Mykonos and Athens for a Flight Home

It's Tuesday 27 August 2024. The ship anchors off Mykonos and the sore leg that has been plaguing me all week is inflamed and angry (angry? It's livid!) and we decide reluctantly not to go ashore. Seldom have we spent so many days on a ship with so few days' outings but we have to fly home tomorrow and then it will be off to the doctor's for me to have it looked at.

At least we have a good view of the town from where we are anchored. NCL Pearl is sending people ashore via tender boat and with other ships sending their boats to the more central pier, it would leave us having to walk that bit further to get into town.

Sadly the prospect of a drink sitting outside Zorbas bar will have to wait for a future visit. But there's an opportunity for the sketchpad to come out again, though the scene with the many white flat-roofed buildings presents its own challenges. There's the row of "mop-haired" windmills and the slope that goes up past Zorbas into the shopping streets. And further towards the left, off the side of this view, the beach area with its line of other bars, at one of which I learned my Greek word for "thank you". And there's the street where my mate walked in the middle of the road oblivious to the delivery van behind him trying to get past... Illnesses and injuries willing, we'll be back!

Then a last night for this cruise with Tom and Maris, lots of hugs and kisses as we say goodbye. The bar staff shouted out their goodbyes too - we had become known to them as "the coffee couple" due to our daily visits to the Starbucks counter in the atrium!

And so the cruise ends on Wednesday 28 August as we board a coach at Piraeus, the port for Athens and are taken to the airport. The photo shows us with Tom and Maris one night as we had a meal together.

The journey to the airport is easy and efficient but as we get our boarding passes we are told that our second flight from Munich to Manchester is overbooked and we are on standby and not guaranteed to be on it. "Once you get there, go to the gate as soon as possible and they will be able to tell you if they can give you seats." Otherwise it will be a case of waiting for a later flight.

So we get to Munich and bearing in mind the nightmare of the outward journey when we found ourselves having gone the wrong way and had to go through security a second time, we asked for and followed directions which involved going on a train between terminals. Thankfully we were in the right place. Despite breakfast having been at the UK equivalent of 4:00am we had to dash past all of the main food outlets to get to the departure gate where we were subject to the added stress of the chap's computer taking forever to log him in. Then with relief we were allocated seats. I would be on the emergency door row and Fran seated behind me.

By now there wasn't time to go back to the food outlets but there was a W H Smiths nearby so feasting on a tub of Pringles, we got on the plane where I was told that because I used a walking stick I couldn't sit on the emergency door row and ended up sitting next to Fran instead. This meant someone else came along thinking I'd nicked their seat of course but the stewardess had stayed nearby to sort this out and there was another single passenger willing to move so the other couple got to sit together as well.

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Nearly Dubrovnik - Again!

Saturday 24 August 2024. The ship is moored against the dockside in Gruz as we leap (slither slowly) out of bed. This is the port for Dubrovnik and almost every time we have been there so far, we have wandered down along the port to the far end of the basin rather than go into Dubrovnik itself.

There's a lot to be said for it. You get a nice peaceful walk down a long street lined with cafes, bars and grocery outlets on one side and ships, boats, yachts both large and small and a sailing ship on the other. In Dubrovnik itself you get a chaotic square-cum-bus station where buses, coaches and pedestrians all compete for the same bit of road and crowds of Game of Thrones fans all craning their necks to spot a recogniseable bit of King's Landing from the show.

Now I'm as enthusiastic about the show as the next person - actually considerably more so, as Miss Franny was the next person and she hated it... What I'm not enthusiastic about are massive crowds and people who seem to treat anyone walking with a stick as an opportunity to see how close they can get, dodging from one side to the other across your path after approaching silently from behind. So we walked down the length of the port again and very nice too. Buying drinks on the way back I learned my first word in Croatian - "vala" means "thank you" The conversation went like this:

"How do you say thank you in Croatian?" "Vala!" said with a smile of appreciation that I should take the trouble to learn. "Vala?" I said, trying it out. She nodded. "Oh thank you! Er... I mean vala!" I stuttered. Old habits die hard and all that...

We had a few other cruise ships travelling along pretty much the same route during the week. Sometimes there were four of us, sometimes three, occasionally five. A regular was Cunard's Queen Victoria. Actually owned by Carnival Corporation, she is operated by Cunard and was built 2006-2007 with delivery to Cunard in December 2007, when on the same day it was named by Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall. The champagne bottle did not break on hitting the side of the ship, a bad omen traditionally, but a second bottle duly smashed immediately. None-the-less much was made of the incident later that month when over 130 people contracted the winter vomiting disease norovirus aboard her. Moral of the tale is to never try to lick old champagne off the side of a ship...

Then the Franjo Tuđman bridge takes the road to and from Split over the River Dubrovnik. The brave - or foolhardy - can bungee jump from it... I was going to have a go - but the Norwegian Pearl was already sailing away. I settled for a jump down into the shower tray instead... It was perhaps just a little safer, there being a handle on the wall to hold onto. But - and readers might like to draw an admiring inward breath at this point - I did it without the aid of any harness or elastic band!

The Rose Garden Restaurant was a buffet style dining area and our usual go-to place to eat. The food was mostly ok, but Norwegian Cruise Lines, depite the name, are an American-based company and the food reflected North and South American tastes primarily. We did expect this and the majority of passengers were indeed from the countries of those continents. Some items were very sweet to our taste. Surprisingly, steaks which Americans are famous for were sometimes so fatty that we just left most of them on the plate. I've never experienced that in America.

Our main reason for choosing this cruise was the chance to see these two wonderful people again. Tomas and Maris, singing as "2 Intense". It was a joy for us to see them again and we had a meal together one night with a chance to sit and talk and catch up on all the things happening at home and with families etc. "He's itching to get up here!" grinned Tomas one night. Yes I was but I'm still not in any fit enough state to try it yet! Hopefully someday.

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Onboard the Celebration

I've already done an article looking at the Thomson, later Marella Celebration from the sea or the shore. In this article we take a look at her from an onboard viewpoint.

The forward deck to the bow is out of bounds to passengers, containing lots of potentially dangerous heavy machinery. From here cables and the anchors are winched in and out at every port.

In any case standing at the front of a ship whilst out at sea is not for the faint hearted. Cruise ships at sea will be moving at a fair rate of knots - 26 plus. Even with no wind at all that means you will be feeling a 26 knot wind in your face. This is also the reason you cannot fish from the stern of a ship whilst cruising. You would be yanked over the rail at 20 miles per hour and left watching out for hungry sharks! Sunsets at sea can be very rewarding though!

You don't have to necessarily stand in the gale at the front of the ship to enjoy these though!

Once out into the open sea and more so once the warmth of the sun disappears, the Promenade Deck usually gets somewhat quiet.

No one will be out playing shuffle board in the dark.

The rear of the ship is where the pool can be found. There's a jacuzzi pool too towards the side and a stage area where daytime entertainment by the cabaret artists and party band will play. During the day the entertainments team run quizzes and games every afternoon and there will be demonstrations of ice and vegetable/fruit carving, towel folding and cookery, where if you haven't managed to stuff yourself to the gunnels you can volunteer to taste the results (you will get the full meal!)

On the deck above twin wings overlook the pool area whilst allowing the sun to shine its rays down on the swimmers and loungers below. At night the pool is out of bounds, but on warm nights it's still a pleasant place to be either with a glass of wine or for a last coffee before bed.

The stage area with the wonderful cabaret duo 2 Intense. Tomas and Maris.

They were usually to be found throughout the evenings performing in the Horizons bar situated over the ship's bridge. We will catch up with them again whe I get round to the Horizons bar!

On our first trip on the Celebration in 2009 this trio, The Nightbirds, were on the ship.

Ok, let's have a look at a few cabins. You could choose whether to have separate bunks or whether to have them moved together to form a double bed. I think there were a few cabins where this wasn't possible because of the layout of the room, but we always used to request a double bed as Miss Franny doesn't like not being able to blame me for any covers which may have slipped off...

Note the decent sized windows. Portholes are only found on the lower decks and we liked to a bit higher up so it wasn't so far to stagger back to the cabin after a long night in the Horizons Bar...

Looking from the bed. Cabins aren't huge, though there are some suites available, but we don't go on holiday to spends loads of time in the cabin.

One year we went after the ship had undergone a refit and had been furnished with some balcony rooms. To our surprise we were upgraded to one of these rooms. Very nice too!

The balcony wasn't huge but it was big enough to sit and watch the occasional dolphin and on one day to yell with shock as a blue whale appeared from under the ship directly below us. Bear in mind that there are two sides to every ship and only one sun...

In order to fit balconies, the cabin room had to be made slightly smaller. The bed was moved to the side of the room

The ship has a number of internal lounges. This is the Explorers' Lounge.

It had a piano at one end for Entertainment Team use only and was generally quite a quiet are during the day.

At the end of the lounge was an area with computers for those who felt the need to stay in touch. You could buy a weekly pass or anything smaller from half an hour upwards. Given that you would be in the middle of the sea, data speeds were not gob smacking. You could spend 20 minutes waiting for your computer to log you into your email account. It was better to follow the crew off the ship once in a port as they knew where to go for free internet connections!

There was also a small library of books in this room that could be taken out and returned once read or at the end of a cruise. Also there was usually a jigsaw or two in the process of being finished or abandoned because only blue sky was left to be done. Strangely this acts as a magnet to Miss Franny - give her a jigsaw with a close-up picture of a plate of beans and she'll love it and do it over and over...

Destinations Services desk. There's one on every ship and it is here that you can book any excursions from the ship on days in port. It's a great way to get an idea of a place you haven't visited before and you may be tempted to get off independently on a subsequent visit. We've done that many times but always keeping an eye on being able to be back onboard on time. The ship will wait for booked excursions if they get held up. It may not wait for independent travellers who forget what tine it is or get too drunk to walk back. If the tide is a crucial factor, we have watched from the ship's rail as someone is left running and waving along the dockside as we pull away. We always wave back...

Onboard once out at sea, the ship's shops (easier to write than to say!) can open for all sorts of goods. Evening sales will be advertised during the week: jewellery, wines, spirits and tobacco, watches, perfume.

I'll always have a look and I have been known to buy the occasional cap or t-shirt, but shopping is not my favourite holiday activity!

Shirt night. Just in case you forgot to take any?

Yep, that's enough shops now, move on...

There is a self-service buffet restaurant and I'm a bit surprised after all the cruises we did that I have no photos of it. Thinking with my belly too much I suppose... This is the entrance to the more formal waiter-service Meridian Restaurant.

Here you could sit at a cosy table for two, join another couple on a table for four, or join a larger group on a few large tables. Etiquette is to normally stick with the same group unless they are really the most awful bores - we've met a few of those, though you probably wouldn't know if they were thinking the same! The waiters tend to look after their regulars too, even if you find yourself on a different table some nights because someone got there before you.

Sometimes the waiters will put on a small entertainment, with a few of them singing and playing guitars. Elvis's The Wonder of You is always a favourite - join in with the "Whoa-oh-oh-oh" and wave a napkin of two around. Extra points for removing someone's wig or toupe with it!

One night there was usually a parade of the baked alaska pudding.. This got curtailed due to health and safety in the last few years. We did hear a rumour of one restaurant on a ship where a tall waiter held his flaming pudding so high the restaurant's sprinkler system added to the jollity of the night...

The Showbar where the West End style shows are performed nightly with singing, dancing, and a pinch of pizazz! "Oy! Who's nicked me pizazz?!?"

A quick glimpse of the onboard casino - strictly only open out of territorial waters, this!

And here's Miss Franny lounging in yet another lounge! This is the Horizons Bar. Situated over the ship's bridge it gave a great view forward when leaving ports. It was usually fairly busy throughout the day and in the afternoons you could always count on hearing some gentle and some not-too-gentle snoring from the very comfortable seats facing the front windows. It wasn't always me...

There was a central circular bar and waiters and waitresses would circulate often around the seating area ready to top up your glass.

The windows stretched the full width of the ship and catered for a couple of tables on either side as well.

At night lighting was subdued and it was a popular place to be. On our first cruise on the ship there was a young girl playing piano.

In 2010 this duo made their first appearance on the ship. Tomas and Maris played as the duo 2 Intense. With a gentle and easy-going manner, they were a great act with a wonderful sound.

The first night we saw them Maris announced a Carpenters song and I thought Ooh, that's brave..." but she absolutely nailed the sound and later said she enjoyed singing like Karen Carpenter because she found it relaxing!

She always made sure that they were colour co-ordinated too!

On our first cruise with them I was due to play a gig with my own band the night after we returned to the UK and I joked to Tomas that I needed to keep the skin on the end of my fingers calloused. He grabbed my hand and felt the tips of my fingers which made it obvious I was a regular player. So that night I was called up to play a number!

Tom had no strap on the guitar and used to sit on a stool with the guitar on his knee. Fine... but I have short legs so had to stretch to rest my feet which made my leg slope which made the guitar slide away...

This was the start of a long and wonderful relationship and I had many nights on subsequent cruises playing with them on both the Celebration and the Dream cruise ship.

I never took these opportunities for granted, it was an honour to share the stage with them and I think they enjoyed playing the role of backing singers at times too!

Here they are joined by King, a young singer and guitarist who was playing in the Hemingways Bar. We went down with Tom and Maris after their last spot sometime around midnight one night to catch his last set.

Suddenly Fran was nudging me. "You're being called!" she said. I was given King's guitar and led to the mic. "By the way, it's tuned two notes down," King said and here I was trying desperately to figure out that I should be forming chords two frets higher than usual! I played a set of three songs and acknowledged the applause and got off whilst the going was good!

And I do have one shot of the buffet restaurant, if not the buffet itself. This was the last night on this particular cruise. This is somewhere around 2:00am and we are with Tomas and Maris and King to share a bit of chat and to say our goodbyes until we could be with them again.

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