Joining the Sun Cruises Carousel

Tuesday 15 March 2005. We fly from Manchester to Santa Cruz, on Tenerife to join the cruise ship MS Carousel for a week on their tour: Atlantic Islands Cruise.

If this sounds slightly familiar, we did the same cruise on the same ship in 2004 and I have already blogged about that. However this is a different time if not a different place and who knows... we may do different things!

For starters, the weather is a whole lot nicer than it was when we arrived a year ago, when we were celebrating my 50th birthday. This year it will be Miss Franny who hits a milestone but it will be me that has a birthday actually onboard. We'll see what that leads to a few articles hence...

Meanwhile we can relax as lorries bearing luggage, hopefully including ours, arrive at the ship for delivery to our cabin.

Should we take a stroll along the quayside? No, it's almost time for lunch, or afternoon tea... or a snack...

Return to Atlantic Islands Cruise 2005 Index

Colourful Coasts (Canary Isles) on Thomson Celebration, 4-11 April 2014

This is a series of articles covering our trip around the Canary Islands on the Thomson Celebration cruise ship. Once more meeting up with our friends, Tomas and Maris who sing as 2 Intense onboard the ship, we will be taking it easy on this trip, with far more independent trips ashore than excursions.

Click each of the photos below to view the associated articles and photographs.

Return to Cruise Holidays Index

Farewell to the Thomson Celebration

Well, farewell hopefully just until the next time! It's Friday 10 April 2014 and we have to be out of the cabins by 8:00am so that the crew have a chance to get them back to pristine order in time for today's embarking passengers.

Last night we had our final night in the Horizons Bar with Tomas and Maris. We have become good friends over the years since we first met them. I hope we get to meet up again.

We are out of the cabin a bit early and head up to the Lido Deck for a first mug of coffee before breakfast. It's not properly light yet and we seem to be pretty much the only ones out and about on the deck. The port lights of Tenerife's Santa Cruz are still burning, though it won't be long before they sky grows light enough for them to be turned out.

Behind our ship the Delphin is already disembarking passengers into a waiting coach and containers of provisions wait to be unloaded. A Fred Olsen Express catamaran ferry glides slowly into her berth.

We finish our coffee and head down to Deck 4 to the Meridian Restaurant for breakfast. Then before long it is time to head off the ship to find our luggage for the coach journey to the airport.

It's fully daylight by the time we leave the ship. We find it has been nosed in up to the end of the dock and this gives me the opportunity to take a photo of the Thomson Celebration as it would be seen by the hapless occupants of a soon-to-be-destroyed row boat...

One of our suitcases is patterned so as to be immediately found. Miss Franny takes a seat so as to better direct me on my search for the other... The trip back to Blighty is uneventful and on time and a long and happy (I hope!) retirement looms before me. Our next cruise will be on Thomson Majesty in a few months and we are planning a short break in South Devon once the English weather turns a bit warmer.

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

Colourful Coasts Cruise

On Friday 4 April 2014 we set off from Manchester Airport to fly out to Tenerife to join the Thomson Celebration on her cruise around the Canary Isles, called Colourful Coasts.

From Tenerife our itinerary would take us to Gran Canaria, La Palma, Madeira, a day at sea on our way to Morocco, then to Lanzarote and finally back to Tenerife for our flight back to Manchester.

We saw a friendly face straight away. Our transfer from Tenerife Airport took around fifty minutes. Waiting to serve tired passengers off the coach with chilled orange juice was our wine waiter from our last trip, Lito. And then as we walked onto the ship there was Manny, our waiter from last year, waiting to take us up to our cabin!

The cabin was another surprise. As Manny opened the door it was dark inside. In fact Fran's first thought was that it was an inside cabin and there had been a mistake. But then Manny pulled the curtains back and revealed that we had been upgraded and had one of Celebration's new balcony cabins!

This was to provide us with one of the great highlights of the week - but it was not today, so you'll just have to wait to see what it was!

We don't usually spend a great deal of time in our cabin except for night time, but perhaps we would use the balcony instead of sitting in Horizons during the afternoons!

Our sailing on the first day would be late because of the need to wait for the late flights coming over from the UK. It gave us a chance to see the port of Santa Cruz after dark, this photo being taken out of the window in Horizons Bar - hence a bit of reflection.

We had only just walked in and there was a squeal of welcome and our friends Tomas and Maris, who entertain as 2Intense in Horizons Bar, were there with hugs and smiles and we knew we were set for a great week around the Colourful Coasts!

Colourful Coasts Cruise Index

Riding the Carousel on the Atlantic

2 March 2004. We fly from Manchester to Santa Cruz, on Tenerife to join the cruise ship MS Carousel.

Having been up all night we weren't totally with it at this stage... Which is why this photo of the ship was taken later in the week. Sharp eyed readers may have recognised that the photo was taken in Agadir, Morocco, rather than Tenerife!

So here starts the story of our first cruise, taken to celebrate my 50th birthday. The Carousel was the smallest of the cruise ships we have subsequently travelled on and therefore was the one on which we felt most seasick... Fran missed her food on the first night through not feeling well. Others ate theirs and then I spent the rest of the evening trying to ensure they missed me...

Our cabin was low down - if this had been Titannic then we were behind that locked grill door...! We were on B Deck - the lowest row of portholes seen on the ship in the photo above.

Open air was reached by the time you climbed to Deck 7, which was where the pool was. So quite a small ship. But to us at the time, being our first experience of cruising, it was large and exciting and we couldn't wait to get going!

One of our favourite spots on the pool deck with a sea view yet sheltered from the wind. Great for reading and spotting the sea life.

"Seals!" yelled the excited announcer on the mic during our full day at sea. "Seals down the starboard side!" Everyone dashed over to have a look but couldn't find anything. "Can you not see them?" he asked... "Round every window! Window seals!"

We did spot dolphins a few times on this cruise though, with one excellent sighting being two large pods of 30 or more dolphins swimming alongside the ship, one near, one a hundred yards away, leaping out of the water in graceful curves as they kept pace with the ship for a while.

Hold tight for further entries - we are to visit Morocco, Madeira, La Palma and Gran Canaria. Neither Sun Cruises nor the MS Carousel are still operating.

Return to Atlantic Islands Cruise 2004 Index