E304 - a Shiney perspective

[Silver_Shiney]

It was good, too, to meet up with Melsea. She said that her cabin was dirty, and I've read other reports from fellow forumeers complaining of the same.

Our cabin was spotless. It turned out that our steward was the supervisor, so that may have had something to do with it. Regardless, as some cabins are clearly not up to scratch, perhaps P&O need to look at training again?

One other thing I should mention - for a "mere" £75, you could go on a three-hour trip around the ship, taking in the bridge, the engine room and many other "back-stage" areas normally out of bounds. I would love to have done this but feel that £75 is way too expensive. I'd happily pay £30 to do it but not £75. I don't know if it actually happened, as it was "limited numbers" and subject to demand.

[Cruiselover]

Hi , just a quick confirmation re Cafe Jardin we did treat ourselves to an evening meal there ,did enjoy but thought the menu was very disappointing , the service is first class , but to pay extra for pizza that use to be on lunch menu is a bit much . Also breakfast & lunch menu does now not change . All in all great cruise , fantastic staff , and lots of lovely people . Jenny

[melsea]

Alan & Claire

Having been back home since 11.30 & have now my own wifi connection and I am reading your experiences.
So sorry to hear what happened to your mum, that's a hard staircase & floor to fall on. Hope she is healing well.
Yes as we were in the cabin below you, we also had the power cut, fortunately we had a small torch but really it was not bright enough but I was very pleased that it came back on as I didn't fancy showering in the dark or have wet hair for the evening meal.
I shall be writing up my own report about our experiences in due course. I have put a report in about the rating of our cabin though. You were lucky with your steward ours was useless.

It was good to meet up with you all and hope see you again on another cruise.

Mel

[oldbluefox]

Pleased to see you all back safe, sound and suntanned. I look forward to more news of your adventures.

[Not so ancient mariner]

You are right about Manuel Martinez on both counts. Take a look at his website: http://www.manuelmartinez.co.uk/index.html. We saw him last year on E204 and we laughed until we ached!
Your weather sounds as mixed as we had on E303, but glad you had a great time. I hope the UK temperatures were not too much of a shock to the system on your return!

[kaymar]

Welcome home, Shiney, glad you had a good trip. I expect that you're enjoying the warm sunshine We're just back from a week in Tenerife where it was a pretty constant 25 deg. Landing back in Blackpool in 4 deg was a bit of a shock. Still, we've put the clocks forward, so only another month until Spring

[Silver_Shiney]

Hi Kaymar, thank you for your kind words.

The sunshine here in Sadly Broke is warm - provided you're sitting behind a closed window!! I couldn't cope with 25c - I struggle with anything over 22c these days .

Tenerife is a place the Lady C wants to visit at some point - would you recommend it?

[kaymar]

As ever, it depends on what you and Mrs SS like. We have been going for a week in Feb/March for the last seven years, since we finished work. The thing about Tenerife is that the climate is very predictable. At this time of year it is unlikely to rain (never say never, though!) and the temperature will be 22/25 degs. This will increase to the higher 20s from June to August and down to the high teens mid Nov to early Feb. I'm afraid to say that we do very little other than sit in the sun (or sometimes the shade), read a book, sip a nice chilled Albarino, go for a stroll along the lovely promenade, have a coffee etc.

We have always gone to the South of the Island, to Costa Fanabe where there are some lovely hotels but for the last four years we have rented a villa with a couple of friends and just eaten out at the many good restaurants. It is always good to look forward to a bit of sunshine after a long winter of cold and snow. As it happened this year, we escaped just as the worst of the snow was falling and read about it as we sat round the pool.

[Not so ancient mariner]

Alan, were there any Spurs/Arsenal fans on board getting (or claiming to be) fed up with the announcements "This is Captain Terry speaking from the bridge"? Actually although his name is Simon, his father is John.

[Silver_Shiney]

Not that I am aware of, sir

[Boris+]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for an interesting report. I am so sorry that one of your party had a fall, that is seriously not nice - but at least you knew you were on a P&O ship with a good med team. It's also great that your steward etc were great.

We had a meal in a small restaurant when we were last in Sorrento, but didn't much like the shops with their curiously 'hiped' prices for tourists. We were lucky and were told where to find shops with things at more sensible prices.

You mention Teneriffe - it's a lovely place, there is some quite interesting architecture to look at. When we were there all the school children were marching in organised groups for an xmas celebration, and they were all very orderly in their little uniforms but each group had it's own festive additions (some groups all wore wings or reinder headresses or santa hats etc).

We had a jolly good walk and ended up in a place called the Market of the Lady of Africa (or saint or madonna of Africa). It was very very clean, and full of market stalls of all descriptions - very colourful and perfumes of a myriad of spices. The tiles on some of the walls and pillars depicted people in local peasant costume in days gone by - and in our ramble around we saw both modern and old architecture.

Anyway, we certainly found it a place worth another visit.

Glad you are now back home safely.

Em

[Silver_Shiney]

Thank you for your kind words, Em!

[Silver_Shiney]

You are right about Manuel Martinez on both counts. Take a look at his website: http://www.manuelmartinez.co.uk/index.html. We saw him last year on E204 and we laughed until we ached!
Your weather sounds as mixed as we had on E303, but glad you had a great time. I hope the UK temperatures were not too much of a shock to the system on your return!

I was in communication with a colleague of his the other day - apparently his real name is Gary!