Cruising in the English Channel, Bay of Biscay and Atlantic - September 2013

On 4^th September Mum and I went on another cruise, this time accompanied by Andrea, my sister in law, and her mother Lil - the last time the four of us had cruised together was in 2007 when we did a Mediterranean cruise on the Marco Polo.

For Mum and me it was our second time on the MSC Opera as we cruised to the Norwegian Fjords on her in June last year and enjoyed ourselves so much that the same weekend of our return from there we booked again, and persuaded Andrea and her Mum to join us this time.

We set off early with Colin driving us to Southampton and as per last time the procedure for getting on board was very quick and straight forward and in no time we were checking out our cabin on deck 8. I phoned Andrea and she was only 15 minutes away and soon we were meeting up and enjoying a nice lunch in the informal buffet style restaurant on deck 11. Our only disappointment was that although given practically adjoining cabins at the time of booking, we found that we had been allocated cabins on opposite sides of the ship, which meant that with so many sets of lifts we often failed to meet up at the right one until we had learned to find our way about.

At 4pm shore time (5pm ship time) we sailed. Just prior to this we had to go through the usual drill of fetching our life jackets and assembling by our allocated life boat. Once this was out of the way we were able to get up on deck 11 and see the ship sail out of Southampton which is always an enjoyable experience.

In the early evening we enjoyed a nice show in the theatre which proved to be a variety show with various events including acrobatics, strong man events, singing and dancing. In fact all the shows throughout the cruise were explosive dance events with different themes and incredible costumes.

At dinner we met the waiters who would be looking after us and enjoyed making their acquaintance - the head one being a guy from Indonesia plus two Indian guys from the Goa region. As always the food was really excellent and we were looking forward to ten such days aboard.

The following morning I was up early and up in the gym by 7 am. I find that a good session in the gym at start of day offsets all the food being consumed later on. The gym is situated right at the front of the ship and instead of looking out of the window at passing traffic as per the gym I belong to back home, it was great to see the sun rise over the sea instead and made pounding that treadmill that much more interesting!

Back at the cabin Mum was nearly ready and soon we were joining Andrea and Lil for an excellent breakfast served in the restaurant. We had the choice of waiter service and choosing from a menu or going upstairs to the buffet style restaurant and we all preferred the waiter service as it is so nice being pampered like that three times a day!

At 10.30 am we were cleared to go ashore at our first port of call - Ijmuiden, which is the closest port to Amsterdam in Holland, but with only 7 hours and it being a fair distance to Amsterdam itself we decided not to bother going ashore on this occasion. To get there on the ship’s coach and then doing Amsterdam on our own would have cost 30 euros each which seemed a high price to pay for just a few hours there, really expensive for what amounted to a 40 minute bus ride each way. It was a fine sunny day and we enjoyed ourselves up on deck, sunbathing, sessions in the Jacuzzi and we befriended a nice couple, Len from Hemel Hempstead and his wife who was in a wheelchair since her brain tumour a few years before. Before we met up with Andrea and Lil for lunch I saw him again and he said he was paying 150 euros to go to the closest town for some shopping - an 8 seater taxi with room for the wheelchair and offered for us to join him but it was arriving in 20 minutes and I knew it was impossible to gather up the others in time to join them so sadly had to decline.

That evening we enjoyed an international show with the incredible tenor voice of Stefano Rigon, Mezzo Soprano voice of Michaela Pope and pianoforte player Angrey Angelov and violinist Lora Petrova which was really beautiful - we especially enjoyed the voice of Stefano Rigon who sounded as good as any tenor voice we had heard previously. Afterwards we enjoyed another excellent dinner with lots of fun rapport with our waiters. Dinner usually ended about 10.30 pm and Mum and I retired to our cabin then but Andrea and Lil stayed up longer and enjoyed karaoke or live music in some of the bars or various dance or party events going on in the various lounges. There were cinema showings and events going on all day, notably dance lessons for everyone both in the lounges and up on deck, competitions or lectures - shopping events which varied daily, spa sessions on offer up in the beauty salon etc, cookery demonstrations; in short something going on all day for everyone.

On day 3 we sailed into St Peter Port in Guernsey at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. This was the only port where we had to get into a tender to get to shore and Mum was really apprehensive of this. The water was quite choppy as we went down the ship’s ladder and boarded the tender boat but there were men there to help and we got Mum aboard without difficulty although she was very worried about getting out of it when we reached the shore at Guernsey! It looked a high step up to the jetty but by the time everyone had got off and we were the last the boat had bobbed up much closer to the jetty and she got ashore without any difficulty. It was a glorious sunny day and we walked admiring the harbour and did some shopping, finally enjoying some ice cream milkshakes in a café before reboarding the tender and returning to the Opera. These photos can be seen on my facebook page for anyone interested in viewing them.

The following day we knew we would be at sea all day as with 610 nautical miles until our next port of call of Vigo in Spain we would not get there until the morning of 8^th September. When the ship is at sea it is too windy to sunbathe for long although we did spend some time on deck in sheltered areas and I had another session in the Jacuzzi - these were very popular as the water was very warm, a sharp comparison to the water in the swimming pools which was pretty cold and those who ventured in did not swim for long. As before I began my day in the gym and we enjoyed all that day’s meals, enjoying some fun events watching competitions in the lounges.

That evening we would all be meeting the captain and having our photo taken with him, with everyone dressing up for dinner for the first of three formal evenings during the cruise. I wore the beautiful gold embroidered black dress sent to me by Khali’s wife Lila. Khali was on holiday in England for nearly 6 weeks and I had spent some time sightseeing around London with him and his son Nadir, plus they had visited me in Bath just before the cruise. I was glad to have an opportunity so soon to wear that beautiful dress which is too ornate to wear unless at a very formal occasion. Afterwards we enjoyed another magnificent show this time on a Bollywood theme, including more acrobatics, and then another superb dinner.

We arrived at Vigo on Sunday and were warned by our waiter that most of the shops would be closed but he told us about a Sunday market worth a visit and a short chat with some nearby taxi drivers we were soon in one of them being taken to it. We really enjoyed our couple of hours spent in that market. Between the four of us we bought about 8 handbags, three of us bought Chanel perfumes and I bought a couple of cardigans as well. We took a chance paying 30 euros each for the perfumes but they did in fact later prove to be the genuine article, albeit perhaps having been stored on a shelf for a long time, hence the low price - 30 rather than about 110 euros.

Vigo is the largest city in Galicia and we enjoyed some lovely sunshine during our visit there. With our next port of call being Lisbon in Portugal we could see that the further south we went the warmer it was getting, plus we were very lucky that the whole time in the Bay of Biscay the sea was as calm as a mill pond - in sharp contrast to the terrible storm we endured there on the Marco Polo 6 years previously.

Andrea and Lil went ashore at Lisbon and Mum and I decided to stay on board having been there before - also we had spent rather a lot of euros in Vigo so had no desire to go shopping. It was the hottest day of the cruise and I had to put Mum in the shade up on deck - beside an icecream machine and I was next to her but in full sunshine. We enjoyed the warm sunshine all day, only going down to the restaurant for meals. Andrea and Lil had a great time ashore and only returned to the ship about an hour before it was due to sail again. The show that night was a Mime show and proved to be really boring, and lots of people walked out in the middle. Another excellent dinner afterwards made up for it though.

10^th September we were at sea all day again what with there being over 500 miles between Lisbon and Bilbao, our next port of call. It was another formal affair in the evening and I wore a beautiful silk Monsoon dress that I had bought some years ago intending to slim down and it is only since losing weight over the past year that I got slim enough to be able to wear it. In fact I wore it on my birthday this year for the very first time.

I remember arriving at Bilbao on the ferry boat from Portsmouth from all those times I went there camping in France with Colin and the children when they were small. Rather than drive all down through France we took the ferry which was like a mini cruise with two nights at sea and back then we’d come off the ferry at Bilbao straight into rush hour traffic before the 80 or 90 mile drive over the border into France and arriving at our campsite Le Rousseau in Bidart, near Biarritz. We had three wonderful campsite holidays down there back in the 80s.

We caught the shuttle bus into the city centre (even that cost 13 euros each! Nothing was cheap regarding shore excursions!). We were dropped in the centre and from there got a taxi to the old town and walked around a few shops there. We almost got caught up in a protest march and had to sit in the taxi until the crowd had dispersed before we could be driven there. We found a small bar and all enjoyed a cold beer before getting the taxi and then the shuttle bus back to the ship, arriving there in time to still enjoy lunch. I enjoyed actually seeing Bilbao and it seemed to be a lovely cosmopolitan city complete with metro service. I would like to go back there again one day with more time to explore. We spent the remainder of the afternoon on deck in the sunshine before the ship sailed. The show that evening was a love theme and featured the lovely tenor voice of Stefano Rigon again which we all enjoyed.

12^th September was another day at sea and there were various bazaar events thoughout the day and we bought souvenirs and enjoyed another formal affair in the evening, including the parade of the waiters with the baked alaskas and we were given a glass of sparkling wine each with our dinner

On 13^th September we arrived at our last port of call - Le Havre in France. We arrived at 9 am and had the longest time there until sailing at 9 o clock in the evening. After breakfast we went ashore as there was a regular free shuttle bus service running all day, stopping first in the centre of town, and then at a shopping mall.

We decided to stay on the bus and get off at the shopping mall. We spent ages in a beautiful garden centre buying souvenirs and before leaving went into a supermarket where I bought three different Basque cheeses (my favourite cheese) and two pots of jam (violet fig and redcurrant flavours), using up the last of my euros.

When we caught the bus back, Andrea and Lil decided to stay on it and go to the centre, but Mum and I returned to the ship. Unfortunately at almost 85 Mum cannot manage much walking these days. We arrived in time for lunch and spent part of the afternoon on deck and the latter part relaxing in our cabin as the weather had gradually got cooler since sailing away from Lisbon.

That evening we had dinner at the usual time and the show took place afterwards due to the later sailing time.
It was Lil's birthday and dinner was enlivened with the delicious cocktails Andrea had ordered for us and later on the  waiters joined up to sing Happy Birthday to her and present her with a nice cake. It made our last evening extra special. The show was a wonderful classical Italian one with our favourite tenor singing again. That night in the English Channel was the only rough weather of the cruise, as during the night it was quite choppy and kept poor Andrea awake. Rough seas never worry me; in fact I quite enjoy being rocked to sleep when snug in my bed! On Saturday 14^th September we arrived back at Southampton and had a nice breakfast and by 9.30 am Colin had arrived to collect us and we were soon on our way home having thoroughly enjoyed the holiday. That will probably be the last cruise for a while though because my plan next year is a 3-week visit to Algeria. Whilst Khali was staying in London I went with him to the Algerian embassy and we ascertained that if I go there in person next year with all the right documentation, I will definitely be granted a visa. It will be wonderful spending 3 weeks with Khali and his family who have promised to take me all over the country, including the Sahara desert. All being well I will be going there in early June next year, and after that my plan is to spend a month in China with Shumei. She lives in Zheng Zhou which is about a 2 hour flight from Beijing. By then Ben might be back living in China and they have promised to show me lots of different sights. Hopefully before that visit I can learn a bit of Mandarin. If Mum and I go cruising again it probably won’t be for a couple of years and her favourite one was the Norwegian Fjords so we’d probably go back there.