It could have been worse!
Just back from a seven-day cruise aboard Cunard’s Queen Victoria.
We flew to Rome and boarded the ship at the port of Civitavecchia, which is about an hour’s drive from the airport. First stop was Livorno (Italy), followed by a day at sea, then La Seine-sur-Mer (France), Ajaccio (Corsica), another day at sea, and, finally, Valencia (Spain) before we disembarked at Barcelona and caught our flight home to Gatwick.
Not the most inspiring itinerary but for me cruising is more about the ship than the ports of call because unless you stay in port overnight (which happens very rarely) there’s little time to explore, especially if you have one eye on the clock because you (literally) don’t want to miss the boat.
I’ve written about this before but Cunard is my favourite cruise line for several reasons, and although Queen Victoria is almost 20 years old and the cabins (aka staterooms) are arguably a little dated, this was the fourth or fifth time we’ve sailed on her and I enjoy the familiarity.
Unfortunately the holiday didn’t go entirely to plan because on day four, following a ‘difficult’ night, I found myself in the medical department on Deck A being examined by a South African doctor whose appearance (and blunt but humorous manner) reminded me of the former Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou.
I’ll leave the details of my ‘treatment’ for another day (or perhaps I’ll never mention it again), but it’s fair to say it had a significant impact on what was left of our holiday. As for our journey home on Monday, that was slightly more tortuous than I would have liked.
It didn’t help that our charter flight was delayed by baggage handlers who failed to turn up for over an hour and kept us waiting on the runway for almost 90 minutes beyond our scheduled departure time. Gracias, amigos.
Perhaps this had a knock on effect at Gatwick because we spent 15 minutes circling the Sussex sky before we could land. We then endured a further delay of 30-40 minutes before our luggage arrived in the baggage reclaim area. When the conveyor belt eventually began to move it got a round of applause, even though there was still not a suitcase in sight. How British is that?!
First world problems, I know, but that journey alone explains why I prefer sailing from Southampton. The trouble is, we have experienced every Cunard cruise from Southampton at least once, and the only way to avoid further repetition is to fly to the port of embarkation (which we have also done, several times), but I never enjoy it.
By the way, you may remember that, a few weeks ago, I had to pay a bit extra for medical insurance for foreign travel. It turns out that it was money well spent because the cost of being treated by the ship’s doctor was £425 - and that was cheap, in my estimation. It could have been so much worse.
Thankfully I avoided the nightmare scenario of having to go to hospital on shore (and being charged goodness knows how much) or, worse, missing the ship’s departure because cruise ships wait for no man (unless you’re on an official excursion). Seriously, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Lucky me!
