Hove1959

Hi Sam Just done our Covid tests too, and all OK. Phew! We are boarding at 1200 tomorrow. 5 30 at the aft bar sounds great. See you then, unless we bump into you around the ship. Our friend Martin, who is travelling with us, may come along. See you soon Kevan and Ian

Hi Sam. We arrived in Auckland this evening. Staying at the M Social opposite the cruise terminal. Only a 5 minute walk to board the Eclipse on Saturday. Amazing that whave a 12 night cruise after all we have done already. Did a road trip from Sydney to the Blue Mountains and then up the coast to see friends and family. Spent time with all 4 of my cousins. Hope you had a great trip down on Emirates. See you soon. We are on Deck 7 midships Kevan and Ian

Hi Sam and Huw. Hope you had a great Christmas and New Year. You must be very excited about heading to Auckland soon. We have had a great week in Sydney. Our New Year's Eve dinner cruise on the harbour was wonderful. A dream come true! Eclipse was in Sydney today, leaving for the cruise before ours. We drove up to the Blue Mountains today so did not see it unfortunately. Got a great pic from the Sydney Harbour webcam of it xx

Hi Sam and Huw Great to hear from you! We are still in the UK. We go up to Heathrow for the night on Christmas Eve. Fly on Singapore Airlines at 1100 on Christmas Day. Can't wait! We booked the cruise 21 months ago. No doubt you are getting excited too. Have a good trip down. Look forward to seeing you on board. Have a Merry Christmas ! Kevan and Ian

Paid the balance for our cruise yesterday. It's coming round really quickly now. Can't wait to get on board. Hi to Sam and Huw. Not seen you here for a while. Hope all is well x

That sounds like a great trip! We will be on the harbour for NYE on a Captain Cook dinner cruise. We'll give you a wave! It's been a dream for 40 years. It was never possible when we were working as we worked in industries ( travel and retail) where we were not allowed to take holiday over Christmas and NYE as they were our busiest period. We fly out of the UK to Sydney on Christmas Day which will be different!

Hi MikeLeeJames. Welcome to the group.

Hi Sam and Huw It was so good to meet you last week. Thank you again for such a lovely stay. Only realised it was you on the M5 Sam, as you whizzed by. Hope you had a nice break. We had a great time in Bristol catching up with friends and family. Look forward to seeing you on Eclipse in January! Kevan and Ian

Posspet. Thanks for the warning

Hi Sam Hope you are both well. Look forward to meeting you on the 19th. Understand Ian spoke to you on the phone recently. Just looked at the "tracker" for our flights to Sydney. 99 days away now. It's coming around quickly! Kevan

No problem. Guessed you were away in Benidorm. Hope you had a good time. Great to hear you have extended your trip at each end. Any plans for the extra time in Oz? We will be away for a total of 6 weeks. One advantage of being retired! I have dreamed of being in Sydney for NYE for 40 years but was never allowed to take holiday in December as I worked for airlines most of my life, and then retail as it was embargoed due it being our busiest time of the year. Only 16 weeks until we leave LHR now. Can't wait! Kevan

Brighton Pride parade was great fun, having been cancelled the 2 previous years due Covid. Great to see the city busy again. Good to hear you have sorted out your flights for OZ/NZ. Emirates are a great airline. We have flown on them in the past down to OZ. Are you doing any stopovers en route? Kevan

We've never been to Benidorm! Have fun. Fingers crossed for the passport! We are heading over to Brighton tomorrow to watch the Pride parade. Should be fun, and the weather is looking great. We don't go to the park any more ( since they started charging an entry fee) We'll go for lunch in the Lanes and to a pub for a drink afterwards. Kevan

Hi Sam Shame to hear you have cancelled your Easyjet flights. To be honest it does look dodgy flying with BA too, at the moment. Thankfully our flight back from Alicante in May all went smoothly. Glad we have no other flights booked until December. Hopefully they will have sorted staffing issues at airports by then! Are you still going to France on your Jet2 holiday or have you changed the destination? Travel on trains is a lottery at the moment with the strikes, and channel crossing on the ferries is not much better. Hope this is all good for your business, with people preferring to stay in the UK this summer. Good to hear you have sorted out your visas for Oz. It is really efficient these days. I remember having to fill out loads of forms and go in person to Australia House in London back in the 80s. Hope you get your Oz and NZ flights sorted soon. Are you going to do any stopovers, or going straight through? Our flights are now a little cheaper than when we booked, but nothing we can do about it. At least we got all the airlines and timings that suit us. All the best for now Kevan

Really looking forward to meeting you both too. Ian's department was based in Leicester but he worked from home, or was travelling round the country auditing Europcar branches. He also went to Bushey on occasions for meetings. Guess you are on countdown to your trip to France now. Have you confirmed your flights for Australia and NZ yet? We have sorted out our Australian visas. Just need to do the NZ ones. Still plenty of time.

Really looking forward to our visit. I have not been to North Devon for over 40 years! It will bring back lots of memories. Even if you don't remember Ian, you may have mutual acquaintances from those days.

Hi Sam Great to hear back from you. What a coincidence that you also worked for Europcar for a long time. Ian's surname is Stafford. He was a staff trainer for 11 years with National, and became an auditor for Europcar when they merged, travelling around the country, until they made him redundant in November 2019. Wonder if you know my cousin Jeff Hall who has worked as a Europcar branch manager in the West Country for a long time at Gloucester, Swindon, Newport and more recently at Bristol Muller Road and Temple Meads. We liked the look of your hotel so much that we have made a reservation to come and stay for 2 nights on September 19th! Really looking forward to it, and meeting you both before the cruise in January. It's great to think we will be in Sydney in 6 months time. Kevan and Ian

Hi again! Just looked at your website. Your property looks absolutely beautiful, and in such a lovely part of the world. I have fond memories of going to Lynton and Lynmouth as a child. I was born and brought up in Bristol until I moved to the " bright lights of London " when I was 19. I still have old friends and family in Bristol, and an old friend in Bridgwater. We are long overdue a visit to the West Country. Ian and Sam come from a similar background. Ian worked in car rental for over 30 years; starting with Swan National in London in 1987 and through subsequent name changes of Eurodollar, National and finally Europcar. He was a staff trainer for many years and finally an auditor for over 10 years travelling round the country. We have now booked our New Years Eve event in Sydney. All very exciting. We have splashed out on a Captain Cook Harbour Cruise including a 5 course dinner, wine and champagne. It's cost a fortune, but worth it for a once in a lifetime experience. I've been dreaming of NYE in Sydney for 40 years. Trust you are both well Kevan

Hi Sam and Huw Great to hear back from you. Understand how busy you must be, now that we are heading into summer. Hope it warms up more soon. What is the name of your hotel? You never know, we might fancy a trip to Devon one of these days! We booked our flights to Australia and New Zealand last Friday! All very exciting. Never paid so much for flights to Oz before, but it is to be expected as we are travelling at Christmas. We actually fly out of Heathrow on Christmas Day. We are travelling on Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand, which are 2 of our favourite airlines. We are staying at the Meriton Apartments on Kent Street in Sydney. Just waiting for details of Sydney Harbour trips for New Years Eve to be released. Been dreaming of being in Sydney for NYE for over 40 years. I worked for airlines for over 30 years ( ground staff) and then in retail so have never been allowed to take holiday at Christmas as it was our busiest time. We have had some great winter breaks in Gran Canaria and Tenerife over the years. It's lovely to escape the British winter blues. Nice for you to have your South of France trip to look forward to! All the very best Kevan and Ian

Hi there! Back home after our great holiday. After the cruise ( more about Beyond in a bit) we spent 4 nights in Sitges with a friend who had flown out to meet us there. We were last in Sitges in 2001 just after 9/11. We stayed in a lovely little Art Nouveau hotel recommended by an old colleague who now lives there. Unfotunately he was out of town during our visit. We then took the train down to Alicante for 5 nights with an old friend I've known since 1979. We supposed to see them 2 years ago before Covid locked us all down. Going back to "Beyond" it was great to be on the inaugural and have everything shiny and new. We had a Sunset Verandah which we really liked, as it has a larger balcony. Not keen on the idea of infinite verandahs as we still like a balcony you can step out on. Interested to know which type of stateroom you have booked. We tried all 4 main dining options and particularly liked the ambiance and cuisine in Cosmopolitan and Normandie. We managed to get a tour of The Retreat and Luminae and were very impressed. Hope to experience it ourselves in a couple of years. The ABC cruise might be a possibility, or another cruise out of Sydney if Beyond or Ascent head "Down Under" We loved the new enlarged Sunset Bar, with it's different levels and great variety of seating and soft furnishings. It will be ideal for warm weather cruising. It was a bit cool when we sailed out of Southampton which is to be expected at the end of April. If you have any specific questions about the ship, I'll gladly answer them if I can. Though it was sad to disembark in Barcelona it was nice to think we will be on Eclipse in 8 months! It was great to be travelling again. Our last flight was in October 2019. This was our first holiday since taking early retirement. So nice not to have the "back to work blues" on the way home. Look forward to hearing back from you.