Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

#50 St Lucia – Day 7 (Day 7 of Week 1)

Posted: May 3, 2024 in Another Cruise, Cruising, Memories, OaP, P&O, Podge, Retirement, Travel, Tubbs
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First of all I’ll start by saying that no tat was bought today: The Duchess must be losing her touch! 🫣

Post breakfast, we decided to do some extra walking laps, though not too many before going ashore.  During our perambulation (walk) we check the building works shoreside: It’s now showing a 4 story something but not yet complete. We’re to return to St Lucia in a couple of weeks so will take photos from the ship and add them there for comparison with 2023. 

Eventually, we plucked up the courage/ energy and went shoreside and checked out the bars in readiness for St Patrick’s Day and found them to be ‘up to the job’, before settling on a nice corner bar, named the Pink Papaya. Oh my days how come I never found this bar before. Have been calling into St Lucia every year since 2004 but never ever found the Pink Papaya. We will most definitely be calling back. The staff were so so friendly, the prices very competitive and the music so atmospheric. Also a great place to keep an eye on ship from 😋.  

2, or more, beers later, we returned to the mother ship and, just as treat for moi, went to the buffet and made a couple of chip sandwiches 😋 then changed location to The Sunset Bar for the obligatory MaiTai and Pink Gin Spritz (twice). Then, missed the most beautiful sunset. 🥺 Still, there’s always another day and another sunset 🌅. 

For Dinner, we opted for the Glass House where we had rather delicious Chicken Popcorn, Thai Beef Salad & yummy Curried Spiced Seared Scallops (no deserts though as we’re watching our figures 🫣) all washed down with a couple of glasses of Bacchus wine before retiring for the night failing, once again, to go to bed the same day we got up 💤

Step Count: – 7377 🥴

#50 Bonaire – Day 5 (Day 5 of Week 1)

Posted: April 30, 2024 in Another Cruise, Cruising, Memories, OaP, P&O, Podge, Retirement, Travel, Tubbs
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Try as we might, neither of us couldn’t remember Bonaire until we actually got there. I still don’t understand why, because it really is a most beautiful wondrous location with the clearest of waters and, we had at least remembered that part. 

Having breakfasted with our fellow guests in the Epicurean we went ashore to explore shops and bars. The walk to town was only 10 minutes but on the way we spotted not one but two turtles right by the waters edge, a number of blue parrot fish (well blue fish), loads of crabs scurrying among the rocks and one huge lizard thing that The Duchess insists was an iguana and I’m not one to argue but I’m not convinced it was 😋. 

Having found a bar from which we could watch the world go by, we bought a drink, possibly more than 1 and sat back and just chilled. Eventually however we did strike up a conversation with a fellow passenger who said that Bonaire was currently threatened by an oil slick from a sunken boat. All seemed ok where we were and fingers crossed 🤞 that it can be contained before any lasting damage. After all,  Bonaire is the only certified Blue Destination in the world, Bonaire has been practicing radical ecological conservation since the 1960s. Though the two main human-inhabited nuclei, Kralendijk and Rincon, are rather minimalistic, they act as your gateway into unimaginable spectacles. From the pristine coral reefs to the clear-watered mangrove forests, from the pink lakes and white salt mountains to the desert cacti, you can hardly believe that such a place still exists. [words ‘stolen’ from our Port Guide by P&O]. 

Anyway, as we slowly returned to the ship, we both agreed we really did need to ease off on eating & drinking but there was to be a problem. We had been invited to a senior officers lunch & epicurean (fine dining) meal accompanied by much free flowing fizzy pop and wine the following day: Clearly, day 6 will be a tough day so we retired to the Crows Nest for a [quick] drink in the Crows Nest where we had a BAFTA Cocktail (yummy yummy and very strong). 

Eventually however, we retired to bed. Day 5 was yet another day where failed to go to bed the same day we got up. 💤

Step count – 8914 🥴

#50 Curaçao – Day 4 (Day 4 of Week 1)

Posted: April 29, 2024 in Another Cruise, Cruising, Memories, OaP, P&O, Podge, Retirement, Travel, Tubbs
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Breakfast was quite leisurely, as it always is in the Epicurean, though I did need to provide some level of IT consultancy to a nice Valerie who was having trouble with WiFi and the on-board app: she had been misadvised on how to connect. Fortunately, the ‘Techno Guru’ (His Podgeness) was able to show Valerie what she needed to do to connect and provide strict instruction on what not do which of course she ignored but eventually learned what the correct way was all all was well.

We then joined an excursion called ‘Scenes of Curaçao’ – basically this was so that we could learn about their lovely big bridge (it is big), their ferry and their swing bridge before checking out a couple of churches and cemeteries before going to the Curaçao (pronounced Cure-ah-souw) distillery where we would be able to taste the famous liqueur and even learn how to make our own cocktails. We went there last year however so we just cut straight through to the samples and the shop. Finally, we got to our ultimate destination, Mambo Beach, where all the beautiful people go but, I still managed to get in ;-). Once there, we headed straight to our favourite bar (Riléks Beach Bar) and settled for our annual cocktail treat. We’ve been there many times before but still can’t remember the cocktails names so we just show a picture of the ones we had on our last visit.

The Duchess then bought yet another Caribbean Lady for her collection then back to the ship we went (to fill up the ‘Tat’ Shelf that the Duchess growing) to just chill 😎 for the rest of the afternoon before going for Dinner in the Glass House which was of course accompanied by a rather nice glass of Bacchus. By the time we finished our wine(s) and Cosmopolitans (for the Duchess) it was bed time 🥱 for some much needed sleep. 💤 

Step Count: – 8914 🥴

#50 Barbados – Day 2 (Day 2 of Week 1)

Posted: April 28, 2024 in Another Cruise, Cruising, Memories, OaP, P&O, Podge, Retirement, Travel, Tubbs
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Had a lovely breakfast in the Epicurean. The main man Maître d’ recognised us straight away and had a long chat with us asking how we were and how long were we on board,: Our reply was that we would be staying on for six weeks all the way back to Southampton prior to the Britannia heading to Rotterdam for a refit/refresh. Remembering that we always had a favourite table by the window, this was duly prepped for us: 

This is why we sail P&O.

We then recognised a couple of passengers from the same cruise last year and had a very pleasant breakfast swapping cruise stories and plans: It seems we’re all booked all the way through to 2026.

After breakfast we had a lazy time, apart from visiting shops ( day 2 in Barbados always meant the now traditional trek to the shops to see if there’s anything we need 🥺 there never is but we always seem to come back with something 😅 ). We also took the obligatory photo of our ship after which we returned and made our way to the Glass House: again, we were recognised and got the table we wanted. We ‘warned’ them that we would be back for dinner 🫣

We then retired to our balcony and viewed all the Grockels disembarking before eventually more newbies arrived.  I’ll never cease to be amazed how they can disembark 3000 passengers and embark 3000 new passengers over two days, all while restocking the ship, cleaning and preparing all the cabins ready for the arrivals.

And so it was, we checked out the Sunset Bar, the Bestest Bar. Cocktails today were Pink Gin Spritz and a Mai Tai.  Oh my days: How is it that I’ve taken until now to realise just how yummy Mai Tai’s really are (for yummy, read dangerous). I found myself drinking two for every Pink Gin Spritz that Debbie drank 🥴. Eventually however, we had to return to our cabin and rest before our evening escapades. These really consisted of returning to the Glass House for our evening meal and wines (Bacchus as recommended by Olly Smith as a really, really god alternative to Sauvignon Blanc). Post meal we sat back and enjoyed our evening favourites of Cosmopolitan for Tubbs and Cotswolds Signature Single Malt Whisky for Podge.  By then, we were whacked and called it a day but, not the same day we go up.

This was going to be tiring cruise.. 

The [Pre] Retirement Cruise Starts

Posted: April 25, 2024 in Another Cruise, Cruising, Memories, OaP, P&O, Podge, Retirement, Travel, Tubbs
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#50 Flight and Boarding – Day 1 (Day 1 of Week 1)

3 whiskies and 3 rosés for breakfast then head to gate 571 for boarding. Phew, got the right gate and the right time (unlike a previous occasion). Boarding the plane was actually quite painless except that two passengers went awol though they were finally located but caused us to take off 50 minutes later (when all the blue sky had disappeared!. 

First greeting was with a glass of fizzy pop: So, so nice to be back on a Tui Flight (Premium of course 😋).

Second greeting was complimentary drinks (Johny Walker Black Label for me, G&T for Tubbs) twice, each being doubles. Then, it was time for lunch accompanied by 2 glasses of white wine with a brandy chaser post lunch. Poor Podgeness is feeling weary now while Tubbs is fast asleep. 

One of the passengers spots me and says “I recognise you, you’re Podge”. It seems people have been reading my hints and tips on Facebook! Ooh Err 🥴

Now, one of the hints I had given on Facebook was make sure that they were comfortable before landing as when we alight from the plane, we DO NOT go through the airport terminal: we are taken directly from the bus to the ship where we just check in and go on board. Our luggage magically appears in our cabin after we’ve boarded and, true to form, it all worked perfectly.

Hats off to P&O.

By the time we did reach our suite, we were truly very tired and in need of a long lie down to recover from the journey 🥱 but, before we do, we needed to meet our Cabin Steward (We called him Ninja – more on that in a later post) and our Butler, both of whom would be looking after us for the next 6-weeks. I have to say that we were pleasantly surprised to find our Butler was Asmita who had in fact looked after us on our last Caribbean Cruise: We like to think that Asmita was as pleased as us.

And then, it really was time to hit the hay, as they say. 🛌

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