I wouldn't go so far as saying that I'm suffering from
"writer's block," but I don't seem to have much to write about, at present. There are couple of few events, plus days out coming up, towards the end of the month, but until they happen, there's a definite shortage of material to use on the blog. With this in mind, here is a piece I bashed out, on our
British Isles cruise, back in
May. It does have a slight resemblance to a post I wrote last summer, but it contains sufficient new material to be worthy of a post, in its own right, so, here goes.
Our most recent cruise saw
Mrs PBT's and I achieving
"Platinum Status" as far as
Cunard are concerned. We attained this level after clocking up eight different cruises since undertaking our first voyage, on a four night sailing to
Zeebrugge and back. That cruise was made in the company of
Eileen's sister, and her husband who, sadly, is now no longer with us. One cruise is sufficient to attain
Silver level on
Cunard's scale, and somewhere along the way we achieved
Gold status.
This hierarchical system is obviously designed as a marketing exercise, encouraging people to book further voyages, than perhaps they might otherwise have done, but attaining
Platinum level does confer a number of benefits, the chief one being
Priority Boarding. This proved to be very handy when we turned up at
Southampton back in
May, and found the queue snaking right outside the terminal. It was
Mrs PBT's who remembered this benefit, and after flashing our boarding cards we were shepherded straight to the front of the queue.
So far, we've only voyaged with
Cunard, even though many other cruise lines are available. I'm keen to try one of them, with
Fred Olsen topping the bill, but my good lady wife doesn't like change, and prefers to stick with what we know. Personally I feel that
Cunard are rather staid, and content to trade off past glories, and this manifests itself more than anything in the dress code that the company enforces for passengers dining in the main restaurant - the
Britannia It also applies in several of the more upmarket bars and lounges.
Now I accept the need for a certain degree of decorum, as the last thing that's needed is blokes stripped to the waist, parading around in cut-down jeans, or women in skimpy beachwear, flaunting themselves, whilst sitting opposite you at the dinner table, but there's a whole world of difference between smart casual, and full-blown penguin suits or ballroom gowns. On their famous
"Gala Nights", Cunard push cruisers in the direction of the latter, although a business suit for men, plus a dress, rather than a frock for the ladies will still get you seats at the table.
For many of the people who cruise with
Cunard, putting their glad rags on and getting all tarted up, is part of the attraction, and for some it's almost
the MAIN event. Getting poshed up is very low on my list of priorities, and increasingly the same applies to
Mrs PBT's as well, although it doesn't explain why she still thought it necessary to bring four suitcases with her! Despite her surfeit of outfits, on our last two cruises we only dressed up on a handful of occasions, and whilst dedicated
Cunarder's enjoy the theatrical
"look at me" posing, associated with these formal dinners, we both find the events rather stuffy. I could go further and say that many of those on board, aren't really our type of people. In addition, as I've probably mentioned before, having spent a lifetime of having to dress formally - or at least, semi-formally at work, this isn't what I want to do when I'm away from the office, and on holiday.
If you don't want to get tarted up on a
Cunard cruise, then there are venues such as the food-court buffet, or the
Golden Lion pub, where people can wear what they like - within reason. If you're feeling really anti-social, there's also the option of
Room Service, where a limited number of dishes can be brought to your room - foc, at the moment, but according to my good lady wife, the cruise line will soon introduce a charge for this service, with the exception of breakfast. The bean counters strike again!
Returning to the theme of
"other cruise lines are available" Norwegian-owned
Fred Olsen would be my choice of carrier. Less formal, but still with a
“British” feel to them, their smaller ships seem more personal, and are able to access smaller ports that the larger vessels are
excluded from. Some of their destinations also look interesting –
Scandinavia
(obviously), the
Baltic, and the
British Isles, but also
Croatia, and some of the
smaller
Greek islands. Some
Fred Olsen cruises, depart from other
UK ports,
such as
Dover, Liverpool or
Newcastle, instead of
Southampton, withe
Dover being the obvious choice for myself and
Mrs PBT's. We have ruled out
Princess, Holland-America, Royal
Caribbean and
Celebrity, as many of these vessels are
"party ships"geared up to a
younger audience. The size of some of these ships too, can be rather off-putting.
7 comments:
We're occasional cruisers but as we only ever travel anywhere with hand-luggage the opportunity to dress up for dinner doesn't present itself which suits us perfectly.
We're perfectly happy with the buffet and as you say it means we don't have to go through all the formal rigmarole and talk to people we have no interest in.
We avoid any cruise leaving the US after one particularly horrendous run from Port Canaveral down to the Caribbean where the buffet was like feeding time at the zoo and we had the pleasure of witnesses several fights between obese POC.
I rather like the P&O ships such as the Britannia as their beer selection is reasonable and reasonably priced. Unlike the US Celebrity cruise we took which wanted 12 quid for a can of Guinness.
Fortunately we come prepared on every cruise that leaves Southampton.
We buy a wheelie suitcase from a charity shop for about £3 solely for the purpose of carrying 60 cans of Fevertree tonic. That goes on the ship as hold luggage when we arrive at departure and is normally in the cabin by the time we get there.
We carry on board our hand luggage including a sturdy shopping bag which contains a 12-pack of water bottles ( which you're allowed ) and other essentials such as tea bags and Twiglets.
Prior to boarding I carefully remove the outer bottles of water ensuring the plastic wrapping remains intact ( a hairdryer softens the plastic ) - then replace the water in the middle six bottles with Gordon's Gin before returning the outer bottles of water to the package.
Two litres of gin and tonic and the two bottles of wine you're allowed to take on board doesn't half reduce your booze bill on a two-week cruise at the end of which we dump the empty wheelie case.
It works every time.
I didn't realise you were such regular cruisegoers, Paul. When was your first ?
What does Eileen particularly like about Cunard ?
We chose our cruises (six, I think) purely on destinations and cost, aiming to get the cheapest deal by flying back on Christmas Day.
Thanks for your input here, Prof. I’m impressed with your method of circumventing the booze restrictions, when boarding a cruise ship. They wouldn’t work for us, as Mrs PBT’s is practically tee-total, and apart from the occasional glass of single malt Scotch (I’ve got two unopened bottles sitting on the shelf), I’m not much of a spirits drinker. (Trying to palm off a coloured spirit to look like water, would obviously be doomed to failure, as well.
Being rather fond of Pilsner Urquell, I’ve smuggled a couple of dozen cans on board, in the past, but there’s always the danger of one of them bursting – as experienced by one of my Japanese colleagues, a few years ago. With this in mind, I’m quite happy to stick with the onboard prices for beer, which aren’t that much in excess of UK pub prices, these days, or alternatively, stock up in port at a local supermarket.
This proved worth doing in ports such as Hamburg or Amsterdam, but also many of the Spanish destinations as well. Norway was slightly different, because supermarkets can only stock beers below 4.7% abv, with anything above that strength restricted to government-owned, Vinmonopolet retailers, which are quite pleasant, and not as austere as one might think.
It’s interesting that you recommend P&O, because one of my work colleagues has recently returned from her second cruise with that cruise line, and was very impressed. If I can persuade the lady of the house to step outside her comfort zone – see my answer below, to Retired Martin, then I might look at what they have to offer.
Hi Martin, since our first cruise back in October just before the pandemic, Eileen and I have been on quite a few other cruises - I’ve lost count, but it’s either six or seven. That first voyage was a four-night sailing to Zeebrugge and back, on Queen Elizabeth, in the company of Eileen's sister, and her late husband. The pair were seasoned cruisers, but sadly it was to be their last, as not long afterwards, Brian developed an aggressive brain tumour, and passed away at the start of the pandemic.
In a way, travelling with Cunard spoiled the pair of us, as all cruises since then have been with that particular cruise line. It’s a question of what you know, as whilst I would be quite happy to try a different operator, the lady of the house prefers to stick with what she knows – comfort zones, and all that! She now much prefers sailing to flying, particularly in the aftermath of the bout of sepsis that hospitalised her at the beginning of 2018 and which also compromised her mobility.
It’s a lot more relaxing waiting to board a cruise ship, compared to an aircraft, and you’re not crammed in to a tiny space, or bussed out from the terminal, either. There are also no restrictions on baggage, something that isn’t as issue for me, as I prefer to travel light, but for someone who likes to pack as many outfits as possible, it’s a bonus. It drives me up the wall, but as she’s unlikely to change, I just go with the flow.
Since the last cruise, we’ve discovered that if you book a future cruise, whilst onboard another, there are significant cost savings to be had, so much so that we booked a cruise to Morocco for 2026, plus a Baltic voyage for the following year. In both instances we saved a 4-figure sum off the advertised booking price. Despite these savings, I’m trying to nudge her towards a short voyage with Fred Olsen, especially as a number of their ships, sail from Dover, rather than Southampton.
Another plus of P&O is their cruises are gratuity free.
Now we always bung our cabin attendant a decent tip whether tips are included or not.
Other than that as we never eat in waitered restaurants we just don't tip.
We did a Celebrity cruise where they wanted the bones of £40 a day every day to reward vritually every worker on the ship instead of paying them a decent wage.
That was on top of an automatic 20% service charge on every drink we bought which fortunately were very few because the smuggled boozed got us across the Atlantic then shore visits in the Caribbean to top up our stocks.
We simply went to reception on the last day of the cruise and told them to remove all services charges amounting to hundreds of dollars. To be fair they seemed surprised but carried out my instructions - as you know Americans will tip anyone and everything so it was nice to introduce them to the Yorkshire tipping method.
But if I'm really really honest cruising isn't my thing - I just do it to keep Mrs PP-T happy and I do like a bargain. Our last re-positioning cruise across the Atlantic cost us about £900 each for two weeks which for unlimited scran, entertainment and a return flight from Barbados was a steal.
Oh Dear God Mr Pie Head. You are a revelation, indeed a legend. I asked Paul the Blogger how to get round this problem i.e. wanting to avoid the clinky clinky as one goes onboard. This is genius and just what we needed. I can now go crusing as I know the answer. I wish that Paul had the depth of knowledge. Love the hair drier thing.
What do you reckon to these nude cruises by the way?
Cunard aren't gratuity-free, but a couple of years ago, we were tipped off, by a group of experienced Cunard cruisers, who told us to call in at the Purser's office and ask for the gratuities to be removed from our accounts. They said the same thing that these charges were going to every worker on the ship, rather than paying them a decent wage. We're obviously not the only ones, as the staff, at the counter, rarely bat an eyelid
Like you, we give our cabin attendant a decent tip, and we also do the same if there's a decent and attentive drinks waiter, especially when there's been a group of us, sitting up on deck, in the smoking area. Mrs PBT's enjoys vaping, these days. I just turn up for the ride.
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