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My final blog, which is my concluding thoughts.
Thoughts about my world cruise experience.
Ports and countries.
I'd always thought that cruising is a good way to have a taster of a country, and then decide on that experience, whether or not to revisit for longer, later. That's not true! I had three great days in New Zealand, but it's not a country I'd hurry back to, as the last time I visited it with Angie, we both thought it was quite a boring place. On the other hand, I enjoyed my land visit to Kuala Lumpur, but the day trip from the cruise ship was dreadful.
There have been some highlights, though. The Panama Canal was amazing, the minimal clearance in the locks is astounding. Sailing into Sydney Harbour was spectacular. Papua New Guinea was different and Nagasaki was moving. The Great Wall of China was as astonishing as I expected and Vietnam is a country I'll definitely re-visit. Mumbai still hits the senses and Dubai was as OTT as ever. Egypt is absolutely filthy and it's a country I've had lots of good holidays in, I had just forgotten, the dirt and rubbish everywhere. Israel was a complete contrast. The Suez Canal was also interesting, but in a different way to Panama.
The MV Aurora
She is a nice sized ship, but she definitely needs a little TLC. There are blown windows in the Orangery, leaks springing up in various corridors, sports equipment that needs replacing, courts needing repainting. The furniture in my cabin is looking a little care worn. Some are major points, others, just little things.
Then there are things that can be fixed immediately. There are mistypes that are constantly repeated on the menus (bree, anyone?) and in the Horizon daily magazine (diaquiri, is that like a daiquiri?). Things like the ever decreasing number of washing machines and tumble driers, surely some could be cannibalised to get others working?
The prices on board for drinks was pretty reasonable and no 15% service charge either. They didn't seem able to mix any drinks that wasn't on the bar list. According to the manager, it was because their system couldn't cope! They couldn't even mix drinks that pop up as cocktails of the day, if it wasn't their day!
There are three dress codes on board. Formal, smart casual (jacket required) and casual. Their idea of casual is my idea of dressing up! I actually didn't mind the formal nights and I quite enjoyed dressing for dinner. I found the worst code was the middle one, I'd have preferred just the two.
Having said all that, I'd happily sail in her again, pre or post refit.
The food.
On a 106 day voyage, menus will inevitably repeat. The food and choice is usually quite good. But some things can be very annoying. At almost every meal the choice of vegetables included potato, despite potato usually being part of the main course. There were also parsnips, courgettes and squash in abundance, but an almost complete dearth of peas, beans and mushrooms. Also the vegetable choices didn't seem to work with all the main courses, chicken biriyani with mash??
The alternative restaurants were a mixed bunch. The meals I had in Cafe Bordeaux were fine, at least breakfast and lunch were, dinner wasn't so good and should have been better as they were extra. The other pay restaurant, The Pennant Grill, was excellent. The two other places to eat were The Orangery, which is just a standard cruise buffet and the Sidewalk Cafe, which was OK for sandwiches, burgers and hot dogs.
The food was not as good as on the American ships, but still good enough for me to put on far too much weight.
The entertainment.
This was not as good as I'd hoped. The sail away, in most cases, was pretty dire, who sings First World War songs these days. I know the age demographic on world voyages is pretty high, but please. They also tended to be over before we actually set sail.
There were plenty of quizzes each day and I definitely wouldn't take part in so many on my next long voyage. Having said that, I reckon that we probably won an average of one prize a day over the cruise, be it bottles of wine or cocktails of the day. The prizes seem to be pretty arbitrary, wine for the Masquerade Challenge and Syndicate Quiz, but a cocktail of the day between the whole team, or the Picture Quiz. One cocktail between six doesn't go very far!
The shows in the Curzon Theatre varied in quality. Many of the ship's own shows were OK. I didn't watch any in the first sector, as the troupe only joined the ship at the same time as me, so I gave them time to gel. Some of the guest artistes were really good, others not so. It was certainly different to be sunbathing or dining next to a fairly well known entertainer, or the guy you'd seen on stage the night before.
Sometimes there were shows on at both ends of the ship, in the Curzon Theatre and in Carmens, at other times, both were empty. If you took part in the Picture Quiz in Masquerades, the venue then died until the Masquerade Challenge.
In the really nice warm evenings, they could have used the Terrace Bar and deck for some sort of entertainment, dancing under the stars or something like that.
I only went to two or three lectures, but I enjoyed most of them. Other people who went to more, said that in the most part they were very good.
I only saw one film, but there was one shown every day and many were quite recent. I also didn't go to any classical concerts, but they also received good revues.
The live music in the bars, was usually quite good, especially Caravan, but in most cases was too loud for people to be able to sit, drink and chat.
The entertainment team was, on the whole, great, especially Scott, Michaela, Jo and Paul. The cruise director on the other hand was a waste of space.
The people.
I was expecting a lot of fairly old, posh people on this cruise and I was totally wrong. The average age was probably mid to late 60's or early 70's. They were almost all down to earth, ordinary people like me. I met a great bunch of folks from the forum and I've shared some great times with them. There were one or two a*******s, but they've been few and far between. Most of the people have been great to know and it was almost impossible to walk from one end of the ship to the other without bumping into someone and at least nodding if not chatting.
The sea and the weather.
One thing about a long voyage is the number if sea days. We had a couple of legs of 5 continuous sea days. Mostly they were fine. We had no really rough weather. A couple were quite choppy, but I never felt even remotely queasy.
The weather on this trip has been amazing. With the exception of Shanghai, we had no rain on any port days and only China was cold. There were only a few sea days where the outside decks were closed and a few more where it was cold outside. We were exceptionally fortunate on the whole cruise.
Conclusions.
Going on a world cruise has always been a dream of mine. Did it live up to my expectations? Oh, yes. I've enjoyed every minute of it and it's astonishing to think that I've spent 106 days on board. I enjoy cruising, but I also enjoy land holidays too, and next year I'm hoping to take a round the world flight. South America is continent that I've not seen too much of and rumour has it (from the Captain and Chief Engineer, no less), that the Aurora is travelling round the continent in 2015. If it's true, then I'm 90% certain to be on board. I've bought my future cruise certificate, so I have to book another P&O cruise within a year, and the 2015 world cruises brochure is out in July, so who knows? I'm also pretty certain that I'll take another world cruise, sometime. Maybe in 2017, to celebrate my State Retirement age!!
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