Tom Burke’s Blog

It’s now clear that Carnival Cruise Line will effectively have no ships in Europe next year. Their original plans were for full seasons by Carnival Liberty and Carnival Freedom, plus a few post-delivery cruises in the early autumn by the new Carnival Dream. Carnival Freedom and Carnival Liberty are sister ships, delivered in 2007 and 2005 respectively, and typically have 3000+ passengers each; Carnival Dream wil be even bigger.

However it was announced in June that Carnival Freedom would not come to Europe in 2009 but would instead provide cruises out of Port Everglades year-round. A further announcement a few days ago said Carnival Liberty will continue providing 7-night cruises out of Miami throughout 2009, i.e. it will not be coming to Europe. Carnival Dream, the third Carnival ship planned to spend time in Europe in 2009 is due to be delivered in September from an Italian shipyard, and is still scheduled to provide three 12-night cruises out of Civitavecchia before sailing to the USA. Carnival Cruise Line say that the reason for the redeployment of these ships (and especially of Carnival Liberty) were “economic uncertainties and high air costs”. It’s not clear what is being offered to passengers who had already booked cruises in Europe on Carnival Freedom and Carnival Liberty.

Of course, Carnival Corporation, owners of Carnival Cruise Line, isn’t abandoning Europe. Far from it; first they have European brands (e.g. Costa, P&O), and secondly they are continuing with European deployments of ships from the Princess and HAL brands. But it’s been suggested that whereas they market these brands heavily within Europe (and therefore attract a fair number of European passengers), Carnival Cruise Line itself is little marketed in Europe and relies on American passengers to fill nearly all their cabins. In the current economic climate Americans are staying home and Carnival were facing early-empty ships; hence the decision to redeploy.

So could the desertion of Europe by US-based lines become even more widespread? Many commentators argue not; they suggest that most other brands (e.g. Princess, HAL, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity)  market themselves within Europe and are therefore not so reliant on American passengers. I’m not so sure, certainly as regards some of them. Royal Caribbean may do alright – I know a lot of UK-based passengers do book cruises on their Mediterranean fly/cruises – but on the two occasions I’ve been on Celebrity in the Med, I would have said that 90% of the passengers were from north america.

2009 might be an interesting year in cruising terms. The cruise lines have had ten years or more of uninterrupted growth, but next year may not continue that.

So it’s going to be called ‘Azura’ – Ventura’s sister-ship. Hmm…

Not a bad name, I suppose; it has a pleasant sound and there’s that all-important P&O ‘a’-ending (think Canberra, Arcadia, Oriana, etc.). But it doesn’t really mean anything, and it certainly doesn’t hark back to any of P&O’s traditions. Someone pointed out that it would fit well as a Princess name – ‘Azura Princess’ (or Azure Princess), and that sounds all too plausible. But I’m sure everyone will get used to the name pretty quickly.

What’s more interesting are the comments made by P&O MD Nigel Esdale at the keel-laying ceremony: “It is also appropriate for a ship that will be a haven of serenity…”. Some reports over the sumer indicated that Ventura was anything but a haven of serenity, with 800 children on board on one school-holiday cruise. Will Azura be child-free? or just not marketed as being family-friendly quite as much as Ventura has been this year?

More details of Azura’s facilities and layouts are promised sometime in November, and detail of her first season’s itinerary (which will start in  spring 2010) will be published early next year.

No sooner does one cruise end that than I start looking forward to the next one, even though it’s still eleven months away. We’ll be on Celebrity Solstice for 11 nights in the Eastern Med starting on 28 September – coincidentally exactly a year after we boarded Ventura.

Today we received a letter from our TA giving our flight details. Hurray! – we’ve got direct BA flights in both directions, so we should be able to use the whole BA baggage allowance of 23 kgs instead of just 20 kgs. And the flight times are better than any we’ve had before – for both our Galaxy cruises we were given flights from Heathrow of around 7am, which meant checking-in at 5am of course; no breakfast for us. And the flights home weren’t any better. The first year we had a direct flight but not until 5pm so we were hanging around Leonardo da Vinci airport all day, while for the second year the return flight was via Frankfurt which meant added hassle. But our assigned flights for next year’s cruise are at 9:15 out, so we won’t have to check-in until 7am or so; and a direct flight home from Leonardo da Vinci at 13:35. Excellent!

All we need to worry about now is the plummeting exchange rate; on-board purchases on Solstice will all be in US$. Ouch….

Having finished our cruise on Ventura, I have had some of the perils of cruising brought home to me.

I knew I was sniffling a bit the last day of the cruise – all those exotic germs brought onboard by all the *other* passengers, of course – but as expected it turned into one of my ‘express’ colds that my wife gets upset about – day 1 is sniffles, day 2 is a nose like a dripping tap, day 3 is the coughing day, and day 4 is – well, by day 4, apart from sounding a bit hoarse, it’s over. (Why does she get upset about them? – because for her, a cold lasts a good two weeks and she feels so awful that several days have to be spent in bed.)

But the real problem became obvious on way home. The joint on my right big toe was hurting….. yes, it was the dreaded gout, which I’ve had once before. At first (Saturday) I thought it might not turn out to be too bad, but by Sunday it was hell. I swear I didn’t sleep a wink on Sunday night, nor Monday night – it was just impossible to find a way of lying (or sitting, or standing) that was not constantly, exceedingly painful. Ibuprofen and Co Codamol did no good, so on Monday & Tuesday it was ice packs and elevated feet, and on Wednesday morning I got a prescription for some industrial-strength NSAID tablets, which started to improve matters. I was able to sleep from Wednesday onwards and now (the following Monday) I’m feeling a lot better, although my foot is still swollen and I’m still not walking properly.

So what caused it? Well, a major cohort study in North America has suggested that red meat, beer, and whisky in particular can trigger an attack; and guess what I was eating and drinking on the cruise. Next time I shall eat fish! – or at least chicken.

One good thing – red wine, blamed often in the past for causing gout, seems not to be a culprit. Phew….

My last post about the actual cruise details will be, appropriately, about the last act of the cruise – disembarkation.

Before that, though, just a few words about pre-disembarkation activities. We berthed at the Mayflower terminal at almost exactly 6:30. It was still dark, but I could see Queen Mary 2 already berthed at City terminal, while Queen Elizabeth 2 was turning (or being turned, by tugs) down at the QE2 terminal. But it was too dark to see much, or take any pictures. Later, as we disembarked, I was surprised to see that Amadea had arrived as well, and was berthed between Ventura and QM2. On return to the cabin, Val gave me her report on the in-cabin hairdryer – it did a job, but wasn’t as strong or as handy to use as her own.

Now onto disembarkation itself. To be honest it was all quite painless (well, apart from the actual feeling of leaving the ship). We had packed and put the first couple of suitcases out during the afternoon, and the last two at bedtime. I think I mentioned a few posts ago that we had swapped our original 11am disembarkation slot for one at 9:15. Cabins have to be vacated by 8am, so we were in the Tamarind Club by just before that time with all our hand luggage. Our 9:15 group was actually called at 8:45, so instead of suffering delays we were ahead of time. Then we spent some time in various queues – to get off the ship, to go through customs (quite short, that one – not many people declaring things), to find our cases in the baggage hall and load them onto trolleys, to exit the baggage hall, and finally (and very briefly) to get our car keys back from CPS. Altogether this took 30 minutes, and we were actually unlocking Val’s car at 9:15. Then we just drove home, arriving here at about 1:45 -  about four and a half hours, including a couple of brief stops. And that was the end of our cruise.

Last night was the last formal night (of four), and we had a good time. I’m sorry if this blog is getting boring with no complaints! However, this evening we once again hit the one difficulty we have experienced throughout the cruise, and that’s the wine service in the restaurant. Basically, the wine waitress is just that, a waitress – she’s not a sommelier. She doesn’t know the wines, and she’s not equipped to offer advice. Also, she has a lot of tables to cover, and I think our table is at the top of her list. This has tended to mean that she has been asking us for our wine order before we’ve decided on our meals. Of course, we ask her to give us more time, which she does; but there’s then quite a wait while she does the other tables before she gets back to us. Then the wines are delivered in the order that they’re ordered. Yesterday evening we didn’t get our wine until mid-way through the soup course. Let me say that this isn’t a criticism of this particular wine waitress – I think the others are the same, and indeed we were somewhat aware of a similar problem on Oriana in the early summer. This all contrasts with our experience on Celebrity, where the sommeliers are exactly that, are able to offer advice, and (in our experience) are able to offer advice to passengers choosing from different ends of the wine list.

Today is our last full day on board; a sea day, cruising through the Bay of Biscay. Once again, the weather has been good to us on a sea day – it is dry & sunny, and the sea state is moderate. But there is a bit of a breeze across the deck (not surprising, given that we are traveling at 20 knots) and there is no longer that warmth in the air that there was in the Canaries. We are about 47 degrees north, whereas in the Canaries we got as far south as 28 degrees north, and there is clearly a difference in the air temperature. We had a pleasant sit on the balcony (starboard side) between about 12 o’clock (ship’s time: BST + 1 hour) and 2 o’clock and it was sheltered, sunny and warm. Then we went to Ramblas once more for tapas. Now it’s 3:45 or so – we’ve had our last walk around the promenade and we need to start packing. We’ve decided to put out a couple of bags this afternoon, and then a further couple of bags when we go to bed. That will just leave hand luggage tomorrow.

Val has just been experimenting with the in-cabin hair-dryer (she brought her own and has mainly been using that). However she’s decided that she will pack her own and use the in-cabin dryer tomorrow morning, so we’ve just tested it. It seems to work OK, but it’s got a US-style two-prong plug, and we can only see one socket of that type, just to the left of the dressing-table mirror. One more thing about it, though – when I plugged it in I heard a bit of a ‘crack’, and it turned out that I had to click the Reset button on the plug to get it to work. But it seems to be OK – multi-settings, and no need to hold the on button permanently.

So that’s just about that, I think – it’s the last day and I’m nearly out of internet minutes. I’ll do some sort of summary after we get home tomorrow. However, a precis of that would be: we’ve had a great cruise, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed being on Ventura.

A corner in the old part of Vigo

Today we have been in Vigo, and to my surprise it turned out to be the best port of call in the entire cruise.

Earlier, however, we got chatting over breakfast to a couple, one of whom is in a wheelchair. Their view on Ventura was very positive. They’ve been on other P&O ships, and they said that Ventura is representative of the way that facilities for disabled people have improved. For example, they commented that there were many more disabled toilets on Ventura than on Oriana. Unfortunately, they also said that facilities for disabled people on excursions seemed to be getting scarcer – they commented that very few of the coaches used on this cruise have been able to take wheelchairs. So a swings-and-roundabouts situation for disabled people, unfortunately.

After breakfast we went ashore on our own, explored the old part of town, and then walked up to the castle (the Castro) at the very top of the town. It was sunny but not too hot, and we sat in the gardens and relaxed in the sun. By this time it was lunchtime so we walked back into town and finally spent some of our €s – Val bought some little wicker baskets and an evening wrap and I bought a piece of Galician pottery, before the shops had closed (1:30 or 2pm). Then after dropping our purchases back at the ship we went ashore again, found a comfortable cafe in the sun and enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine. In fact so enjoyable was the wine (Ribeiro del Douro) that we called into a wine shop in a new shopping centre right by the quay and bought a few bottles on the way back; and fortunately Ventura security decided not to implement their new alcohol policy when we clanked our way up the gangway!

The sun was still shining when we left Vigo and sailed out into the Atlantic. I think that the Galician coastline is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen; think Cornwall, with added sunshine. In fact, my feelings about our ports of call are that Madeira was OK, I wasn’t at all struck with what we saw of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, but the Iberian Atlantic coast is an area that I very much want to return to. I found all three calls there (La Coruna, Lisbon, and Vigo) excellent – interesting towns in beautiful settings.

This afternoon we received our disembarkation instructions. We were assigned to a disembarkation time of 11am, which we felt was too late (we have a long-ish drive to complete and would like to get home ahead of the Friday afternoon rush). We spoke to Reception about it, and they were able to change us to a 9:15 disembarkation time which is much better for us. We haven’t had much contact with Reception or Guest Services during this cruise – we’ve had little cause to do so – but whenever we have they’ve resolved our question or issue immediately.

Tonight is the last formal night. I know we’ll enjoy it, but we are also beginning to look forward to simple home-cooked meals again.

The Tagus Bridge

Last night was black and white night, and everybody looked very glamorous – I would say that we saw the best dresses so far. After the dinner we went to the show which was by Kevorkian – he’s billed as the world’s only Armenian comedian. He was pretty good. Some of the jokes were a bit forced, but the main part of his act is music-based and was very funny. He’s actually a really good pianist. I particularly remember three of his musical numbers – an updating of the Moonlight Sonata to something he called ‘Moonlight Groove’ (think Robert Miles and ‘Children’ and you’ve got the style); a summary of a typical opera, with him doing all the parts; and his accompaniment of a song performed by one of the Ventura singers – he rolled out all the evil tricks that an accompanist can do, to upstage the performer.

Today we’re at Lisbon. We came up the river in convoy behind Amadea (which we saw at Funchal), and in front of Oceana. Because our arrival time was at 8 o’clock it was still quite dark when we passed under the Tagus bridge. I was out on the balcony to see it. The bridge deck looked quite close to Ventura, but I gather that in fact there was about 6 meters of clearance.  We docked at the main Alcantara cruise terminal; Amadea docked a bit further in, at what looks like a ferry terminal; and Oceana berthed at the Apolonia quay, which is actually the other side of the town centre.

We did an excursion today, “Walking Tour of Lisbon” which was excellent. We’ve never been to Lisbon before and this was a really good introduction to the city. We started by walking through the old city (the Alfama) and visited the Cathedral, which is mainly romanesque and gothic architecture; then we dropped down to the Baixa, the lower town, and walked along some main shopping streets and onto Rossio square. From there we took a funicular ride up to the Bairro Alto, and after a stop to take pictures from a viewpoint, we visited another church, Sao Roque. This was insanely baroque, a wonderful building but decorated to the point of bursting. Then we walked back down to  Rossio square through rain to get back on the bus. All in all an excellent taster of Lisbon city, and enough to make us want to return.

After lunch (taken today in the Saffron restaurant) we decided to go out for a walk – our guide this morning had mentioned a walk along a river-side promenade under the bridge out to the west. It was cloudy and grey when we set off, and having walked for maybe 10 minutes the clouds descended even lower and the rains came. We turned round and headed back to the ship but by the time we got there we were soaked through. We were so ridiculously wet that it was funny, in fact – we needed to change everything we were wearing. When I got to the top of the gangway I turned round, took off my cagoule and shook it out, to the general laughter of the ship’s security staff. Val hung her skirt in the shower as it was so wet it was dripping. The rain looks as if it’s set in for the day; if so, the ‘Great British Sailaway’ at 5pm on decks 15 (Lido) and 16 (Sun) will be a wet affair.

Oceana passing under the bridge

Postscript: in fact, at about 4 o’clock the rain stopped, the clouds rolled away, the sun shone, and the sailaway was great. I got some good pictures of Oceana (which left before us) going under the bridge, and then some pictures of the bridge as we went under. I had expected that we would have to push off a long way from the quay-side and go under the middle span (i.e. between the towers) but in fact the Captain just moved 50 yards or so off the quay and then straight ahead, under the northern end-span.

Today is a sea day, cruising between Gran Canaria and Lisbon. The sun is shining and the sea-state is a flat calm. We’ve spent the day just relaxing around the ship and on the balcony where it was quite warm when the sun was shining on us. Now that we are heading north we get the morning sun, which just emphasises that we are on the way home. Down in the Atrium area the shops have been busy, but we haven’t been tempted. Well, not much – I did splash out on a Ventura fridge magnet. You can tell that I’m the last of the big spenders. It’s true that I’m enjoying the sea days much more than I expected to; thinking about it, I can’t imagine how we managed on our first cruise on MSC Sinfonia, with a port every day.

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned one or two other eateries. First, there’s Las Ramblas, or more specifically, tapas at Las Ramblas. We’ve had this for lunch three times now, and have enjoyed it every time. There’s a good selection of mainly Spanish wines by the glass as well, so this has become a favourite spot. Then yesterday we had a pizza from Frankie’s Pizzeria. This was good; I hadn’t realised beforehand that the pizzas were cooked to order. Val’s view is that it was good, but not as good as her favourite, a Domino’s Pepperoni Passion. I suggested that it might be difficult to get Dominos to deliver to the middle of the Atlantic….

Tonight is the third formal night, and in fact is Black & White night. That’s the only ‘themed’ night we seem to be having, there’s been no mention of a tropical evening or anything else.

Tomorrow it’s Lisbon, which we are looking forward to. I don’t think it will be light when we go under the bridge on the way in, so we shall have to wait until departure to see it.

Today’s excursion (“Essence of Gran Canaria”) was a disappointment; too much driving around in a coach, not enough time at any of the destinations. It was compounded by the fact that because of the change in itinerary, we are in Gran Canaria on Sunday instead of Friday. This has meant that a visit to Teror village and church meant fighting our way through a busy Sunday street market and also (wrongly, in my view) trying to see the church and the local sanctuary to the Virgin at a time when the local people were using them en masse for worship.

The weather was disappointing today – cloudy and not very warm. It’s not been very good all cruise, in fact – it has been cooler than usual at each port of call, and generally cloudy. We have seen some rain, most of all at Madeira where our Levada walk got quite wet, but there have been some spots of rain at other places. I walked around Las Palmas beach this afternoon (Playa Las Canteras) and it reminded me of Devon or Cornwall in August: cold sea, grey skies, and not many people braving the beach. So the destinations on this cruise have not lived up to their billing.

The turn north from Gran Canaria is the signal that the cruise is more than half over, and we are heading for home. Tomorrow is a sea day, followed by calls at Lisbon and Vigo; then just one more day at sea, and we shall be back in Southampton.

I ought to say something about the organisation of the excursions. It has been good. Passengers departing on excursions gather in the Tamarind club to collect stickers and await announcements, etc, and so far there has been plenty of room in there for everyone to sit. The administration of the tours has been efficient, and I have not seen any signs of confusion, etc, among the excursion staff. Gangways have been rigged from various decks – deck 4, the bottom of the passenger lifts, today, but deck 5 and (I believe) deck 6 have also been used at other ports – and exit from and re-entry to the ship has generally been efficient. At Funchal the port’s gangways were used, and these were strictly one-way so that turns had to be taken between parties going off the ship and those returning, but today and on other days the ships’ own gangways have been in use and these allow two-way traffic. We have not needed to tender  so far and I don’t believe we will at Lisbon and Vigo so I will not have seen that side of operations.