Harry Peterson

Lunch. Hot gazpacho. We (I feature only as the purchaser of the spoons) make and freeze gazpacho in the summer, mainly from garden produce. It’s really refreshing and forms an integral part of our slightly adapted 5:2 diet. It’s more like 6.5:2, the way we do it, but it works for us. But iced gazpacho doesn’t quite work in November, so - bright idea - heat it! Piping hot gazpacho! Pleased to report that it’s very good indeed - recommended! ♨️

You can of course reverse that argument for informal in the MDR……

That’s a very interesting viewpoint, which I don’t think I’ve seen seriously expressed in these forums before. I can’t fault your logic, so I have to agree with you. I have a suspicion it might not generally be agreed though!

Exactly. I asked my wife why a bible and got the same answer. She does recall doctors actually doing it there and then though, but more likely with a weighty medical tome. The trick apparently was to distract the patient by pointing at something out of the window, then whack the ganglion suddenly with the book, and it usually did the trick by causing it to burst. I imagine there were some failures. Probably also some injuries, perhaps also caused by the patient’s fist on the doctor’s jaw. Possibly also some impact on the doctor’s medical insurance premia. She never found out about those.

Hell’s teeth……..do Freedom Passes go right out to Reading? Shenfield to Chancery Lane and back every day was enough for me! Did you ever get the chance to go on the Central Line from Epping to Ongar when it was still part of the Underground? That was our avoiding route on BR strike days. Car to Ongar and in on the Central Line from there. Almost magical coming back in the summer - something really bizarre about looking out of an underground train at wheat fields on both sides!

I did spot a Russian couple on Azura once, making quite a big thing about sanitising the sanitiser bottle (s) - they had a range of them:

Given that the lift buttons are one of the most potentially contaminated surfaces on a ship, simply because of the high usage, it’s always amusing to see other passengers as cautious (paranoid?) as yourselves using paper napkins, shirts, dresses etc to touch them with! It’s even more widespread now, post Covid.

I’d agree with you, apart from the fact that you’re reliant on others doing the same - and they don’t. Most, if not all, of the staff handle food sensibly, but a noticeable minority of passengers don’t, and it only takes one to contaminate an entire tray of food. We saw it enough times to make us avoid the buffet altogether.

Rule 1: Never, ever use the buffet. 🤮

You may have a point there - Carnival are very much in need of cash, so maybe a sale of subsidiaries such as P&O could very much help them survive. And once you’ve made a decision like that, customer loyalty isn’t really an issue any more.

Good to hear from you again Avril. Glad you’re both well, and that it was just that login problem that caused everyone so much grief. If we had any personal details stored on here the frequent IT problems would bother me! TalkTalk however, under that useless Dido Harding, was another story - still getting scam calls as a result of that, complete with name, address and of course phone number. The accident claim ones are funny though - my wife tells thanks them nicely for calling at such an opportune moment after just having lost a leg. Odd that they never stay on the line. She’s lost 11 legs and 9 arms now, so even answering the phone’s slightly tricky.

A very neat and accurate summary.

All these derogatory comments about Butlins………..a little unfair. My daughter takes the children there every year at the moment. They have an absolutely wonderful time - free rides, great pool, free entertainment of every sort, loads to do. Husband prefers to stay at work, and daughter hates it - but the children love it!

Thanks for the excellent pictures - looks great! Have fun!

‘I’m not taking any chances.’

Very sad and sorry to hear that. The only real concerns we ever had about P&O were the poor customer service in the UK and the tiredness of some of the ships. The customer service onboard though, apart from one Customer Service Manager who didn’t like talking to customers, was exceptional. Absolutely faultless, and all meals ran like clockwork, on both Ventura and Azura.

They’re already working on the water slide, but the early designs for the steps up are creating a few temporary difficulties:

On a slightly related point, why is all the ‘free’ ‘coffee’ served on P&O so disgustingly bad? It’s genuinely the worst tasting coffee I’ve ever encountered anywhere in the world. Is it the desalinated water? Or maybe the Bromide?

Too right - she was one of the most useful parts of these forums and - sadly - she's no longer posting.

Pre-existing conditions are a nightmare. And excluding them leaves you very vulnerable indeed, as you say. There are specialist insurers who might help, and probably a few here who can recommend some. The cover I had with one of the banks was particularly good in that respect, and there may be others. I certainly wouldn’t travel with anything other than trivialities excluded.

That about sums it up, Andrew. Even in the space of just 10 years the changes are very substantial and very noticeable. New cruisers won’t be remotely aware, so long as they steer clear of these forums, and that’s all that really matters. We’ve accepted deteriorating customer service in pretty much every area of life - this is just another one. I wonder if Cunard’s gone the same Carnival way?

Thanks - I could get that from Ocado if I could bring myself to use them again. Waitrose also do one, but the Head Chef informs me that it’s not as good as the Jus-Rol all butter. A couple of years back we had to use the ordinary version. Never again. Makes a huge difference to home made sausage rolls - sausages supplied by a proper butcher. After years of buying supermarket sausages, even from Waitrose and M&S, we discovered that by comparison with real butchers’ sausages (choose carefully!) they’re all pretty dull and bland. And they deliver!

Apparently because singles don’t spend as much onboard, and that’s a huge chunk of the bottom line, particularly these days.

I’ve lived in various places since I was a kid, but nowhere have I come across rain like Cornish rain, combined with the wind. I remember beautiful summers on the beaches, but VERY rainy winters!

Tesco Christmas slot fixed first thing this morning, along with others here. We’re still unable to shop normally, so that’s a relief! Waitrose will be providing the non-basics, but their stock problems have been annoying lately. They do an extremely thin cut bacon that nobody else sells, but it seems to be permanently out of stock. They’re one of only two supermarkets selling the all butter Jus-Rol puff pastry for the sausage rolls, but fortunately that was in stock. Constant struggle to get that for some reason. Our favourite, Aldi, does at least do Click and Collect now, so that’s another option. Much better quality overall than Tesco these days, but I can’t see them going down the delivery route. Unprofitable.