Smurfy’s Short Adonia Jaunt

[Whynd1]

The syndicate quiz was held in Anderson's and the place was packed nearly every night, standing room only.
Really good atmosphere.

Lindsey

[oldbluefox]

The larger ships are much more impersonal than the smaller ones. We have been on the old Artemis and Adonia and found it much easier to strike up conversation, mainly because there are fewer passengers and crew.
I must admit I wasn't keen on Azura nor Ventura but realise they are very popular with some. Each to their own. My preference is for the medium sized ships, Aurora, Arcadia and Oriana. I'm afraid the last time we were on Oceana she was looking rather tired and some of the features we liked had been removed in order to make her more trendy and up-market. To me they had spoilt her so for that reason she is excluded!!!

[david63]

Hi David
Having booked Adonia for December (albeit at the full price ) I have a particular interest in this post. Particularly if you encounter any choppy seas and how Adonia handles them. What is the age ranges of your fellow cruisers and are all in bed by 10.30 pm We chose it for the itinerary and hopefully a less impersonal experience than that now offered by the BIG ships

Haven't encountered any "choppy" seas, in fact it is so calm you don't even feel as if you are moving. having said that we are only doing about 10 knots.

Average age I would estimate to be around early/mid 70s


As the second show does not finish until 11:15 there are plenty around until then - however the ship does go into Marie Celeste mode after that!

The syndicate quiz was held in Anderson's and the place was packed nearly every night, standing room only.
Really good atmosphere.

I have to disagree with that. Unless you want to go to the show there is nowhere to go after second sitting as there is a quiz on in both Anderson's and the Crows Nest. They cannot use the card room as they show films there - no sign of the sea screen being used.

When we were on it was in the buffet. No wonder the bars were empty, they were all up there on their Horlicks and stocking up on food. Where do they put it all?

Haven't been up to the canteen buffet \at that time so I am unable to comment on the Horlicks.

[qbman1]

Saturday 8th July - St Peter Port

Well we managed to get into port which in itself is an achievement. The weather started off “cracking the flags” but mid-morning it clouded over but by lunch time the sun was back out.

Being St Peter Port it is a tender port so we have the usual shambles of getting off. In the Horizon iy states that in order to use the tender that you will have to do a “step test” to prove that you will be able to get on/off the tender – where was this test? You guessed – non-existent (left hands and right hands again!). When we got ashore on the quayside was the Security Manager and this is for Qubie – you would not want to argue with her!!!!!

We decided to diy in St Peter Port as we have not been here before. Getting off via tender was no problem, although P&O do seem to have tendering far better organised these days – especially with organising where passengers sit and when they can disembark (probably to do with load balancing on the tender)

St Peter Port, whilst being a quaint and pleasant little place, did not appeal to me at all. I have never seen so many barbers shops 9no not a euphemism) in one place – not sure what the significance is! And Mrs63 has never seen so many jewellery shops (oh dear – I left my credit card in the safe !) As the weather was becoming more cloudy we decided that we would return to the ship around lunch time – the weather then improved so we spent the afternoon on the balcony getting sunburned because somebody fell asleep.

Tonight was another question of the left had not telling the right hand what was going on. Normally you would expect that the second night of a cruise would be the first formal night but due to the fact that we were tendering I had already decided that the first formal would be tomorrow. Sadly other departments did not realise this. On the list that was in the cabin when we arrived it said that the first formal would be tomorrow ( as I anticipated). So last night there were invitations to the Captain’s Welcome Aboard bash for tonight – these were quickly removed and replaced with ones for tomorrow night (I hope you are all keeping up). Tonight’s dinner menu was the “Gala Dinner” which did not have the same impact not being a “Black Tie” night – although they did have the stilton with port.

The table situation does not appear to have resolved itself so I am guessing that the ship is not full. Our table for eight was only set for six and the next table still only had two – anywat tomorrow night we will be a table of eight and the next table will be a table of none!

For OBF – there is a plaque on the wall in Anderson’s commemorating her visit to Barrow-in-Furness!

To be continued …

They always seem to have an authoritative Security Officer on Adonia. Last twice we have been on her, they had a feller who thought he was dealing with a class of 5-year olds (maybe not too far from the truth !). Thanks for the warning, though, I shall tread carefully

I was actually present when that plaque was handed over to David Box by the Mayor of Barrow (Duh, she was a big girl !!)

Hope they get some of these issues sorted by next week or there will be a large compo claim coming in ! At least they seem to have the stores fully stocked now.

[Manoverboard]

............................ and before Mob says anything we were up there in the interests of research for Smurfy's CC forum!!!

Not a word from me

Funny thing you know ... I can conjure up a vision of Ray Rockin ' n ' Rollin on Adonia's Show-lounge dance floor, wearing his Wayne Rooney / Ian Rush ( delete as applicable ) pajamas with a Horlicks Mocktail in one hand and a P&O slipper in the other.

Let the good times Roll, eh

[JillD66]

At least they still have Horlicks on Adonia. We went on Arcadia in May we had a choice of Hot Chocolate or Bournvita (I think) from sachets and we had to make it ourselves! Standards have slipped!

[Mervyn and Trish]

No Horlicks? COMPO!

[colin parry]

Interesting that David reports syndicate quiz is now in Andersons.The last couple of times we were on Adonia it was held in the buffet restaurant, not too well attended but great for the horlicks!

[Whynd1]

It was in Anderson's for the majority of nights on our cruise of 7 nights.
It was packed most evenings with lots of teams and passengers looking to join in wherever they could. They had to bring in extra chairs.
There would have been more room in the crows nest but the atmosphere was brilliant.

Lindsey

[david63]

Sunday 10th July – Sea day

The weather started off somewhat cloudy – not sure how it will progress, so we went to the port talk but after 15 minutes of trying to get the technology to work we gave it up as a bad job – the saying “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” never seemed more apt!

We must be fated because later we went to listen to the speaker, Phil Holt, who was talking about air traffic control and he overran and was abruptly “cut off” and then when we went to the show there was a false start and they had to restart the show!

Tonight was the first of two Black Tie nights and was reasonably well adhered to – although some did stretch the definition.

Sunday 11th July – Dublin

We woke to a gloomy and overcast morning in Dublin which soon turned into light rain. Obviously one of the advantages of Adonia is that she can “park” right next to the dock gates but it appears that they do not want you to walk into the city as there is a free shuttle for everyone.

We took the shuttle into the city and, once established our bearings headed off to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. Now finding the entrance to the college was interesting as it was not signposted but there were plenty of helpful residents that would point you in the right direction. Now if you are visiting Dublin and are intending to visit the Book of Kells then I would suggest that you buy tickets on-line in advance – we just walked straight in whereas those without tickets were in a long queue! The Book of Kells whilst interesting is not what I had imagined but was more than compensated for by the visit to the Long Room, otherwise known as the library where there are literally thousands of ancient books – unfortunately we were not allowed to “borrow” any of them!

After our visit to the Book of Kells we took one of the H0-Ho buses for a tour of the city 2hich was made even more interesting by the commentary by the drier. One thing that they do seem to be able to do well in Dublin is traffic lights – I have never seen so many anywhere else.

The weather improved during the day and whilst it was dry there little to no sun.

One surprising thing was that there was no satellite reception, neither Internet nor TV, whilst the ship was in Dublin port.

Tonight we went to Ocean Grill for dinner and have to say that it was superb!

To be continued …

[qbman1]

Sounds good - we'll probably do something similar

Queenstown today - looks like a typical "soft" day

adonia.jpg

[Mervyn and Trish]

I see David has had his spanners out and tweaked the colour as requested, from purple to grey.

[qbman1]

It looked very like that when Titanic sailed

[Manoverboard]

So ... not a chunk of ice in sight ?

[qbman1]

That's all in the Smurfmeister's Bombay + Fever Tree

[oldbluefox]

I think it's appalling that you have all gone off topic on the Smurfmeister's very own topic and I hope it will be noted on his return.
David, can I have a pay rise?

[Mervyn and Trish]

Off topic? I thought this is the closest we've been to on topic for years

[oldbluefox]

You're not wrong there Merv................

[qbman1]

I see David has had his spanners out and tweaked the colour as requested, from purple to grey.

Short-term fix. It's back to purple today

[wolfie]

Interesting that David reports syndicate quiz is now in Andersons.The last couple of times we were on Adonia it was held in the buffet restaurant, not too well attended but great for the horlicks!

You are correct Colin, the buffet was the venue for the syndicate quiz with Horlicks on tap, as well. (Hate the stuff.)

It was however, jam packed with quizzers.

[david63]

Fear not I have not forgotten about you but you will understand when I next post

[towny44]

The excitement is mounting, can we wait for the next episode.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Run out of credit on his pay as you go phone?

[Manoverboard]

Gone missing, naah,I reckon the Smurf's all at sea .... just saying

[david63]

Tuesday 11th July – Cobh

We woke up this morning to a grey a rainy day in Cobh. Fortunately we had booked an excursion to Blarney Castle/Stone. Whilst there is not really much at the Castle to see (other than the Stone which is just a money making production line) the grounds on a good day would be a pleasant hour or so looking round. There is also the “obligatory” shop there, which is actually very big and selling many Irish quality goods. Also included in the excursion is a “free” Irish coffee – more coffee than Irish.

We had intended going to either the Heritage Centre or the Titanic Experience in the afternoon but with the weather the way it was we decided against going out again.

Now the “fun” begins. Without going into any great detail Mrs63 needed to visit the Medical Centre on board so off we go at 17:00, when it opened. As with all medical things they deemed it necessary to take her blood pressure, which was nothing to do with why she had gone, and found that it had gone through the roof, so much so that the Doctor was saying that there was a risk of having a stroke which the ship was unable to cope with and that she needed to go to hospital as soon as possible as we were at sea the next day and if she deteriorated there was nothing that could be done. OK panic mode set in. We literally had 15 minutes to pack all our belongings keeping some in an overnight case as the ship was due to sail at 18:00.

The medics sent for an ambulance whist we, with help from the Housekeeping Staff, packed – well it was more literally “the” everything into the cases. Once done off we go back to the Medical Centre to await the ambulance. By this time it was rapidly approaching 18:00 but the power of the Doctor means that she can overrule the Captain and delay sailing. The ambulance eventually arrived about 18:30 due to the fact that the first ambulance had been diverted to a more serious call. So off we go to the ambulance, with half the passengers “rubber necking”, and all the assessments that they do in these circumstances. Anyway to cut a long story short just before 19:00 the ambulance sets off for the hospital – at which point the Captain sounded the ship’s horn.

Now Irish hospitals are no different to English ones – too many patients, too few beds/trollies and too few staff. Anyway Mrs63 was eventually assessed and found a trolley. It is at this point that the brain goes into overdrive – where are we going to stay, how will we get home, how do we get our car (it was with CPS), how do we get our luggage back, how much is all of this going to cost, etc. During this time the P&O Care Team were in touch so we now had a point of contact.

Anyway after a couple of hours the doctor decided that as her blood pressure had dropped to a more satisfactory level and there were no other issues that she could be discharged – good news, ah hang on a minute where are we going to stay? I had been given the number of the Port Agent who told me to contact him if we needed anything, so I did. Major problem number one – all the hotels in Cork are fully booked. Anyway after about half an hour, and several phone calls back and forward he managed to find us a room (well it was, inappropriately, the Bridal Suite) at an hotel some half an hour’s drive away – he thought it was expensive, I was only too pleased that we had a room! Next – how do we get there? Yet another call to the Agent who organised a taxi for us.

We eventually arrived at the hotel in Kinsale (a very nice little fishing village) around 22:00 – just before the bar closed!

We did get to bed after having a large glass of wine (for medicinal purposes, obviously) and some sandwiches.

To be continued ….