Mexican Medley Cruise on Thomson Dream, 10-17 February 2015

A series of articles covering a week's Caribbean cruise called Mexican Medley which we took on the Thomson Dream cruise ship in February 2015.

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Diversion at Jamaica

Monday 16 February 2015. We are up early and have breakfast in time to get up on deck to watch the Thomson Dream arrive into Falmouth, Jamaica.

We brave the considerable wind blowing over the bow of the ship and watch as we are joined by tugboats which attempt to help us into harbour. They are not having much effect against the waves and headwind. After a while there is an announcement over the ship's speaker system. Due to the heavy weather, it is too dangerous to try to get into the harbour at Falmouth and the decision has been taken to head along the coast of Jamaica to Montego Bay, where we were due to arrive tomrrow. The two ports are only a short distance apart and tours will still go ahead, with the half-day tours taking place in the afternoon rather than the morning. Good... Because today's excursion was to be the only one of the week!

So we find our usual spot up on Deck 11 and spend the morning reading, talking and waving at people we have made friends with. The coast of Jamaica slides slowly past us as we sit in a sheltered spot away from the wind.

Then as the announced time of arrival at Montego Bay approaches we again head out to the Promenade Deck to have a look as we edge closer to the land. The reef around the little promontory of land is clearly visible beneath the water.

Looking back over the stern of the ship we watch a plane descend, heading for one of the island's two airports. You can see it just above the horizon on the far left. By now we are nosing our way into the bay and the colour of the sea has changed as the sea bed shelves rapidly and we move into shallower water.

And look at this! Looking through the clear waters of Montego Bay you can see the coral reef on the sea bed. Many people come here on holiday to dive these reefs, which present them with colourful corals and all sorts of fish. And you know... despite all the times they crop up here in the James Bond novels of my teens and despite all the cruises we have taken over the last decade and a bit - I've yet to see a shark swimming in the sea...

We slide further into the bay and admire holiday villages both completed and under construction. The ship slows and starts to turn round to moor with its bow towards the sea.

The cruise terminal. This is where we joined the ship six days ago and we shall leave it at the end of this cruise here tomorrow around lunchtime.

The coaches are starting to arrive for the excursions. We are due to visit two of Jamaica's infamous slave plantation great houses. We check with the Destinations Desk and our excursion will leave at 1:30pm. Time for some lunch then! We'll have a look at the excursion next time.

Mexican Medley Cruise Index

Joining our Dream Ship at Montego Bay

Tuesday 10 February 2015 was a long day. Twenty nine hours to be precise... We left home to travel to Manchester Airport in a taxi with one of those drivers who seem to steer in sudden panic swerves and were relieved to get there and join the queue to check in baggage. The online checking-in procedure made this very easy the first time we did it. Now that everyone does it, it somehow takes just as long as it used to anyway...

But the good news was that our bags would be picked up automatically and taken to the ship and our cabins so no mooching around the baggage conveyors when we got there.

We were flying on one of the Thomson Dreamliner Boeing 787s. They are carbon fibre not metal so much reduced weight means they fly a lot faster. I've read some stupid reviews of these aircraft that make me think some people would still manage to be unhappy if they were flown to the opposite side of the world in ten minutes on an alcohol drip, with semi-naked demigods/goddesses pandering to their every whim. The reality is there are two aisles, seats with a 3-3-3 configuration and the seats have more leg room than you would normally find. Not so much though that some prat playing yo-yos in front, reclining and straightening their seat every ten minutes isn't very annoying. Want to improve passenger experience? Easy - take that annoying button away from temptation, or make it operate the seat in front so they have to ask if you are eating or have the table in a position where it might jab you rudely in the solar plexus before they can lean back...

The seats have individual 9" VDU screens too for films/TV and games with plug and play facilities to listen to your own music or charge your bits. One of the best features of this is a repeating stream of information on the aircraft's speed, height and position along the flight path. When I say "repeating" though, it does have to repeat an awful lot of times on a 10-hour flight across the Atlantic! But watching the plane fly over various seamounts, fracture zones and abyssal plains that you've never heard of on the ocean floor is mildly diverting and watching the wind speed rise and fall as you enter and leave the jet stream is quite entertaining too.

There are two best things about this aeroplane. First is that the windows are massive compared to older airliners. Instead of a shutter they have a button which darkens the window progressively, using some sort of gel. Clever stuff. All we could see on the way over though was clouds. For ten hours...! The second is that the pressurisation is such that you get more oxygen into the blood and that, we were told and so indeed we found, drastically reduces the effects of jet-lag. I remember crossing the Atlantic in 1993 and being whacked out for a day and a half after both journeys. No such effect even when coping with the 5-hour difference in time.

And so we reached Jamaica and Montego Bay - "Whoa-oh-oh-oh....." On the transfer bus you are taught the correct pronunciation of the island's most popular saying "No problem, man..." with a refreshing lack of the stifling politically correct nonsense that means the rest of the world can call us "Brits" but if we dare to utter something similar someone (meaning "some Brit") will deem us being racist and slap us down.

We were proficient by the time we were dropped off at the cruise terminal and we trooped in with our little signed papers saying we were all healthy and hadn't coughed or sneezed for - ooh... weeks!

Once we had been checked by immigration and customs and checked in by the Thomson staff, we were able to join our home for the week - Thomson Dream. This photo was taken later in the week at Roatan, Honduras.

We were shown to our cabin, 6003, on Deck 6 and up near the pointy end. We found a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine waiting for us in a cooler, thanking us for being long-standing repeat cruisers. Honestly, it's a pleasure! And so was the wine!

We were excited about meeting up with our friends from the Philippines, Tomas and Maris, who sing as duo 2 Intense and were on the ship. We hadn't told them we were coming and were hoping to surprise them. Then during the compulsory safety drill that evening we spent most of it trying to be inconspicuous and turning away from the next lifeboat station where Tomas was helping out! I was sure he'd seen us but as he said later "You only see what you expect to see..." and we got away with it.

So we parked ourselves in front of the stage in the Tides Bar and waited. Maris walked past in the distance and we waved. She glanced round, walked on, stopped, came back, did a double take and rushed over. Result! So begins the week. Tomorrow will be a day at sea and I'll skip over that so the next entry will see us having crossed the Caribbean to Mexico where we will wake to watch us dock at Cozumel.

Mexican Medley Cruise Index