Selbourne ‘Live’ from Ventura

[Ardennais]

Really enjoyed your reports Selbourne. Many thanks. 

[Beckett]

Thank you Selbourne for another interesting and balanced blog. I love your writing - fair, balanced, and humourous. Welcome home. Jane xx

[yorkshirephil]

Thanks for taking the trouble to post @Selbourne, glad you made the best of things under the circumstances.

[indiana123]

Enjoyed reading it all.

 

It seemed very fair and "as it is" if that makes sense.

[Twogreynomads]

Thanks Selbourne, we very much enjoyed reading your cruise reports and it has made us look forward even more to our first P&O cruise since cvd next month on Arcadia.

Welcome home

[P&O SUE]

Thanks again Selbourne, great read. Glad you had a good cruise in the whole.

[Son of Anarchy]

Thank you Selbourne for a very informative and captivating read.  Only booked last week to go on Ventura next month, hopefully it will go as well as your cruise did.

[janny444]

@Selbourne.....really enjoy your live reports and so looking forward to reading your live report on your 65 night cruise....it will certainly help pass the long  Winter days 

[jeanlyon]

Interesting to hear about the TVs.  We thought it was our eyes on Aurora!!!  We also preferred no evening turndown.  Much better.

 

Strange about the aircon, most people complain it's too cold.

[pete14]

Thanks again Selbourne for your balanced review. I am pleased the good things outweighed the not so good and that you and Lady Selbourne had such a good time. Hopefully I will post our experiences on Aurora from Wednesday (internet permitting) and hopefully I will be able to be as fair and positive as you have been. You may even see a real photograph of the Northern Lights but I can’t promise.

[Selbourne]

8 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Thanks again Selbourne for your balanced review. I am pleased the good things outweighed the not so good and that you and Lady Selbourne had such a good time. Hopefully I will post our experiences on Aurora from Wednesday (internet permitting) and hopefully I will be able to be as fair and positive as you have been. You may even see a real photograph of the Northern Lights but I can’t promise.

Thanks. Enjoy your cruise and fingers crossed that the skies are clear for you. If the Northern Lights make an appearance they get picked up far stronger by cameras than they do than by the human eye, so you’ve a good chance of some decent shots. 

[pete14]

38 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks. Enjoy your cruise and fingers crossed that the skies are clear for you. If the Northern Lights make an appearance they get picked up far stronger by cameras than they do than by the human eye, so you’ve a good chance of some decent shots. 

Hopefully our son, who is a keen photographer, will assist in the photo taking. 

[Selbourne]

29 minutes ago, pete14 said:

Hopefully our son, who is a keen photographer, will assist in the photo taking. 

For keen photographers, the Northern Lights are a dream. I attempted to take photos with my iPhone and even using an app they were rubbish. There were a few guys with decent cameras on deck who were taking some spectacular shots. The camera lens can see colour that we cannot see with the human eye, so good photos are always significantly more impressive than you have actually seen in reality. We were lucky that the first time that we went we had two nights of really strong displays, but even on the night when we couldn’t really see anything with the naked eye these guys were getting great shots! It’s a great cruise even if the lights don’t make an appearance. The scenery is spectacular. Enjoy. 

[elmsliebev]

thanks for your report Selbourne, thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm pleased you had a good time.

[DamianG]

Thanks Selbourne, your thread was well written, informative, entertaining & thoroughly engaging as always. 
 

Don’t put yourself out too much but I hope that you’ll be able to post some updates from your forthcoming epic adventure on Aurora.

[Presto2]

22 hours ago, pete14 said:

Hopefully our son, who is a keen photographer, will assist in the photo taking. 

If all else fails, I know of a good live youtube feed that he can take a photo of --- we won't tell 🙂

Seriously, looking forward to your reports - have a safe journey down and we hope you all have a great first cruise since you know what.

[Selbourne]

@TigerB I hope that you had a safe journey home and that your wife is now feeling better?

 

Have you posted your review of your Iona cruise? If you have, can you point me in the direction as I must have missed it?

[Dobbers]

Thanks for a great thread, balanced and very informative. Have really enjoyed reading it.

[TigerB]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

@TigerB I hope that you had a safe journey home and that your wife is now feeling better?

 

Have you posted your review of your Iona cruise? If you have, can you point me in the direction as I must have missed it?

 

Thanks, Selbourne.  It knocked her for six, but she's better now, but it's taken more than a week to shake it off.

 

You haven't missed it, as I haven't yet posted it. What with looking after the boss, and being tied up with loads of different things after getting home, I haven't had time to tidy it and the photos up.  Hopefully, tomorrow night.

[Selbourne]

10 hours ago, TigerB said:

 

Thanks, Selbourne.  It knocked her for six, but she's better now, but it's taken more than a week to shake it off.

 

You haven't missed it, as I haven't yet posted it. What with looking after the boss, and being tied up with loads of different things after getting home, I haven't had time to tidy it and the photos up.  Hopefully, tomorrow night.

No rush, you clearly have your hands full. Pleased to hear that your wife is on the mend. 

[Clodia]

Very entertaining blog which I finished reading on Iona. Regarding the lifts, after talking to a couple of wheelchair users having problems, a group of us, mainly women travelling solo, are holding lifts and raising awareness, trying to lessen the problems. If the lifts weren't so small I don't  think there would be so many issues.

[Selbourne]

2 hours ago, Clodia said:

Very entertaining blog which I finished reading on Iona. Regarding the lifts, after talking to a couple of wheelchair users having problems, a group of us, mainly women travelling solo, are holding lifts and raising awareness, trying to lessen the problems. If the lifts weren't so small I don't  think there would be so many issues.

Thanks. I’m glad that you enjoyed it! The lift issues that we had on Iona were definitely exacerbated by it being August school holidays and there being 5,750 passengers, but there’s no doubt that the lifts are too small for how busy that ship can get. Able bodied folk, or those with hidden disabilities (so can presumably stand), won’t have any issues, but my wife’s wheelchair (which isn’t big) takes up almost half a lift on Iona, and usually the lifts were more than half full. 

 

The other factor was that the passenger behaviours on Iona were entirely different to anything that we had experienced on any other ships, before or since. Almost zero lift etiquette or consideration for the challenges that we were facing, other than the children and teenagers who were great. 
 

Ventura was so different it was incredible. The lifts are bigger, the ship never felt packed (as Iona had) and 95% of the time we could get into the first lift that arrived. Our fellow passengers were fabulous and were always holding lift doors for us and telling us to go first even when they’d been waiting longer (we never expect to queue jump, but it’s nice when people are so thoughtful). As I said in my review, it was chalk and cheese compared to Iona. However, I’m conscious that other wheelchair and scooter users have had no issues on Iona, albeit cruising at quieter times, so we might just have been extremely unlucky. Either way, my wife still steadfastly refuses to consider any further cruises on Iona or Arvia as a result, which is a shame as there was lots to like. 

[pete14]

2 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Thanks. I’m glad that you enjoyed it! The lift issues that we had on Iona were definitely exacerbated by it being August school holidays and there being 5,750 passengers, but there’s no doubt that the lifts are too small for how busy that ship can get. Able bodied folk, or those with hidden disabilities (so can presumably stand), won’t have any issues, but my wife’s wheelchair (which isn’t big) takes up almost half a lift on Iona, and usually the lifts were more than half full. 

 

The other factor was that the passenger behaviours on Iona were entirely different to anything that we had experienced on any other ships, before or since. Almost zero lift etiquette or consideration for the challenges that we were facing, other than the children and teenagers who were great. 
 

Ventura was so different it was incredible. The lifts are bigger, the ship never felt packed (as Iona had) and 95% of the time we could get into the first lift that arrived. Our fellow passengers were fabulous and were always holding lift doors for us and telling us to go first even when they’d been waiting longer (we never expect to queue jump, but it’s nice when people are so thoughtful). As I said in my review, it was chalk and cheese compared to Iona. However, I’m conscious that other wheelchair and scooter users have had no issues on Iona, albeit cruising at quieter times, so we might just have been extremely unlucky. Either way, my wife still steadfastly refuses to consider any further cruises on Iona or Arvia as a result, which is a shame as there was lots to like. 

I am pleased to say that currently on Aurora, there are no problems with lifts which I am aware of. I use the lifts infrequently but there never seems to be a queue, and on occasions when I have used them, they have usually arrived empty. 

[Selbourne]

35 minutes ago, pete14 said:

I am pleased to say that currently on Aurora, there are no problems with lifts which I am aware of. I use the lifts infrequently but there never seems to be a queue, and on occasions when I have used them, they have usually arrived empty. 

That’s how we’ve always found Aurora, and all the other ships as well. Iona was a unique experience for us.

[terrierjohn]

7 hours ago, Clodia said:

Very entertaining blog which I finished reading on Iona. Regarding the lifts, after talking to a couple of wheelchair users having problems, a group of us, mainly women travelling solo, are holding lifts and raising awareness, trying to lessen the problems. If the lifts weren't so small I don't  think there would be so many issues.

The lifts are quite small when compared to Azura, Ventura and Britannia, and positively minuscule when compared to RCI and Celebrity lifts, which could almost double as ballrooms!

.