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Published: June 26th 2017
No matter what happens, travel gives you a story to tell.
-- Jewish Proverb
The time has quickly come around,
With that you must agree,
We're off on yet another cruise,
Across the deep blue sea!.
Our starting point is Venice,
Then Sicily we do go,
Where Mt. Etna threatens to blow her top,
That well known vol-can-o!
Then Naples & Civitavecchia,
We've been there both before,
And Cannes is where the posh nobs live,
You'll find Ferraris by the score!
After Barcelona,
Madeira should be great,
We plan to go tobogganing,
Down a hillside in a crate!
We're crossing the Atlantic,
It'll take us on a week,
We should get there in one piece,
If the ship don't spring a leak!
When we reach the USA,
The Keys will be our aim,
Where Hemmingway is hailed a God.
But I find his books are all the same!
Key West is where the man hung out,
Just one man and his dog,
He might have written a lot of stuff,
But he never wrote a blog!
It's not that easy to write in verse,
As everybody knows,
I'll never 'Wander lonely as a cloud'
I'd better stick to prose!!!
This is our 10th cruise and not to get stale and in danger of repeating myself, I was striving to keep things fresh and different hence I thought I'd try my hand at poetry. It scans like a Japanese haiku and has the meter of Dr. Seuss!! I think you can safely say my poetic license has well and truly been revoked!!
Welcome to the Maiden Passage (I feel a heap of innuendos waiting in the wings!!) of the Royal Princess. This ship is the newest vessel of the Princess fleet and was christened by Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, in June 2013. The ship has spent the summer sailing around the Med but now it's time to reposition for her winter season in warmer climes, namely the Caribbean so she's crossing the Atlantic where the she will be based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
The ship's first crossing has been marketed
as the
Maiden Passage so proved very popular when released. We were given the heads up by Kaye and Charlie from Kansas, 2 good friends we originally met on the Sapphire Princess and have kept in touch every since (thank you Mark Zuckenburg. You surely deserve a knighthood!!). Roisin was like a greyhound out of the trap. It was an opportunity too good to miss. The trip was booked almost 18 months ago. The time has just sailed by!! (usually with Roisin and me on board!)
Our adventure starts once again in Venice. The outward journey passed off without incident. Well almost!! As usual we had booked a meet and greet at Terminal 1, Manchester airport. The company will meet you and take your car to a safe compound where, on your arrival back in to the country, they are waiting for you to hand you back your vehicle. The chap who met us at the airport proceeded to take several photos of Roisin's black Renault Megane as evidence of the car's condition; from the front, the side and the rear should we decide to
try it on and lodge a claim This did raise a few eyebrows of other passengers and we were conscious of one or two slowing down to get a better look. Why was this car being photographed so much? Did it belong to a famous footballer? Did it used to be driven by David Hasselhof in his hit show, Knight Rider? I couldn't help raising a smile. With arms folded, leaning slightly back and giving a brief nod of approval, I wanted to say in a loud voice, ‘
Go on! Snap away young man! It's not everyday you get a car THIS famous passing through your airport!' I soon snapped out of it and brought back in to the real world when I heard a voice say: ‘Sign here and ring this number when you get back in to Manchester!'
Roisin has, in her infinite wisdom, booked front row seats on the Easyjet, airbus 319. This entitled us to speedy boarding. We skipped the large queue at check in and whizzed through security. We both agreed that checking in should be this painless every time!
20 minutes after take off an announcement from the cockpit
: ‘Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the First Officer The current altitude is 35,000ft. We will shortly be flying over Düsseldorf and for those sitting on the left (I think he meant port side!!) you should see Bussels in the distance. We will then head over Austria and the Austrian Alps where we will enter Italian airspace just west of the Brenner Pass. From there it is a straight run on to Venice and once again I apologise for the slight delay due to a minor incident. We've managed to fix it best we can. Despite this, we still expect to land at Marco Polo airport on schedule. We may not have the same number of wheels we left Manchester with but we'll be on time!! Nah, I'm just messing with you……we'll be arriving 10 minutes late!!! (That last sentence may not have taken place. Roisin x) Whoa! Rewind a little. Forget the missing wheel bit. Did he just say: ‘We've managed to fix it best we can'? Surely that should be: ‘We managed to fix it full stop!? ‘Best we can' indicates that it wasn't that minor to start with. Changing a fuse is a minor repair. You never say: ‘I've fixed that fuse best I can'!! You either fix it or you don't!! Even if he'd said: ‘We've managed to fix it to a satisfactory standard' would give me slightly better confidence in the mechanics ability. As it turns out, the incident, minor or otherwise didn't interfere with our enjoyment of the flight.
As the island of Venice gradually came in to view though our window, Roisin grabbed my arm and in an excited squeal said, ‘
Look! There's our ship. There's our ship' Sure enough sitting there 1,000ft below was the Royal Princess, Towering above a Celebrity Ship berthed adjacent to her. She certainly looked majestic from this height and well worthy of her ‘Royal' title; waiting to receive all her loyal subjects – all 3,600 of us!
The Royal Princess would have arrived in port this afternoon from its final Mediterranean voyage of the season. The last night of that cruise would be spent on board before disembarkation tomorrow morning (Wednesday). We will then be embarking round about 12 noon where our first night on board will be spent tied up in Venice (the ship, not us!!) before setting sail on Thursday at about 5pm.
On arrival at Marco Polo airport we collected our luggage and after purchasing bus tickets took the number 5 bus for the short 10 minute journey to the small town of Campalto, 5 miles or so outside Venice. 200 metres after alighting from the bus we were checking in to Hotel Antica Fenice for our over night stay.
We were going to have a wander and perhaps find a nice trattoria but due to the heavy down burst of rain we decided to eat in the hotel. The rain did eventually subside long enough to stroll the 1.2km back in to Campalto. Other than an amusing street name, Campalto has very little to offer in the way of entertainment, even at 9pm on a Tuesday evening. So we stood under the amusing street name for a few minutes longer then headed back to Hotel Antica Fenice. Both of us content with the day. Both of us relaxed. Both of us tremendously looking forward to the days to come
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Phil Groom
non-member comment
Cor - Roisin has gone all film starry and decided to grow her hair - nice one Roisin !