Travel Blog Posts
October 18th 2011
Well, once again Iv neglected this blog for afew weeks with the combination of being tired/busy and no decent wifi signal, but here in Santorini they believe in good wifi. So in the past few weeks, instead of giving full descriptions Im just going to list the cool things we've done and if you have any specific things you want to know just ask rather than making me sit here for 3 hours typing them all out in one go on here. Taxi racing in Istanbul, then 3 hours in a streetside bar watching some locals dance and try to impress us, then having 3 kebabs before we went back to the ship (Turkish kebabs are AWESOME) Going to the Lido beaches in Venice at 1.30am for several hours, having a drink/singsong, paddling (the sea was ... read more
September 11th 2011
Today is September the 11th. On board right now we have over 1000 American guests. We carry several american news networks on our onboard TV channels, all of which are doing memorials for the World Trade Centre. I remember where I was, at school in the reception area. Where were you? 9/11 Dont ever forget.... read more
September 8th 2011
Today we signed up for a crew tour and visited the ruins of Pompeii. From the second you enter the site you know its going to be something different, as parts of it have been restored but most of it is original, right down to the slates on the roofs and the paint on the walls. Its somewhere I'd always heard about and never thought I would go, so to actually walk round it was amazing. The whole city is pretty much intact, with the exceptions of the roofs, so you can walk down the streets and see all the houses, shops, public facilities etc and see how similiar it is to todays cities. We even saw the Roman version of Mcdonalds and a whore house (complete with oversize willy's on the outside). Even little things ... read more
September 4th 2011
Apologies for not having updated this for a while, theres no big excuse for anything. So since I last updated we have said goodbye to England for the last time. The ship wont be back in southampton now untill march of next year. We now use Venice, Rome, Istanbul and Athens as our turnaround ports. I do have to say that the port for Athens (Piraeus) is abit of a craphole, so the turnaround day there isnt going to be a highlight. We've also said goodbye to afew friends, Pato, Laura, Alice and Chris have gone either for vacations, college or Uni. Hopefully we'll see them all soon. Anyway, back to whats been going on. The highlights have definatley been Venice and Istanbul for me. We've been to Venice twice so far, one of which was ... read more
August 9th 2011
Sorry that things have been abit quiet from me latley. havnt really had chance to write anything. At the moment we are on our last voyage with southampton as the end port, so the 18th will be the last time I see southampton untill I finish. With regards to that, I got some news from head office that my contract (as with alot of peoples) has been cut short by two weeks, so I now finish on the 20th November. This is a bonus in several ways; aswell as giving me 2 more weeks at home, just the fact it is in a different month makes all the difference in my head. Also originally I was meant to cruise across the atlantic, do 2 american ports then fly transatlantic back home, which would have killed my ... read more
July 28th 2011
Things had been pretty smooth sailing on this voyage so far, Copenhagen was full of rain but I managed to find some bacon, Stockholm was full of gorgeous people and thanks to Helsinki Im not getting any christmas presents this year as I ate Rudolph (for the record, try him with lingedenberry jam and its really good). We arrived in St Petersburg for our overnight which meant cue partying that night as no-one had to steer the ship or prep anything for the next day. The problem started the morning after when during lighting maintence and the stage (well, I say stage, I was 25ft up in the gantry) I suddenly felt ill and had to be taken to the medical centre. Sure enough it was Norovirus which means 24hours quarentine. While this sounds fun and ... read more
July 20th 2011
Just a quick one today to explain that the last few days have been pretty routine with only one thing worth talking about, as we have sailed from Gibraltar back to the UK. Gibraltar was really warm, and half shut as we were there on a sunday. Even the monkees that live on the rock dont work sundays aparently. We traversed the bay of biscay afew nights back during the biggest winds Iv seen since Iv come on board. Iv been told it wasnt reeeeealy bad, but we did have to be extra careful during the shows and setups as you never knew if you were about to be thrown forwards, pinned to the floor or toppled sideways. Anyways, the thing I wanted to mention happened during last nights show of Celtic Heartbeat. Due to the ... read more
July 14th 2011
Well, here we are on QV119 I think, gems of the med part 2. This voyage we dont call into palermo (sicily) we are in livorno (Italy) instead and have afew days less. In Barca, because I had done La Grasse Famillia last time, I went for tapas with my new cabin mate Pete. Its the first time Id tried it and most of it wasnt bad. I got to try Muscles (I know thats wrong) for the first time, along with some other suspicious looking seafood items that I thought it was best not to ask what they were. Lets just say I think one of them had tentacles at some point in its life. Apart from that Barca was pretty uneventful, the weather was overcast but still baking hot even in the shade. The ... read more
July 6th 2011
So this is going to be the entry for Norway, being as internet is sparse up here and its been afew days since we've had a decent connection. We arrived in Stavanger to find that the world championships of beach volleyball were being held next to the ship, from our viewing decks we could see into the makeshift arena they had built. After every point they insist on playing a different song, and their CD collection comes from the 90's so lots of retro dance, mixed in with occasional lady gaga. Stavanger was a pretty nice little town, we didnt really do much besides eat pizza and look at the ship from lots angles (we moored in the middle of the town.) The next day we arrived in Flaam. I couldnt get off as I was ... read more
July 1st 2011
After setting out from Tallinn on our way back we had a couple of sea days to contend with. The weather was good to us again, and we got to see some more of the amazing scenery that the Baltic has to offer. Unfortunatly this did lead to something funny on board. During that start of a guest entertainers act our entertainment director was onstage infront of 800 people warming them up when the relay from the bridge cut in (when the bridge broadcast, every speaker on the ship broadcasts it) with an announcement telling us that we were about to go under the longest bridge in the world and there would be a commentary on deck. This pissed off both the ents director as she was interupted, which shouldnt happen, and the entertainer as loads ... read more
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