The first four days of my cruise holiday was spent on board the ship as we cruised down south towards Spain and Portugal. It's the second time I've done this route and was expecting a bumpy sail. That, plus the recent storm made the sail especially challenging.
DAY 1
On day 1 I slept till 11 am as I was so exhausted from wandering around UK for two months. We had lunch at noon, and after that popped by another eatery for fish and chips because it smelled so good. By 3pm we sat down for afternoon tea, I mean who doesn't love a good old traditional English afternoon tea? Dinner was booked at 6pm, a bit early I know given that I'd been eating non stop since noon. It's a tough life on board 😉
After my main at dinner, I was feeling really sick. I'm not sure if it was from eating too much food during the day, or motion sickness as the sea was very choppy. I had to excuse myself and return to my room where Snowflake was waiting for me. The choppy sea accompanied us thoughtout the night and I could feel myself swaying in bed. Sometimes left to right, sometimes a little up and down in my big bed even when I was half asleep. Had I not been so tired I'm pretty sure it would have been a very sleepless night.
DAY 2
The next morning the Captain announced we'd be sailing past the bad weather by the evening. Half a day to go before I'd be out of the woods. I spent the afternoon exploring outside as the weather was a bit calmer. It was a gorgeous day despite the bumpy sail. The blue sky reached out and touched down onto the torquouse sea, joined by the infinity pool from the the cruise liner. If there is no motion sickness I can stay here all the time.
DAY 3
On day 3 every one was in full swing and basting themselves under the sun. Brit's love the sun and will never pass on the opportunity to soak up some vitamin Sun. Pretty much every lounger was taken up, a sharp contrast from the two previous days when everyone was staying indoors away from the rough weather. As an Asian, we like the sun but tend to stay away from it, we're tan enough, don't need to get any tanner.
After a walk around outside, I went back indoors for more food. This meal was a posh afternoon tea on the 18th deck. Some of the finer meals had a supplement charge and I figured I'd treat myself as I'm a sucker for pastries and sweet things. Just see how exquisite this tea set is, plus the gorgeous seaview to go with it.
It was so mouth watering that I couldn't wait to tuck in. My favourite was this pistachio topping bun filled with rose water cream that was as light as feather. Lychee bubbles hid inside and when you find them, they pop in your mouth releasing a lovely burst of fragrant lychee juice. It was devine.
Sadly the overall experience didn't quite make the mark. The food and presentation were superb and we started to tuck in after the waiter introduced the tea set to us. However, it took them a whole 15 minutes to serve tea by which time we were dying of thirst as the pastries were quite dry. And to top it, I didn't check the price before hand and got a bit of a shock when I saw the bill. £17.50 per head, £35 for the two of us!!! Considering food was included in the cruise price and this was supposed to be a supplement, this was rather steep in my opinion. Luckily I got some free onboard credit to spend so this didn't cost me anything. But still!!!
DAY 4
On day 4 we were due to dock at our first port Maderia, Portugal. After 2 years in UK and 3 days on board the ship, I was looking forward to get on foreign land. At 8am the captain announced that after two failed attempts, he had to abort Maderia as the weather conditions was too bad and the liner couldn't dock. I'm not sure how the rest of the 3700 passengers on board felt, but I wasn't awfully upset. A day wasn't going to make a massive difference, safety first. I decided to make use of the extra day on board and joined a dance class. It was really fun and everyone had a cracking time laughing at ourselves and everyone else as we struggled to remember the moves. I felt so accomplished afterwards and decided that a deck side rest under the sun was a good way to round off the morning.
After yesterday's rather disappointing afternoon tea, I opted for the free one today from the buffet restaurant. This doesn't have the fancy three tier cake stand but I think I russled up a decent looking afternoon tea.
The extra day on board also proved extremely useful to write this post. I couldn't even look at my mobile phone the first few days as the sea was so rough and it gave me motion sickness. Not that I had anything to look at anyway as I had no internet. I'm currently sitting in a fancy bar at the front of the ship on the top deck, deck 19 looking out towards the beautiful sea as I'm writing this post. We're cruising on the calm sea towards our next destination and by the time you've finished reading this post I would have moved onto my next destination.
Catch up again next time!!
