Azores, Madeira, Spain and Gibraltar: First days at sea

 

Day 1 Thursday 19th April Southampton

Our journey to Southampton was easy very little traffic. The northbound A34 had its usual half mile traffic jam off the M3. Our cases were just under the limit of 23 kgs. My carry-on, however, consisted of a camera bag, a tripod and loaded wheeled airline case.

We entered the docks at Gate 20 and passed through the container port to the Mayflower Terminal. There we had a short wait before parking outside and unloading our cases and handing over the car keys. Once inside we met up with our friends and that was when we felt that the holiday was really starting.

We were quickly through check-in and boarding Arcadia. Our choice was now to go for lunch with our carry-on or wait for our cabins to be ready and then go for lunch. We chose the former and went to the Meridian restaurant. Lunch was a buffet style with a choice of wines. I had a Cornish pastie (missing the carrots and potatoes) and lots of coated prawns.

As the clock ticked around to 3 pm we left the restaurant after an enjoyable lunch with enough wine to help us catch up on all our latest news. Our cabin was two decks up from the restaurant and our suitcases were waiting outside.

Sail away from Southampton

The sail away party as we left Southampton was around the pool at the aft of the ship.

After our lunch we skipped anymore alcohol and simply enjoyed the sunshine and views as we sailed out through the Solent.

Back in our cabin we finished unpacking and had our first chat with our cabin steward about removing the contents of the ‘fridge so we would have room for our ordered Fever Tree tonics and our daily ice bucket.

Our first evening

Our cabin was close to the stern of the ship and to get to the Crows Nest we went down to the Promenade Deck and then walked nearly the length of the ship to get to the forward lifts. The queue for Freedom Dining had already formed at the entrance to the upper level of the restaurant.

The trio, Misty Blue, were playing in the Crows Nest where we were meeting our friends for a quick drink before dinner. After numbers by Santana and Fleetwood Mac they definitely met with my approval. Rather than a beer I tried the P&O Andersons Gin Special (a double plus cardoman seeds plus tonic and ice) but I’m afraid its taste was not to my liking.

At 8.30 pm we left for the restaurant at the stern. We were in the lower floor of the Meridian Restaurant and the queue had already formed. We were shown to our table, it was number 44 and was at the back of the ship and was close to the panoramic windows back there.

Already at the table were a couple from from Nottinghamshire. We did have two empty seats this first evening. The wine list had changed again and my standby red wine was no longer available. I settled for another Aussie Shiraz called Helmsman.

I had prawn cocktail, steak with extra mushrooms followed by honey and ginger ice-cream. After cups of tea we went back to the cabin to try and get some sleep.

The contents of the emptied fridge had gone from the dressing table and now filled one of our cupboards. Previously this would have been taken away from the cabin.

The air conditioning had finally kicked in after the ship had been underway for a while and the cabin no longer felt as hot as a sauna.

Day 2 Friday 20th April At Sea

We were woken at around 2 am by a crew call for an emergency in a cabin. We heard no more crew calls and settled back to sleep.

I looked out of the balcony and it was a misty morning. From the TV map we were South of Cornwall.

The cabin didn’t have spare UK plug sockets so charging phones and batteries would mean disconnecting the kettle.

Quite why this ship still only had one UK socket is hard to understand. Next we were baffled by the safe as we tried to decipher the faded instructions on the door.

This safe clearly was not designed for anything other than passports and wallets!

Morning

Breakfast was in the Meridian on Deck 2. We had to queue for a short while and were put on a table for eight. The lady sitting next to us was from Sheffield. As we chatted I learnt that she had been down to the Falklands via Ascension on an RAF plane. Her son had been killed in the Falklands War and she had been visiting Stanley and East Island to see memorials and to meet Falklanders. Her description of flying to and from the outlying farms and landing on beaches made me want to try that at least once.

I had a fruit smoothie, orahnge segments and a cheese omelette with bacon and mushrooms.

After breakfast we walked around the Promenade Deck for two miles. This was 9 times around the deck. On one side of the ship we we were in the sunshine and warm and on the other in the shade and wind it was cold.

There were ship’s stores on the deck around the bow area.

Around the walls of the Promenade Deck were these signs suggesting which way to walk around the deck. This was anti-clockwise for some reason.

There were the odd hold outs who walked the opposite way. The smoking area on this deck was much larger than on other ships so holding your breath to avoid the smoke was more difficult than usual.

Before going for lunch we called at the shops and a plug converter so that I could use more of the US sockets was an eye watering £29.99.

Afternoon

Up in the Belvedere, the buffer style restaurant, we picked up Camomile tea and decaff tea bags to add to our collection in the cabin. Lunch was a sit down affair in the Meridian and was delicious chicken curry followed by more ice cream.

On the Promenade Deck we walked another mile and as a reward we went up to the Belvedere for tea and cakes. Half the restaurant was being set for dinner that evening as it was by now late afternoon.

I decided to give the balcony a try looking for sea life but after another hour I had seen anything except a few sea birds.

After getting changed we went forward to catch a lift up to the Crows Nest to meet our friends. Blue Wave  were playing one of Santana’s songs when we entered – a good sign. Rather than have a gin I had a bottle of Doom Bar.

Back at the Meridian there was no queue as we all now knew where to find our tables. Our table was now full as the last couple had come to dinner. They had been too tired to come to dinner the previous evening. In keeping with our experiences so far this cruise they too were from Nottingham.

Dinner was seared tuna and noodles followed by a tasty tandoori chicken breast and then a strawberry sundae.

We joined the syndicate quiz once we had found the room. There were 10 or more teams waiting for the quiz to start when we arrived. Our submitted quiz answers were not always correct as our rejected answers were often the correct answers.

For example, ‘where was the world’s first skyscraper?’. We thought it was either New York or Chicago. After lots of discussion chose New York and of course the answer is Chicago.. Our final score of 14/20 didn’t make us last but the winners did get 20/20.

Back in our cabin we had our invite for the Captain’s Welcome Party. Confusingly it was for Tuesday the 21st April.

We anticipated a change of date.

Day 3 Saturday 21st April, Atlantic Ocean

I heard a noise outside the cabin and a new invitation to the Captain’s Cocktail Party had been pushed under our door. This one invited us to attend in the evening.

The day looked glorious.

We arrived ‘late’ for breakfast and joined a table for eight. One half of the table discussed cruises and medications alternatively. Our side of the table was very quiet with not much conversation. Things did liven up a bit when we had no milk or butter as this was all being held at the other end of the table! We then settled in to discussing cruises.

After a quick dash up to the cabin for a change of shoes we were back out on the Promenade Deck starting our first walk of the day. Just as the day before one side of the ship was in the sun and the other was in the shade and was windy and cold.

As always I had my camera hoping to see some sea life around the ship. There were sea birds gliding over the waves but these rarely came near the ship.

The Promenade Deck was busy on the sunny side and we were not the only ones pounding the decks doing circuits. Interestingly the same folks as yesterday were going the opposite way to the crowd and the ‘walk this way’ signs.

After 3 miles we went inside to try the coffees at Cafe Vivo which was opposite the small cinema. A latte and a slice of carrot cake was the perfect way to rest after our walk.

Lunchtime

We walked to the open deck at the stern and we could hear a Fleetwood Mac song being sung.This was the sound check for the Upbeat Duo at the side of the Neptune Pool. They were scheduled to play later at lunchtime and we decided to sit and wait for their performance.

We were in the sun but any part of us not in the sun pretty soon was cold!

The duo came back and played a great set.

We enjoyed a beer and a glass of wine before bailing to go get some lunch in the restaurant.

In the Meridian I had a chilli con carne and I experimented with Portrait mode on my iPhone, taking an image of the table decoration…

… and then I went back out on the Promenade Deck to look for sea life.

Up in the Belvedere I had tea and cakes to get warm before coming back down to our cabin. As we passed the Piano Bar we could hear another Fleetwood Mac song as the Misty Blue Trio did their sound checks.

On a table in the Photo Gallery was this cute old camera replica.

Late afternoon and evening

I continued my experiments with Portrait mode. Here’s the same type of flower only this time with the sea as a background on our balcony.

In our cabin I caught most of the Justice League movie followed by the recorded port talk on Ponta Delgada.

This evening was our first Black Tie event and we also had the Captain’s Welcome onboard party. This was held in the covered pool area. We were all served drinks and mingled with the other passengers while we waited for Captain Cook.

It was a full house again at our table in the Meridian as we enjoyed part of Marco Pierre White’s menu.I had fried goat’s cheese crottin, passion fruit sorbet, calves liver and then apple tart tatin.

Rather than go to a show we went with our friends to the Piano Bar to listen to the set from the Misty Blue Trio.

Day 4 Sunday 22nd April, Atlantic Ocean

Looking out at the sea from our balcony the sky was overcast and the air temperature was definitely chilly. The swell had lots of white caps.

Breakfast was a quiet affair as our table companions didn’t want to engage in conversation.

On the Promenade Deck we were on our nine laps (or, 3 miles) around the deck. Both sides of the ship were now cold as the sun was not breaking through the cloud. We kept thinking that we could see activity at the side of the ship but probably this was nothing more than the swell and wind combining.

On one side of the deck we did catch spray that was being blown up by the wind. In places the deck was becoming quite wet. For the first time there were no sea birds in sight, disappointing as we were getting closer to the Azores. The monotony was broken as we passed another cruise ship going in the opposite direction.

After some time in our cabin to get warm with a cup of tea and a catch-up on our books it was time for lunch.

Lunch

Our table companions in the Meridian were full of conversation compared to our breakfast companions. My choice of lunch was between a lamb (kebab) curry and a burger. I ordered a side salad with blue cheese dressing to accompany the burger and fries. The lamb curry did look good though when it arrived for others on the table.

The gentleman on my right was a vegan and found that he couldn’t eat any of the main courses. The waiter was unable to find any alternatives in the kitchens either. We listened to how the Queen Mary 2 had rescued a solo yachtsman in trouble on the Atlantic. The seas had been so rough that the ship’s Captain had had to position it to try and create an area of sea calm enough to launch the rescue boat.

After my unsuccessful morning I went out on to the Sun Deck (deck 10) at the stern to look again for sea life. All I managed to see was this plastic bucket

This time I took my big lens and wore lots of layers and a woollen hot. After 2 hours I had seen nothing moving. below me passengers were sitting around the pool, sheltered from the wind, sunbathing as the sun had broken through the cloud cover. Up on the Sun Deck (ironic?) I was not sheltered from the wind and had to finally give up and head back to the cabin for a cup of tea.

The temperature had fallen even more and the sky was overcast after 5 pm.

Our evening

We changed early for dinner as we planned to go to the Globe to hear a Fleetwood Mac tribute concert played by the Upbeat Duo. Despite arriving 20 minutes early the place as almost full. Luckily our friends had saved us some seats near the front.

I ordered a Doom Bar and a large Sauvignon Blanc from a waiter. Our order arrived during the second number when all the lights were dimmed.

The show was a brief run through of the history of the band told in between their music. The music was drawn mainly from after when Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined and the hit albums started.

The lighting for this show was not great. The audience had bright spotlights directed at them that made the duo appear as silhouettes. The lighting set up was geared for discos not a live stage performance.

That wasn’t our only issue in the lounge as the wine did not taste right and we waited till our bill appeared and asked for it to be changed. He said no problem and took it away.

What happened next can best be described as a surprise. The waiter arrived with a ‘member’ of the bar staff. We received a short lecture on not drinking wine that wasn’t ‘right’ and deciding to send it back to the bar. The bar man then opened a new bottle of wine (this time from New Zealand) and with a flourish filled a small measure and plonked it into a glass and walked away.

All a bit embarrassing.

After the show and still a little unsettled we went straight down to the Meridian for dinner. I started with a salad , then soup with scampi and chips as a main rounded off with treacle toffee pudding.

Our friends who had witnessed the wine incident and we were strongly encouraged to go down to Reception by everyone on the table. This we did after meal well after 10 pm. While we waited I went into the Atrium to find an image for my 365 challenge.

We met two senior members of hotel staff to recount our recent experience. Their apologies were accepted and we went immediately to the theatre to watch the Spinettes perform. No photography was the norm in this theatre  so no images here. The show was much the same as we’d seen before.

Back in our cabin we reflected on the evening and moved on to pack for our first port of call in Ponta Delgado.

… Day 5 Ponta Delgada