The Tilsons

Thursday 26th April 2012: Today is our final day at sea and by crikey it feels like a very long time since our first day on this magnificent voyage. The Bay of Biscay is behaving itself beautifully and the sun is shining as we head north ready to dock at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning. When we tie up in Southampton we will have sailed an amazing total of 39,644.7 miles. That really is a very long way and we’ve loved every inch of it. We have also enjoyed writing the travel blog and know it will help us remember and re-live this voyage. We have also adored getting messages back from people who have read it. We have been especially touched by the people in Saipan who have been kind enough to say how ... read more

Wednesday 25th April 2012: We are suddenly finding it harder to adapt our body clocks to the new timings – the mornings are darker and the evenings are so much longer than they have been for months. We only just made it to breakfast this morning and that was (and here comes the confession!) without going to the gym! And then the gap between breakfast and lunch – which is not especially long – was filled with goodness only knows what. Certainly no lectures. No post breakfast guilt trip to the gym. So it must have been catching up with some emails, reading, playing games on the iPad and snoozing. This afternoon’s laziness has a perfect excuse. The sea has built up in to something decidedly lumpy. There must have been some storms out ... read more

Tuesday 24th April 2012: We learnt something new today: when you re-visit a port you’ve been to several times before, all the pressure to see things evaporates. We’d previously been to Malaga’s castle and to Picasso’s birth place and the cathedral and the shops so today we didn’t feel the need to do anything in particular. So that’s what we did. We wandered along shady lanes, mooched round the cathedral and enjoyed a cool sit down inside it. We found a lovely bar where we drank coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and then did what all old people seem to do: we went to the park. Alongside the water’s edge is a park that runs for 500 metres and is filled with over 1,000 different plants. There are water features and statues and ... read more

Monday 23rd April 2012: Now that we’re in our final few days we are very aware how little time is left to doss around and do nothing. With that thought firmly in my mind this morning I booked myself in to the spa for the most gorgeous pedicure. My tootsies now sport a magnificent coating of scarlet nail polish, all hard skin has been banished and my calves are soft and smooth. What a wonderful way to spend an hour. After lunch we thought we’d pop in and see the ‘Country Fayre’ that is Cunard’s charity event where staff and passengers can sell off stuff they don’t want to pack and take home (and you can pay for a cream tea rather than eat one for free). We had slight misgivings that turned out ... read more

Sunday 22nd April 2012: The Mediterranean has definitely been looking its best today: it’s been a rich dark blue, with gentle waves topped with white horses under a clear blue sky. But it is noticeably cooler than it has been of late. Some passengers have clearly been diving back into their suitcases and bringing out anoraks and cardigans! We’re made of sterner stuff so we’ve still been prancing around in shorts and t-shirts but maybe that’s because our balcony is wonderfully sheltered and got full sun for most of the day. This afternoon we went to a show called Strictly Ballroom, billed as Cunard’s answer to Strictly Come Dancing where guests performed their own favourite dances often to music they bring on board with them. Points get awarded for entertainment value rather than skill ... read more

Saturday 21st April 2012: We’ve had a really lovely day today in Athens and quite a thrilling journey to the top of the jewel in Athens’ crown: the Acropolis. For anyone who’s been here you’ll know that this is a significant lump of rock and for someone with such cruddy hips and feet as me, it’s no simple task to climb it. But we caught the coach in to the city with a guy who has MS and is in a motorised wheelchair. He and his wife were at the ticket office at the same time as us and the chap behind the counter indicated that there was a lift to the top. Now I don’t know about you but I’ve never seen pictures of a lift at the Parthenon so it was with some scepticism ... read more

Friday 20th April 2012: We left the Suez Canal yesterday evening and on our first day in the cooler water of the Med, we’ve seen the first dolphins we’ve spotted for quite a while. Unfortunately when you’re 8 floors above the water, they look small through a camera’s view finder so we still don’t have any great photos of them but at least we’re back in their territory. We also got a good view of Crete in the late afternoon but quite frankly neither of us could bother getting up to get the camera so no photo of that either! Our clocks went forward an hour last night so we had a late start to our day which left us little time to kill before this morning’s lecture. This was Richard Farleigh again and ... read more

Thursday 19th April 2012: Today was like going out on a tour without having the leave the comfort of our cabin because we have spent the entire day transiting the Suez Canal. For a while last night we weren’t certain we’d make it today because yesterday’s sand storm caused the authorities to shut the Canal last night. Apparently there was zero visibility so we had to stay in Sokhna until it reopened. We were due to sail at 8.30 yesterday evening but didn’t get going until about 1 o’clock in the morning. Boats go through the canal in convoys and the schedule was definitely shot to bits by the sand storm. We anchored up with 31 other ships and were due to sail north after the first of the south-bound convoys came through. But ... read more

Wednesday 18th April 2012: If it’s the 18th then it must be Egypt and although we’ve been here several times before, we’ve never seen it look the way it did today: through the thick haze of a major sandstorm that reduced visibility by a long way. We had a 2-hour drive to get from the port of Sokhna through to Cairo and at times our coach needed to slow down because the sand completely obliterated the driver’s view of the road ahead. Once we got to the pyramids we could definitely see them but not with a clear blue sky background, just sand in the foreground, sand in the air, sand in your eyes, shoes, every pocket, everywhere. But the benefit is the smoothest skin on any bit of your body that was exposed ... read more

Tuesday 17th April 2012: After nearly 3½ months of the best time of our lives, we are beginning to change our attitude to cruising. Until very recently it has all been about the itinerary, the amazing sights, sounds and smells of each destination and, of course, the ships. But now it is increasingly about days at sea. Some people find sea days boring but to us they have developed into the most blissful enforced relaxation. Being half way up the Red Sea we are still in wonderfully warm weather so the mornings and middle of the day are spent enjoying the air conditioning going to lectures, meals, playing lots of iPad nonsense, scrap booking, reading and just sitting on the balcony watching the sea go by. Once the main heat of the day is ... read more