Live from Britannia

[janieb1962]

1 minute ago, AndyMichelle said:

No, still not being done on Britannia, not even flambé away from the table, done in the kitchen apparently. 

Although P&OSue reports that everything was available on Ventura... 

Andy

 

I thought last time we were on Britannia about mentioning it’s still saying incorrect info on the menu … but who would listen ? 🤣

[Ardennais]

6 hours ago, Jennizor said:

Selbourne, we saw Joel Harper Jackson on Iona in March. He was really good and would go to see him again. Apparently he has been in several West End shows.

We also saw him on Britannia in April and agree that he was very good indeed. 

[P&O SUE]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

No, still not being done on Britannia, not even flambé away from the table, done in the kitchen apparently. 

Although P&OSue reports that everything was available on Ventura... 

Andy

 

It certainly was and the Iberian Ham was carved at the table too.

[terrierjohn]

5 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Interesting John and I’m pleased to hear that you are enjoying your cruise (as are we, to be fair).
 

In response to a first impressions form on a previous P&O cruise, I received a call from the cruise director, whose style I had described as Hi-di-Hi, saying that he would take my feedback on board and, to be fair, he did 😂 
 

I’ve heard nothing yet following my feedback about Epicurean, but hope that I will as it will be sad if they don’t fix what used to be a first class restaurant. I fear that they have a weak chef in there at present. We shall see if it’s better when we go back later this week.  
 

You will be pleased to know that I have used the app 100% of the time (when I could) and am generally getting on OK with it. However, many aren’t and feedback is that they are getting seated quicker at dinner, which is daft. I guess it’s harder to palm someone off when they are stood in front of you, as opposed to when they are just a number in a queue. 

I do think that allowing walk ups to be seated ahead of those who have booked or are in a virtual queue is ridiculous, even though we have been benefitting from it on Sky Princess. But that is mainly because the restricted times I had available for dining prior to the cruise were really too early for us, as a result our booking has lapsed by the time we get to the restaurant. It really is a stupid system, and just about everyone we dine with comments on the empty tables, presumably waiting for someone who might equally fail to arrive at their pre cruise booking time.

[Britboys]

8 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

DAY 5 (part 1)

 

Our first breakfast glitch with the app this morning. Being a port day, the MDR last entry at 9am is way too early IMHO, especially for those of us who don’t want to disembark first thing. However, I went on to the app at 0840 to find both MDRs showing as queue full and, after 5 minutes, this situation hadn’t changed. I also knew from experience that it probably wouldn’t now open up in the remaining time either. So we decided to go down and do a walk-in. 

 

There was a very officious chap telling everyone that in order to go in you had to share. We used to happily share tables in the past (less so at breakfast though) but, due to my wife’s condition having deteriorated, we always ask for a table of 2 now as she finds it embarrassing if I have to assist her. Also, I don’t really feel that I should have to explain that to the staff in front of waiting passengers every time that we ask for a table for 2 as this is demeaning. Anyway we were given a pager and thankfully the lady on the desk found us a table of 4 for the 2 of us 5 minutes later. The waiter and assistant waiter were both excellent and, even though we weren’t seated until 9am, service wasn’t rushed. 

 

We didn’t rush to leave the ship as midships  lifts (which we had to use) had been a nightmare for the past 2 days, with 2 out of 6 lifts having been out of use, but miraculously they both came back on stream just as we decided to disembark. 

 

This was our second visit to Alesund, the last time being in 2016, but neither of us could remember it. I can only assume that we must have gone on a tour back then, as when we walked around the centre we still didn’t remember it! Mein Schiff 4 and Seabourn Ovation were also in port, but the place didn’t feel overrun. I asked at the tourist information point where the best places were to go with a wheelchair, and the young lady recommended a walking route around the older half of the town, which is supposedly Art Deco (which we love). However, other than the road closest to the river, we found that this route was in fact impractical as it included some exceptionally steep hills! We looked around the flatter parts and then crossed back over the bridge between the old and new parts and walked around that half. A tip for anyone going to Alesund is that the newer part is far nicer to walk around and the areas along the waterfront afford good views across to the old part! We really enjoyed our couple of hours ashore and returned to the ship for lunch. 

 

No problems with getting in the virtual queue this time and yet another enjoyable MDR lunch. Two humorous moments though. Followers of this cruise review will know that I find the MDR lunch menus to be stupidly laid out, with no clarity as to what is a main and what is a starter. I ordered the cheese soufflé to start, only for the waiter to look at me and say “that’s a main course sir” 🙄. The devil in me wanted to say “well if that’s the case why doesn’t it ruddy well say so?”, or “I don’t care, I’ll have it anyway” but conscious that the stupid menus aren’t the waiters fault, I just smiled and ordered something else! 

 

Whilst I find the cakes and pastries to be poor on P&O (look nice but all taste the same), their hot deserts are usually pretty good and I will often ask for ice cream to accompany them rather than custard. Today was a pear something or other and when I started to tuck into it I realised that the chef had dusted it with salt rather than sugar 🤮 😂 

 

There has been absolutely nothing of interest for either of us in the daytime entertainment schedule since the start of the cruise, so a quiet afternoon siesta before tonight’s main event

which is Joel Harper Jackson (who we have never heard of) in the Limelight Club. 

 

As we have a sea day tomorrow and I can only post in ports, I won’t be able to feed back on the Limelight Club, or indeed

day 6 at sea, until we reach Oslo on Thursday, hence two updates today and nothing tomorrow. 

 

I shall close todays instalment with a tip on how to master the My Holiday App and your normal emails etc when in port, as my iPhone cannot manage to do both at the same time without difficulty.  Basically, to use the My Holiday app you have to have Airplane mode switched ON and WiFi switched ON and connected to P&O Cruises Guest WiFi. However, my emails and internet then struggle. To use the internet and emails, I have to turn both Airplane and WiFi OFF, so that my phone connects to 4G. My internet and emails then work fine, but you can’t then use My Holiday. It’s a bit of a faff having to keep switching Airplane Mode and WiFi on and off regularly, but you get used to it. Judging by the number of people I still see struggling with the app, this knowledge may help some. 

 

Here are some snaps from Alesund. Next update on Thursday but happy to answer any further questions over the next few hours before we leave for our sea day. 

Alesund looks lovely from your photos and I shall look forward to seeing it off of Aurora. Btw, I think much of the town is Art Nouveau, rather than Art Deco.

[TigerB]

3 hours ago, janieb1962 said:

Hi there , just wondering if there was any table side theatre in Epicurean … like filleting the fish or crepe Suzetteoteosration /flambé

 It was still described on the menu when we were onboard in February 2023 but we never experienced it 

 

2 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

It certainly was and the Iberian Ham was carved at the table too.

 

On Iona last month they had the crêpes cart set up in the middle of the restaurant next to the cart with ham on. One lad was carving and flambéing all night. Everything else that said 'prepared at the table' was done in the galley.

[P&O SUE]

4 hours ago, TigerB said:

 

 

On Iona last month they had the crêpes cart set up in the middle of the restaurant next to the cart with ham on. One lad was carving and flambéing all night. Everything else that said 'prepared at the table' was done in the galley.

Not right beside your table though? The bit that amused me was the lady moved her cart around a bit to make  she wasn’t under the sprinklers!

[Gettingwarmer]

9 hours ago, terrierjohn said:

I do think that allowing walk ups to be seated ahead of those who have booked or are in a virtual queue is ridiculous, even though we have been benefitting from it on Sky Princess. But that is mainly because the restricted times I had available for dining prior to the cruise were really too early for us, as a result our booking has lapsed by the time we get to the restaurant. It really is a stupid system, and just about everyone we dine with comments on the empty tables, presumably waiting for someone who might equally fail to arrive at their pre cruise booking time.

Do you not cancel your early booking once you know you are not able to be on time in order to free it up. Leaving it to lapse would presumably take time. 

[TigerB]

4 hours ago, P&O SUE said:

Not right beside your table though? The bit that amused me was the lady moved her cart around a bit to make  she wasn’t under the sprinklers!

 

That's correct; it looked like they had moved a table to make space.

[terrierjohn]

5 hours ago, Gettingwarmer said:

Do you not cancel your early booking once you know you are not able to be on time in order to free it up. Leaving it to lapse would presumably take time. 

TBH the hosts on Princess seem to take no notice of your booking anyway  all mine are for sharing tables,so far I have had to stop them taking us to a 2 top table, and force them to put is on a sharing table. It's a good job the food is worth waiting for, otherwise I might get rather annoyed.

[Britboys]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

TBH the hosts on Princess seem to take no notice of your booking anyway  all mine are for sharing tables,so far I have had to stop them taking us to a 2 top table, and force them to put is on a sharing table. It's a good job the food is worth waiting for, otherwise I might get rather annoyed.

That seems to be the default with Princess. When I sailed Alaska on Coral with a friend, whenever we turned up at the restaurant they automatically took us to a table for 2...

[Selbourne]

On 7/11/2023 at 9:30 PM, janieb1962 said:

Hi there , just wondering if there was any table side theatre in Epicurean … like filleting the fish or crepe Suzetteoteosration /flambé

 It was still described on the menu when we were onboard in February 2023 but we never experienced it 

None whatsoever that we have seen, even though as you say it is clearly stated in the menus. 

[Selbourne]

On 7/12/2023 at 12:46 AM, Britboys said:

Alesund looks lovely from your photos and I shall look forward to seeing it off of Aurora. Btw, I think much of the town is Art Nouveau, rather than Art Deco.

Yes you are quite correct Andrew. My mistake!

[Selbourne]

DAY 5 (Continued)

 

We ended Day 5 with the Limelight Club and Joel Harper Jackson. We arrived 15 minutes early having heard about queues on other ships, but they were already admitting people so we had no wait at all. We were shown to a table in a great position and I have to say that we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. The scallops starter wasn’t the best we’ve ever had, as the little pea fritters weren’t the best accompaniment, but they were at least cooked as they should be (unlike Epicurean) and the beef main was lovely. The deconstructed cheesecake was different with very nice flavours. Service was good. 

 

As for the performance, it’s changed since we last went and is now shorter in duration. The performer used to sing a few songs at the start of the evening and then return for a full set after the meal service had concluded. Now they do a bit of a Q&A early on (no songs) and then a (shorter) set after the meal. During the Q&A he mentioned that his parents were on the cruise and they had been complaining about how difficult it had been to get dining reservations on the ship. He was having to go along to the restaurants and try to negotiate bookings for them! It was all done and dusted by 10pm and the actual performance felt like it ended a bit too soon. As a singer, Joel was certainly a lot better than the Headliners but not quite as good as Darren Day, who we had seen in the Limelight Club on a previous cruise. He is, however, a really nice guy and his personality carried it. I’m glad that we went as it was a different and pleasant evening. 

 

My wife didn’t want to do anything afterwards but I fancied a hot drink (which we weren’t offered in the Limelight, even though some others were) so I made a rare trip to the buffet at 10.30pm after I had deposited her back in the cabin. I’m no expert on the buffet, as we avoid it like the plague usually, but I fancied a tiny bit of cheese and biscuits. I’m not sure if this is how it’s always been done, but between 10.30pm and 11.00pm there is no food available whatsoever. I had assumed that at least one of the buffet stations would be open at all times? One chap said to me “This is the first time I’ve been on P&O and I’ve never known this on other cruise lines, but I did manage to find a few scraps down there” as he showed me a little bowl with a shrivelled sandwich and sad looking pastry in it. I didn’t dare ask what his first impressions of P&O were 😂 . 

 

DAY 6 (Sea Day)

 

I spoke too soon on Day 2 with my praise for the fact that MDR breakfasts are now last entry at 10am on sea days, rather than 9.30am. Day 6 is the second sea day and last entry is back to 9.30am. I therefore withdraw my previous praise! I can only  assume that day 2 was a one off due to the clocks going forward? We booked a table on the app and were called very quickly. Whilst having breakfast, I noticed that both MDRs were showing queue full by 9.15 am and remained so. This seems to be a daily occurrence now, so those who intend to use the app need to be aware of this. 

 

We aren’t huge fans of sea days and see them very much as just a way of breaking up port visits, but we have enjoyed a number of interesting special interest talks over the years. Not on this cruise (so far, anyway). Whereas there were usually two guest presenters on the ship at any one time, one in the morning and a different one in the afternoon, this appears to have been reduced to just one on this cruise so far, and his second talk is the same subject matter as his first - Viking’s. Consequently, there was not a single thing happening during the daytime that interested us. As we’d had to go to breakfast earlier than we’d have liked, we killed some time by attending this sole talk anyway, and it seemed that everyone else had the same idea as it was a full house! In fairness, whilst the subject matter wasn’t of huge interest to us, he was a good presenter. 

 

We had our second challenging time with the app at lunchtime. I have become accustomed to the ‘Queue Full’ message from 15 mins before the last entry time, but today it was impossible to book on the app for the entire second half of the MDR  lunchtime service. I started trying (unsuccessfully) at 1pm and kept refreshing the page, assuming that bookings would open up again. They didn’t, and at 1.25pm we gave up trying and decided to do a walk-in. There was a long queue of people trying to get into the MDR and we were all issued with pagers. Having started to try to get a table from 1pm we eventually sat down at 2pm, 15 minutes after the restaurant was due to close! We overheard a few other people saying that they had been waiting for an hour or more as well - and that’s just for lunch!. As a sea day doesn’t come as a surprise, I can only assume that there was an organisational problem. 

 

During the afternoon, with nothing else to do, we watched a film on the cabin TV. Thank goodness that the cabin TVs on Britannia are considerably better than those on the older ships. At 5pm I popped up to the buffet to get a little treat for our afternoon cuppa. Yet again, the buffet was closed, but this time for an hour until 6pm (other than the kids tea, which was being carefully policed). Again, I’ve no idea if this is a new thing as we use the buffet so infrequently, but this part time buffet thing had passed me by. I’m curious to know from those who regularly frequent the buffet - is this normal? I tried unsuccessfully to find an officer to ask. 

 

It was the second formal night so, conscious of the long wait for the MDR on the first formal night, we joined the virtual queue at 7.10pm whilst listening to the excellent singer Angelika Ecklund in the atrium. When she finished her set we still seemed to be moving very slowly in the virtual queue, so we headed up to the Crows Nest. We were eventually called to our table at 8.25pm, which was about the time we wanted to eat, so our plan had worked, but you will note that’s  some 75 minutes after we joined the queue. Thankfully we had a first class waiter and the meal was good in parts. The Parmesan mouse that came with the Parma ham starter was missing any trace of…Parmesan. The mains were good and served piping hot again. My wife decided agains the Cherries Jubilee pud saying that it wouldn’t be a patch on the one we had on Cunard recently. I decided to go for it. My wife was right. Not even remotely close 😂 Thankfully I had asked for cheese as well and that was excellent. I had said to the waiter that I liked the Stilton Bon-bons but they were very small, so if he could smuggle me a second one I’d be grateful. He bought me three of them! We had a good laugh with the waiter when my wife asked him what flavour was a ‘Cambridge’ Crème Brûlée. With a smile, he shrugged his shoulders and said, I’ve no idea madam and if we ask the kitchen they say we will let you know and they never do!

 

To end the evening we went to the Vinylettes second show. The patter between the songs was cringeworthy in the extreme, but thankfully the singing was good and you can’t go wrong with Motown. Oslo next stop.  

[mrsgoggins]

Reading of the issues involved in getting a table in the MDR by both @Selbourne on Britannia and @terrierjohn on Sky Princess, where I am also at present, makes me feel very pleased that our normal habits are to dine early for each meal. What a performance! I’d definitely be looking at land-based holidays more if that were our experience.
 

I’m really pleased that you are finding many good things to say about your cruise @Selbourne given the amount of planning you have put into this one, and your upcoming family cruise.  Thank you for such a detailed account.

[Purdey16]

I’m really enjoying your report selbourne and it’s good to hear your enjoying your cruise apart from the little hiccups that’s been going on with the buffet and the table queuing on the app , it’s been a while since I’ve been on a P&O ship , Arcadia was my last one last October, we had set dining times at 8.30 each night but I do know people we’re having too wait extremely long times on the app and in due course changed to set dining.

I enjoyed your photos of Allesund it brought back my holiday memories of a few weeks back on a princess cruise, we took the blue noddy train up to the top of the viewing point and around town and the harbour it had commentary while going along , I had quite a bad accident the day before so I was taking it easy and not walking anywhere but I found getting into the train a bit tight so that would be exceptional hard for a disability person to try and climb in , it’s a shame they don’t make these trolley trains a bit wider access and lower .

I hope the rest of your cruise goes without any more glitches and your next dinner in the epicurean is as good has graham and Pauline’s nights . Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

[9265359]

On 7/10/2023 at 9:02 PM, Selbourne said:

The lack of an evening cabin service hasn’t bothered us at all Graham. The lack of biscuits, however, is another matter altogether 🤣 

The only thing that bothers me about the lack of an evening cabin service was towels not being changed in the evening (they simply don’t dry overnight) and so I now ask the steward to leave four rather than two towels, so four can be changed each morning.

 

6 hours ago, Selbourne said:

We had our second challenging time with the app at lunchtime. I have become accustomed to the ‘Queue Full’ message from 15 mins before the last entry time, but today it was impossible to book on the app for the entire second half of the MDR  lunchtime service. I started trying (unsuccessfully) at 1pm and kept refreshing the page, assuming that bookings would open up again. They didn’t, and at 1.25pm we gave up trying and decided to do a walk-in. There was a long queue of people trying to get into the MDR and we were all issued with pagers. Having started to try to get a table from 1pm we eventually sat down at 2pm, 15 minutes after the restaurant was due to close! We overheard a few other people saying that they had been waiting for an hour or more as well - and that’s just for lunch!. As a sea day doesn’t come as a surprise, I can only assume that there was an organisational problem. 

On the previous non-sea days I had joined the lunchtime MDR queue at 1pm for a table for two with perhaps 10 people in the queue, but then I had been almost instantly notified the table was available.

 

Yesterday anticipating problems I joined the queue at 12:40 with 44 people ahead of me and the table was available at 1pm. However outside the restaurant there were hoards of people with pagers moaning that they had been waiting 40 minutes, but more annoyingly the staff at the ‘you have been called’ reception side were not telling walk ups to go to the other side.

 

6 hours ago, Selbourne said:

When she finished her set we still seemed to be moving very slowly in the virtual queue, so we headed up to the Crows Nest. 

It was interesting to see last night the ‘bouncer’ on the door to the Crows Nest employing an erratic strategy as to who could come in.

 

Guy wearing jeans, a casual jacket and no tie - no problem, come on in. Following guy wearing smart trousers, collared shirt, tie but no jacket - get lost.

 

6 hours ago, Selbourne said:

To end the evening we went to the Vinylettes second show. The patter between the songs was cringeworthy in the extreme, but thankfully the singing was good and you can’t go wrong with Motown.

 

I didn’t think it as good as their first set a few days ago, but it wasn’t bad. 
 

And if anyone is sailing on Iona that’s apparently where they are headed, as they were disembarking as we were getting back onboard at lunchtime (no queue in the MDR today…).

[9265359]

And having just seen Horizon,  what on earth is going on. Black Tie night again tomorrow, despite the last one being yesterday.

 

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

[P&O SUE]

4 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

And having just seen Horizon,  what on earth is going on. Black Tie night again tomorrow, despite the last one being yesterday.

 

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

😱

[P&O SUE]

Re the buffet, they often have  one side closed at times but not both?!

 

We’ve developed a habit of going to the Glasshouse for lunch on sea days ☺️

[daiB]

7 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

And having just seen Horizon,  what on earth is going on. Black Tie night again tomorrow, despite the last one being yesterday.

 

Utterly, utterly ridiculous.

Not at all they fit them into sea days. Standard practice. Do not understand your objection.

[9265359]

1 hour ago, daiB said:

Not at all they fit them into sea days. Standard practice. Do not understand your objection.

Firstly they don’t - the final Black Tie night is Hamburg.

 

Secondly my objection is the events are supposed to be special and running them ‘back to back’ means they are not. If you can’t spread them out, then cancel one and have three not four across the two weeks.

[Selbourne]

39 minutes ago, 9265359 said:

Firstly they don’t - the final Black Tie night is Hamburg.

 

Secondly my objection is the events are supposed to be special and running them ‘back to back’ means they are not. If you can’t spread them out, then cancel one and have three not four across the two weeks.

I believe that the black tie nights have changed from what was initially stated and, after tomorrow, the last one will now be the sea day before Hamburg. 

[Wonky]

I think the Vinylettes must have had their “patter” training from a certain captain from “God’s own country”!

[Selbourne]

 

DAY 7 (Oslo)

 

On our previous visits to Oslo we have always berthed right in the heart of the city centre by the Opera House. As we were the largest ship in the port today we were relegated to the other side of the harbour, further out but still walkable. 

 

Just one minor gripe today which I will quickly get out of the way. P&O seem to have stopped telling people (in Horizon) where the ship will berth the next day and what passengers options are for getting to the centre. How difficult is it to say that it’s a 10 minute walk or that there are port provided shuttles? It costs nothing to do this and is good customer service, yet we have been left completely in the dark each day so far and have to work it all out for ourselves when we get ashore. I use maps on my iPhone but older or less confident folk may be a bit fazed by it and probably end up paying for transport that they might not need. 

 

A couple of lifts had gone out of service again but we managed to get one OK. I was quite amused that two senior British Officers got in the lift and when someone mentioned the lack of midship stairs one responded immediately with “This ship is badly designed”. How refreshing!

 

We went ashore earlier than most days as there were a few places that we wanted to see. The walk in to the centre was actually very pleasant. We wanted to go to the Vigeland Sculpture park but it was some distance and I was pushing my wife in her wheelchair so I wasn’t quite sure how I’d manage it, but on the way into the centre we saw a tram and, by luck, I noticed on the map at the tram stop that it went to the sculpture park. As with everything these days, you can’t buy tickets at a machine or from a person, you need an app. I downloaded it but hadn’t worked out what we needed to do by the time the tram came in. I intended to seek help and buy a ticket on the tram, but there was no ticket person on it so I’m ashamed to say that we are now officially fare dodgers. 

 

The sculpture park was very different. Lots of sculptures of naked people (an artist would describe it as depictions of the human form 😂). Many impressive beds of roses as well. We enjoyed our visit. We returned to the tram stop and just missed a tram, which was annoying as they are only every 15 minutes. When the next one eventually came in it was an old one and it wasn’t accessible as there were three large steps up into it. The driver was all for helping me lift my wife in the wheelchair, but that would have been extremely dangerous so we waited for the next tram which was thankfully accessible. There was a ticket inspector on this one, so rather than risk a penalty fare I did the ‘idiotic foreigner’ act and he very helpfully showed me what ticket I needed on the app. As he was so helpful I asked the best way to get to the Munch museum (our next destination) and he told me to change at the next stop and then get the number 13 tram to a certain station, which we did. When we got to said station, I checked the route to the Munch Museum on my phone only to find that it was a hell of a distance away. Now cursing him, I proceeded to push my wife around 1.5 miles over bridges and up several very steep hills before finally arriving at………..what USED to be the Munch Museum 😡 Google Maps has a lot to answer for. The young chap at the info desk said “oh dear. You need the ‘new’ Munch Museum”. Where’s that I asked. Yep. You guessed it. Just a few hundred yards from where the helpful chap who I had since cursed had told us to get off the tram 😂 

 

Having eventually made it to the new Munch museum we started at the top and worked down. The top is an overhanging view point. We looked around the whole museum but all I really wanted to see was “The Scream”. There are a number of versions and 3 are on display - a black and white lithograph, a crayon sketch and an oil (the one that we associate with this work). They will only allow one to be displayed at any time and every 30 minutes automatic doors close over one and the next one opens, which also adds some theatre to it. By the time we got to see it the black and white version was showing with the crayon one coming up next. We saw both. However, after 30 mins it was going to be the black and white one again before the one that I really wanted to see was briefly ‘exposed’, so we went for a drink and had a piece of pizza before going back up to see the big unveiling 😂 

 

By the time we came out there had been a thunderstorm so we waited until it stopped raining and then walked the length of the main drag towards the Royal Palace before cutting down towards the water and back to the ship. Unfortunately, when we were around 500 yards from the ship the heavens opened and we had to take shelter under a tree. After some time a lovely couple from the ship stopped and offered us their umbrellas as they also had coats with hoods. My wife borrowed one and was extremely grateful.  I duly returned it when we got back on the ship. 

 

I was parched after all the walking, so headed up to the sunset bar to get a pint of Bierra Moretti which I really fancied. It was very windy and the barman suggested that I went to the port side, but that is cancer corner (as I call the smoking areas) so I took it back to the cabin. 

 

For dinner we went to Epicurean for our second visit. Much better than the first night and even though my wife ordered the same starter and main as last time she said that both were cooked properly this time and she described it as a completely different meal. I had the fillet of beef which was also excellent. The manager apologised for our poor experience the first night and I asked about the lack of table side prep and the previous lovely petit fours and he blamed Covid. Not the best thing to say to me as that excuse is complete hog wash, as I told him (not using those words), so although the meal and experience was lovely it gets 8/10 for the weak excuses as to why it’s not 100% operating as it should. He kindly waived one of our cover charges for the first night problems, which was fair, and we left happy and will return next week for the other menu. 

 

We didn’t bother with the show as we’ve seen it countless times and besides the ship didn’t leave until 9.30pm so we preferred to watch the transit down Oslo fjord from our cabin. 

 

Finally, some praise for our cabin steward Neville. Most of his cabins are suites yet he still manages to get our standard balcony cabin serviced whilst we are having breakfast every morning. He’ll definitely get a decent tip at the end of the cruise. Sea day tomorrow so no more updates until Copenhagen on Saturday. 

 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Selbourne