Selbourne

So do we 😂

I suspect it’s nothing more than having to ‘rest’ a promotion for a while in order to trumpet a ‘new’ offer in the future, a bit like the 28 day rule with ‘Sale’ prices. Standard marketing ploys. Call me a cynic, but I also strongly suspect that certain grades are temporarily placed ‘off sale’ in order to show as sold out or with limited availability (to encourage bookings), only to magically reappear at a later date. I’ve seen that happen with cruises that I’ve monitored. I suspect that the marketing team at Carnival more than pay for themselves - unlike their IT team 😂

I think that’s what I’m having, minus the cheese plate (I have the benefit of knowing what they’re like) 😂

Today’s MDR menus. Final Black Tie night.

I can well believe it. My wife had the hanging speciality seafood kebab in the Beach House last night. What did it come with? Yep. Green beans 🙄😂

As would many of us, hence the fact that prices never stay as they are for long. I’m sure that they will drop again in the future. Now that launch prices are no longer certain to be the cheapest, we have a target net price per night (cruise fare less OBC) and monitor these prices for any cruises that we might be interested in. If we can get the cruise for less than our target price we will book it, whether that’s at launch, after balance due date, or any time between. As our target price is quite low, if the price drops after we book we know it won’t be by much at all. Whilst I fully understand supply and demand, cruise companies don’t do themselves any favours with these huge fluctuations in fares. The 65 nighter we are currently on (and indeed next years) are classic examples. Admittedly this is down to saver versus select fares, but there are people on the ship who paid £10k-£12k more than us for the same cabin type in return for £1k OBC (or £2k if booked on board under an ‘offer’). Some of these folk are buying things for the sake of it to use up OBC, as we would be if we’d had that much, and would obviously have been far better off with a lower base fare. Over the last few weeks, quite a few people on this cruise have booked next years 65 nighter whilst on board, again to get high levels of OBC that they may struggle to spend, yet only yesterday I received an email from our TA stating ‘just announced’ price cuts of several thousand pounds for that cruise. This sort of thing must infuriate people when you think you have got a good deal, only to find out the next day that it was actually a bad deal.

Day 63 - Tuesday 5th March - Sea Day Sea conditions didn’t feel any worse this morning, which was a relief. We haven’t had to reach for the Stugeron yet! I handed our steward the final bag of 10 items for the service wash, so as to lessen my workload when we get home. We got to breakfast comfortably (no clock change last night) so didn’t have to rush for Paul Sticklers 10am talk on ‘The Rillington Place Affair’ in the theatre. Even though I’ve read the book and watched the film, the story still raises eyebrows. Our cabin steward appeared mid morning with the two suitcases that we couldn’t fit under the bed. We hadn’t asked for them and don’t intend packing until the final afternoon, but I guess he wanted rid of them. Ironically we still have almost as much time left as the entire duration of the next cruise, yet it feels as though we are being told to start packing! Either side of lunch we just lazed in the cabin reading and getting up to date with things for when we get home (the WiFi package paying dividends again). At midday in the Captains announcement it was mentioned that it was currently force 6 but would worsen later. Stugeron still on standby. MDR for lunch, which I didn’t enjoy, other than the summer pudding. It looked good when my wife had it at dinner last night and I’d half joked that I’d have it when it re-appeared for lunch the next day (as many puds do). My prediction had come true! We considered attending the 3pm Ukulele performance but decide that neither of us was that bothered! We did, however, attend Ben Kearsleys penultimate classical guitar performance in the Playhouse, followed by a cuppa in Raffles (minus the free cake again as too late). Dinner was in the Beach House and was to be our last (of 5) visits there. Amazingly, I had to send back the nachos starter. Having had it every time we’d been so far this time it was lacking virtually any cheese and the chorizo that I’d paid extra for was nigh on invisible (Ok, the extra cost was just £1 but there’s a principle at stake here). I couldn’t make up my mind what to have for the main course. I always used to have steak but having had such excellent steaks in the Glasshouse I knew that what I would cook myself on a hot stone wouldn’t be as good. In the end I went for the ribs and they were good. I ordered the cheesecake and I’ve still yet to have a decent dessert in the Beach House! My wife liked the look of it so I swapped with her ice cream. We asked for cups of tea to finish, but rather than put the tea bag in the cup and add hot water, as they do in the MDR, the waitress came out with a pot. Now this would be fine, but for the fact that the pot had previously been used for coffee. Anyone whose been to a conference or meeting where tea and coffee are served in flasks will know that unique taste that’s part tea, part coffee 🤢 The 10pm show was the well known entertainer Tucker - so well known that neither of us have heard of him, so that was another one to skip. Thankfully, as of when we retired to our cabin, the sea condition didn’t seem any worse than earlier in the day. Tomorrow day 2 of 3 sea days to Southampton.

Having only been to one island it’s difficult to say. I feel as though I saw the best of the island in one day, so didn’t feel the need for longer. Nice though it was, I wouldn’t feel the need to return.

In 63 nights and counting we’ve never had Banana Butterscotch ice cream on Aurora. I’m off to register a complaint 😂

Yes, both Cunard cruises are Club, the concept of which very much appeals to us. We are also looking forward to being on a brand new ship with all that entails, but (hopefully) not the issues that put us off Iona and, by association Arvia.

Thanks. Probably not, but for several reasons, mostly my wife’s health. Another year or two of deterioration and I fear that it wouldn’t be possible. Other reasons are cost (we got it at a great price which I doubt we could get again, so it’s been great value - I’m not sure that we would have considered it such great value if we’d paid the Select price). Also, we feel that we’ve ticked the box now. The attraction of this cruise was the number of new ports. We will never get that again. A World cruise doesn’t remotely appeal to us - far too many long runs of sea days and not enough time in places that we’d want to see. Never say never, but plenty of people on here have already booked next years 65 nighter and we don’t feel in the slightest bit envious. In fact, I’ve just had an email from our TA announcing a big price drop for that cruise. If word gets out amongst those who have booked whilst on board there will be a lot of unhappy people!

No. May and November, both Queen Anne.

We’d love to be on that cruise. The itinerary is even better than the usual Northern Lights cruises. Fingers crossed for you. We’ve been twice. The first time there had been a massive solar flare that made the news and we had a sky full of lights, with greens and reds visible to the naked eye, not just the camera lens, but the second time we went (exactly the same week one year later) we saw absolutely nothing. Such pot luck.

I might do a summary on here afterwards along the lines of @Dermotsgirl excellent one ‘P&O cruiser does Saga’ as I found that to be extremely helpful in our deliberations as to whether or not to try them.

We have 2 more cruises booked for this year, but both are with Cunard. As I’m not ‘known’ on the Cunard pages I am looking forward to having a break from doing blogs!

Day 62 - Monday 4th March - Praia da Vitoria, The Azores We woke in the night to considerable movement and feared that our port call to The Azores might be in jeopardy. However, we managed to get in OK. We made it to breakfast with 2 minutes to spare and afterwards got our bearings from deck 13. Thankfully this is a port where coaches for excursions and shuttle buses come right up to the ship. Two pleasant surprises. Firstly the shuttle was free, which was handy with us having booked a saver and the excursions are on proper coaches, not those dreadful minibuses that we had to suffer around the Caribbean. We needed a wheelchair accessible shuttle and thankfully one was provided. We only had to wait about 15 minutes which was lucky as it can only take two at a time. We were dropped by the fire station and walked down Rue da Jesus (the main drag) down to the promenade. Praia da Vitoria was nothing special, but pleasant enough and frankly quite like a British seaside resort, but without the tackiness. We had a wander around for an hour and headed back to the ship, again waiting around 20 minutes for the wheelchair accessible shuttle to return. Chatting to the driver there is almost no crime on the islands and they feel that it is a great place to live. He said that they see the ocean differently to us. They don’t see themselves as isolated, but rather in the middle of a highway that can take them anywhere. Interesting concept, although I feel that the Isle of Wight can be a bit isolated and you can see the mainland from there 😂 We managed to get lunch in the MDR prior to me going on my final excursion of the cruise - South Island sights and Angra. The tour started with a long climb up to a viewpoint over a vast area that had been created following volcanic activity in the past. Apparently there are still two active volcanoes on the island (although not actually at risk of eruptions any time soon). Incidentally, I had no idea that the island was hit hard by a major earthquake in 1980 and around one third of the towns had been wiped out, so a lot of the current buildings were built afterward. We then made our way towards Angra and stopped at Fort Brazile which overlooks the city from afar. To get to the viewpoint the driver had to take the coach thorough a short tunnel with about 6” clearance each side. Finally we made our way down to the city where we had just over an hour to explore. This could either be done independently or with our guide. I opted for independent once she’d shown us where the botanical gardens were. Angra was a delight. A lovely place with cobbled streets and pavements, buildings with the shallow railed balconies and pastel coloured properties with contrasting coloured window sills. Most of the photos in today’s post are from Angra rather than Praia da Vitoria. I’d bought some Pastel du Nata in a bakery so when I returned to the ship I took my wife to Raffles for a drink to enjoy them with. As it was our last sail away of the cruise, and the Azores is a major hotspot for whales of all sorts (including Blue, Humpback and Sperm whales) who rest and feed there on the migration north for the summer, we put on jackets and stayed on our balcony until the light had faded. We managed to see…….nothing 😂 Dinner in the MDR was quite good. Piri Piri chicken was a first appearance and a nice change. We had considered going to see a new act afterwards called iHoppers, who do 50s and 60s music, but there was already a lot of movement and with the theatre being right at the front we didn’t fancy our dinner going up and down, so we gave it a miss. In his pre departure announcement the Captain warned us that sea conditions will worsen with 4 to 5 meter waves. Good job we found the spare Stugeron on the way down. Tomorrow is the first of our 3 sea days back to Southampton.

Todays MDR menus

It’s always worse late afternoon and evening when, of course, we are always on the ship. I also have a sneaky suspicion that it might be the air con, which is why I feel that I’m stuck with it until I am home. If I still have it after a few days at home then I shall definitely see my GP.

Day 61 - Sunday 3rd March - Sea Day The clocks had gone forward again, so we are now just 1 hour behind the UK. We will make up that final hour after the Azores. Thankfully, Paul Stickler’s daily crime talk (today The Acid Bath Murders) was on at the far more sensible time of 11am. 10am was too early when last entry for MDR breakfast is 9.30am, especially with the clock changes thrown into the mix as well. Hopefully his talks on the 3 sea days between the Azores and Southampton will all be at 11am, but I suspect that the later time today was more to do with it being a Sunday and there being a religious service in the theatre before it. I walked a mile on the promenade deck before lunch. It was quite windy and the temperature has definitely dropped now, but thankfully the sea state was calmer than yesterday so the movement was negligible. As we had time to kill today, with there being no afternoon show, we had a leisurely lunch in the Glasshouse. I had some wine and almost instantly I could feel the discomfort in my throat again having had no issue (but also no alcohol) for the last couple of days. I don’t ever recall having a throat issue that’s triggered by alcohol before, but it’s almost like putting antiseptic on a cut. Very odd. During the afternoon we had a siesta in the cabin before attending Ben Kearsley’s 3rd classical guitar performance in the Playhouse. After that we had a cuppa in Raffles. The cakes had gone but we were still full from lunch. In the cabin, prior to dinner, the movement of the previous day had returned, so I hope that we won’t have any issues getting in to the Azores as we certainly don’t fancy 9 sea days in a row 😱 Back in the MDR for dinner. I didn’t fancy anything on the menu so had tomato soup and chilli tortillas which, despite being vegan, were fine 😂. The singer Shellyann was back in the theatre again tonight and, as with her first performance, it didn’t appeal so we went back to the cabin. By now the motion was very noticeable and, to make matters worse, my sore throat is back with a vengeance. What a ruddy nuisance. I think I need to get away from this ship to start shifting it and that doesn’t happen until Friday onwards. Tomorrow is Praia da Vitoria in the Azores (weather permitting) 🤞

Either way, I think it’s probably best avoided 🤢😂

I think it must be a fairly new thing as I’ve never come across it before. It was never advertised and I just happened to notice that in the restaurant listings in Horizon it had ‘Italian Menu’ in brackets. It seems as though it operates a bit like Tiffin Lunches in Sindhu or Chefs Table in the Glasshouse i.e. they are never advertised but just mentioned to those who dine in the venue earlier in the cruise. We had dined in there a couple of times previously and it was never mentioned to us.

Today’s MDR menus plus, for those who might be interested, the Italian menu from the Beach House last night. Apparently there’s a menu A and menu B for that as well and this is menu B which is the more popular one (so we are told).

Yes, it certainly wound me up and I know that I felt exactly like that when a cabin steward said it to me once. Hopefully our current steward won’t feel the need to say it. He will be getting 10/10 anyway as he’s been brilliant. There will never be a time, especially on a cruise of this length, where all acts are worthy of 10/10 and I shall be making the point in the comments sections that the entertainment scores are likely to be artificially inflated for this cruise as a result of the entertainment managers request. Personally, I will take great pains to score everything completely honestly, including each of the entertainment acts that we’ve seen. One or two will get 10/10 on their own merits. A number, including the Headliners, will also get very high scores. However, one or two acts were really poor and that has to be fed back honestly if the feedback is to be at all meaningful. One advantage of having to use the lift all the time is that after each show we have ‘travelled’ with a bunch of people all giving an immediate post show assessment, and I know that almost all of the views that I have expressed have been shared by others. Two comments that stick in my mind were during a Pulse performance when we left early as it was so bad, and a woman got in the lift with us and said “I love that song and she’s absolutely murdering it”. Also last night there was still lots of discussion around the ship about how good the talent show had been and most agreed that it had been better than some of the professional acts we’d seen!

I’ve just notice that auto correct has attributed ‘The writings on the wall’ song to ‘Samantha’ Smith when it’s of course ‘Sam’ Smith (unless he’s going by the name Samantha at present) 🙄😂

Day 60 - Saturday 2nd March - Sea Day I’m almost frightened to say this, but my sore throat has virtually gone. I still have a bit of a tickle from time to time, but the antibiotics that G Mighty of Antigua gave me have hopefully done the trick. I just hope that I won’t get re-infected by all the people still coughing vigorously on this ship! We were in good time for our usual light breakfast in the MDR (I can still count on one hand the number of cooked breakfasts I’ve had in 60 days) and then after photographing the MDR menus and picking up our Britain Yesterday paper (which really was very much yesterdays news - or even the day before yesterday) we went to the theatre. Paul Tickler’s crime talk today was called ‘The Corner Shop Killings’. Like many people, we are really enjoying his talks. We then killed time in the cabin reading and catching up on emails, with family, the news etc. The sea state hasn’t yet worsened, as I’d feared it would. It’s hovering between force 4 and 5, which is nothing, but there is definite movement which we haven’t tended to notice on Aurora below force 6 or 7 previously. Lunch in the MDR was another very mixed bag. I had a sushi starter that was excellent and I really enjoyed it. For the main course we both had ‘steamed cod fillet with carrot and peas and lemon parsley sauce’. Well the cod may well have been steamed at one stage, but it had then sat under a heat lamp as it was bone dry, so much so that the edges were crispy. I don’t know what it is about sauces on this ship, but they can’t even make a lemon sauce that tastes of lemon. I’ve heard a number of passengers liken the MDR meals to school dinners, which I’ve felt has been too extreme, but this meal (in both appearance and taste) would not have been out of place in a mediocre works canteen. Oh well, it was Rhubarb and ginger crumble for dessert and I’ve had those before and they are good, especially if you avoid the lumpy and flavourless custard and opt for ice cream, which is what we both did. The first problem was that they had run out of vanilla ice cream. That seemed odd, but the alternative was rum and raisin which is my favourite, so no issue there. Anyway, we could not believe what we were presented with. 2 crumbles without any crumble! Well, to be 100% precise, about a teaspoon full of crumble had been sprinkled over the top but had sunk into the fruit. So it was basically hot fruit compote. I never usually do this, and probably have only done so less than a handful of times in many hundreds of meals in ships MDRs, but I sent it back. Sadly there were no crumbles left with crumble, so I just had the ice cream. At 3pm there was a Crew Talent Show in the theatre. These afternoon crew shows have been very enjoyable, so we happily went. It was a full house with people standing. At the start of the show the entertainment manager came on to the stage and I have to say that I really disagreed with something he said. He started with the usual bit about bigging up the staff and stressing that this wasn’t their day job and they were away from home for long periods, all of which is true and absolutely fine. He then asked that when we get a feedback survey for the cruise, please would we all score the entertainment performances 10 out of 10. He was deadly serious, it wasn’t a tongue in cheek comment, and he repeated the request again. I know that many of us will have worked in environments where customer feedback is critical, but such feedback is only ever relevant when people answer honestly. You should never coerce or pressure people, or make them feel as though they are letting people down unless you give the top scores. In one fell swoop, this chap has now rendered all the feedback on the shows irrelevant. If everyone does as he says then the acts that genuinely were 10/10 won’t stand out and, more importantly, the poor ones will keep coming back. It really smacked of desperation and I wondered if he’s under some sort of pressure. Many of us have had cabin stewards who tell us that unless we score them at least 9/10 they will get into trouble. I for one will always be 100% honest with my feedback and just as I will happily give 10/10 for those acts that genuinely deserve it, I also have no qualms about scoring 1/10 for a really bad act (in truth, none have been that bad, but some would be 5 or less, whereas others have been comfortably 8 or above). Now that rant is over I shall turn to the crew talent show itself and, as always, give my unbiased and independent assessment of it. I have to say that it was brilliant! It started with an Indian waiter singing a song, mostly in his mother tongue but with some lines in English, that was called ‘You are my Soniya’. In truth, the guy didn’t have a good singing voice, but 10/10 for effort and what made it enjoyable was his Michael Jackson style dance routine that accompanied the song. I’m not sure that he meant it to be, but it was really funny. At this point I suspect that most people were thinking the same as me. This is going to be a bit like the auditions in Britain’s Got Talent where most are ropey at best, but amusing as a result. How wrong I was. Next up was a young Filipino waiter who sang ‘My Way’. He was brilliant and got a standing ovation. Thinking that we must have seen the best, next up was another young Filipino waiter who sang ‘The Writings on the Wall by Samantha Smith’. Now that’s a damned hard song to sing, as it requires an enormous vocal range. Well to continue the BGT analogy, this was a Susan Boyle moment. He was even better than the previous guy. He absolutely smashed it. What a talent. Next up a duet by 2 Filipino staff of Cruisin, by Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis. I felt quite sorry for them having to follow the previous 2 guys, but they did really well, as did Dave, the art director, who sang two songs whilst playing the guitar. Finally, we had a beautiful light dance routine (in the dark to music whilst spinning coloured lights) by the young Finnish finance manager who dedicated it as a tribute to her Dad who had died a few years ago whilst she was at sea. In conclusion, I enjoyed that show more than several of the professional acts and I don’t need to be told by the entertainment manager how to score it. It was a clear 10/10 on its own merits. I had noticed in Horizon that the Beach House tonight was an Italian menu. I have a vague recollection that someone had mentioned this on another thread re another ship, but I’ve never come across it before and it hadn’t been advertised. Anyway, it was sold out. When we were having lunch, the Sindhu manager had come over to us to say hello and I asked him about it. He said he would try to sort us out with a reservation, which was kind of him. I hadn’t heard anything by 4pm so decided to pop up to the Beach House and enquire. Luckily the waitress who was there setting up for tonight kindly gave me a reservation. My wife didn’t fancy a cuppa this afternoon but I did, so I flew solo to Raffles. The place was rammed with people playing games. As discussed before, I think that’s fair enough if they are buying drinks as well, but they weren’t. I do think it’s a bit selfish occupying a table in the coffee shop for ages just playing games when customers are looking for tables in order to consume drinks, especially when there is a perfectly good games room 20 yards away. Anyway, I managed to get a table right over by Sindhu. Dinner was in the Beach House with the Italian menu. We were really glad that we did this, especially as it was unexpected. We both had garlic prawns to start which were excellent. Real whoppers. For mains my wife had the chicken wrapped in Parma ham (which she enjoyed) and I had the lasagne, which was quite different from the MDR lasagne but very enjoyable. The weak point (as is always the case in the Beach House) was dessert. We both had something different and neither was good. None the less a very enjoyable (and different) experience from the usual offerings in the Beach House. To end the day we went to Maurice Grumbleweed’s final performance. My wife wasn’t keen but came as she wasn’t tired. In the first couple of minutes of his show he tripped on something and fell over flat on his back. The stage manager and technician rushed on to the stage to help him up and, as the true professional that he is, he handled it brilliantly, made light of it and referenced it in a few gags later. He’s no spring chicken at 75, but he looks in very good shape so hopefully he didn’t injure himself at all. His show was like his first one. Clips of songs interspersed with one liners, most of which were pretty funny (he laughs at them a lot as well 😂). I think his act would struggle on one of the newer ships with much younger audiences, but with the average age on Aurora being about the same as him he was ideal for this cruise. Tomorrow is our last sea day before the Azores.