South Africa and Ebola

Spell check.

Southernmost and volcanic.

I tried to edit, but I couldn't find an option.

Thanks for the info. I did a search for El Hierro a few hours ago and picked up the volcanic situation, and if I understood the details correctly, it looks as though there was an earthquake there yesterday, albeit a lowish magnitude - so perhaps not!!

Another port that Braemar visited earlier this year was Lanzarote. To be honest I suspect any replacement port(s) will be very safe bets so may well be somewhere like Lanzarote or Tenerife or as you say more time at sea, but never mind if it is warmer than here it will do, but we would prefer something a bit different, which is why we booked the cruise we did. I can see it is a good one for you since it goes roundtrip from Tenerife.

No major problems really this year, but I had an Elderly Aunt pass away and inlaws who are struggling to cope but do not want to give up the house, so just missed a lot of good weather. We went to Greenland on Boudicca though and that was very good with no missed ports/scenic cruising because of weather/ice, which means we were very lucky indeed as the conditions there often cause problems for itineraries.

I keep looking at Fred's site in case a change of itinerary shows for December, but suspect it will take a while.

Thanks again and thank you Jerry for the posting on Cape Verde,

Barbara

So,

We have received our new itinerary this afternoon for The Fred Olsen Canary Islands, Africa, Cape Verde Islands cruise on the 2nd December.

We are (thankfully) not going to The Gambia, senegal and Dakar, but we are spending an extra day at Cape Verde (Porto Novo) and then on the way back (14th December) we are calling at Las Palmas on Gran Canaria, returning to Santa Cruz De Tenerife late on the 15th December.

It would now seem that we are to spend 4 days at sea, intead of the original 3. As it is my first cruise, I don't know whether this is good or bad, but my friend says she loves the sea days, as they are much more relaxing.

We shall wait and see, but personally, anything is better than contacting EBola

Thanks for the information. We have not got our revised itinerary yet, even though we booked direct with Fred and get our paperwork sent by email.

I suppose it is not surprising that they have axed both African mainland ports, but they were well up on our reasons to book the cuise, even though the only new place for us would have been Dakar in Senegal. I have seen references to Porto Novo being a tender port, so whether we actually get into port will depend on the weather. We were due in Gran Canaria as our first port of call, so assume there is a bit of reshunting of ports. Perhaps we will have a night out on the town in Tenerife on the last day.

I have been searching for details and it seems the student from Guinea who went to Dakar in Senegal and developed Ebola has recovered now and no other cases have been reported, although It has been reported that they have 67 contacts in quarantine (he walked into the hospital about 20 days ago now so if there are any more cases they should be confirmed and announced in the next few days or so). There have been no cases at all in Gambia so holidays to there are still available from Britain. I did read that a very large number of students from West Africa are due in British Universities before the end of this month, so the virus could well be imported to Britain before Senegal and Gambia, but only time will tell.

It seems that you are mistaken by the number of sea days, there were 5 in the original itinerary (2 sailing south, 1 between mainland Africa and Cape Verde, and 2 sailing north). We feel sea days are better if in a hot climate as it is quite nice on deck with a bit of a breeze from the movement of the ship. So current itinerary is OK by us for that reason, as long as Cape Verde is not axed in the future. I suspect it may not always be warm enough for swimwear on deck, if at sea near the Canaries at that time of year.

Do you know anyone who has booked Fred's flights? We are sailing from Southampton on the previous cruise, but have booked their flight back to Manchester on 16th Dec. We do not have details of the flights yet, but are keen to get them. We have not booked a fly cruise with Fred before, so we do not know if flight details will show on 'manage my cruises'.

Our notification of the itinerary change has just turned up on the doormat rather than by email.

I will do a posting on the roll call thread as it only applies to one cruise.

Hi again,

Sorry, Barbara, I did calculate incorrectly. I only read the Sunday 07 and Sunday 14 as at sea days in the brochre. I missed the Mondays written next to them.

I am sorry, I don't know of anybody flying over as yet. However, one of the bar (where I work) customers is going on the same cruise and as he has a place here, I suspect that he will be over within the next few weeks. I will ask him whether he is doing the whole fly cruise package, or flying seperately. Alternatively, I could ask our travel agent (and friend) about the flights for you. I will not see her for a few days though.

Your comment about the students is really scarey for England. I only hope that The Borders people are up to speed with all that and will properlt screen quarentine them. But, as (I think it was you) said, that the risk o Ebola in Britain, will be lessened due to much better sanitation.

I shall try again with the roll call. I could not find it previously, but I am a bit niave with computer and forum stuff.:confused:

Thanks for the correction and the reply.

I am happier now I know that you too, enjoy cruising days. ;)

Another spell check.

Properly screen AND quarentine.

I told you that I was naive (also spelt incorrectly in the last post!!):confused:

Phogan - To get into the roll call section from here, (or I think anywhere on the Cruise Critic site):-

Go to top of page where you will see a number of headings in a box system.

Click on (or just hover over) the box labelled community, which is to the right hand side and click 'forums' which is top of the drop down list.

That gets you to the main forum page, which you will probably recognise - on that page go down to about the 4th boxed off area, (each area contains the names of various cruise lines/ports of call etc), which is entitled 'Roll Calls' and click on 'Fred Olsen Roll Calls'.

The Roll Call section is different to this section in that you have to be logged in to view the threads as well as to post on them. On this section you can view any thread without being logged in and only have to be logged in to post on a thread.

Just takes a bit of getting round the system. You will find an 'edit button' at the bottom RHS of a new post which you can click to edit a post, but it is only there for a short time. If I use it, I often copy the post first, so I do not loose the post if I am timed out. Alternatively there is a 'preview post' tab next to the 'submit reply' tab which works as long as you make sure you do actually post (or save) your new post before leaving the page!

I rang Fred about the flights and they do not expect to know anything for a couple of weeks or so yet so I will have to be patient.

There is so much travel around the world, that will alow transmission of germs, but there does not seem to be any undue concern about Ebola 'taking off' in developed countries. There are a lot of other problematic tropical diseases and other dangers, (e.g. road travel in Britain), that can cause death or illness, so unless you want to cocoon yourself up there is no point getting stressed about it. Forums and things you can search on the internet provide a lot of potential worry that would be better no known about. It is necessary to learn to leave the details alone at times and just get on with life - I am not always so good at doing that, but I must learn.

We are off for a short break/relative visit for a short time, so I will have to leave the computer alone for that time!!

Cheers,

Barbara