😋.

As we progressed North East towards Ponta Delgada the weather was definitely turning away from Caribbean weather to Southampton weather and it was starting to look as though the weather could seriously jeopardise our Mid-Atlantic visit but we kept the faith and kept our fingers crossed as we polished off a bottle of Bacchus before heading to the Crows Nest for our usual [multiple] nightcaps.

The effects of the repeated evening activities (drinking) finally caught up however so, when the alarm went off at 07:15 (our trip ashore was after all scheduled for later in the day), His Podgeness switched it off and rolled over back to sleep. Half an hour later, His Podgeness tried to get up but, thankfully, Her Tubbsness said to stay in bed and that breakfast should be skipped: No arguments ensued.

Given the change in plans, breakfast was replaced by a midday lunch, plus a nice cheeky bottle of Money Spider . This was to be the only meal of the day so three starters were shared plus a main course each. Obviously restraint was observed and desert/pudding/afters was skipped. The wine however was polished off with much relish.

Ironically, the afternoon brought a lovely bonus of a cloud free sky and a following wind making the ship nice and steady thus allowing an hour or two sunbathing on the sun drenched Balcony enjoying a couple of ‘friendly’ G&Ts. Nice . Come evening, The Crows Nest beckoned promising even more Cosmopolitan’s and Pornstar Martini’s before once again, bed beckoned.

Eventually, the time comes in every cruisers life when the, thus far, avoided task of packing beckons and can be put off no more:

On Day 41, after breakfast of course (and a bit of dilly dallying), all suitcases were extracted from their hiding places, and opened as was, a bottle of fizzy pop (a gift from P&O that we had saved specifically for this day) and packing began. Bearing in mind that we had packed for 6-weeks (smalls were obviously laundered more than once) we had most of it complete within the time it takes to drink one whole bottle of champagne. To celebrate, we sat on our balcony and enjoyed a celebratory glass of Sauvignon before heading to the Sunset Bar for what was to be last visit before disembarking and going home 😭. But before that final tasks, we did at least have the pleasure of one last meal in the Glass house and of course a final nightcap, or two, or three, before retiring once more in that marshmallow bed, having placed our final case outside our door for them all to magically disappear before reappearing shoreside in Southampton.

Before disembarkation however, we had our final breakfast in the Epicurean and bade our farewells to so many friends that had made their over the past 6-weeks: they had looked after us marvellously for the whole duration and we knew we were going to miss them and hopefully, they would miss us. But, we promised that we would be back [after a period of rehab/abstinence 🥴], in October the same year:

---