Voyager - Springtime European Voyager

It was our first of three sea days on the 25th April and it was absolutely glorious, though surprised this wasn't the formal night.  I had a lie in, getting up for the solos lunch and sat on a table with Jerry, Bruce and a few others.  What surprised me was, I'd already pre-ordered from the lunch menu the evening before, and the solo menu didn't include the starter and main on the general one, so I received a few curious looks.  We had a bit of a bouncy afternoon, which didn't help the migraine that began the night before.  I want to enjoy the lovely weather not be bedridden!  The force 7 didn't materialise but we still corkscrewed enough you could actually see the walls moving in the cabin.  This shows the difference between slab-sided, balcony-obsessed monsters and baby ships.  We, despite our size and corkscrewing, were actually more stable than many bigger ones I've been on, including QM2, who can slam, judder, pitch and roll like a tub.  

Despite the migraine, I made it to the quiz and joined Jerry, Bruce and John's team, winning the tie-break after our and Carol's team both got 10/10 so have a Voyages of Discovery pen to add to the two won on Discovery.  Then eight of us went down to dinner.  After a bit of a rough day, we ended with a gorgeous sunset.  I went back to the photo shop.  Surprisingly, they only have one photographer doing everything, including cruise DVD, and he has to leave the shop during opening hours to photograph occasions like birthdays.  They just started new photo packages on the ship, which is not like spend X amount of money for all of them though, thank goodness.  I decided to go to bed early to try and shift this migraine before morning.

Valencia was our first Spanish port and what a view I had from the window - not!  There were no free shuttle buses, only those charging 10 euros.  As I still had the remnants of my migraine, I stayed in bed until lunch to shift the bugger but it wasn't that warm anyway.  Sat with Peter in the buffet and we gabbed for an hour an a half so I ended up getting sort of seconds.  They were busy renaming things on the ship and more port plaques had gone up.  Our sailaway was at 5pm and the Captain announced we would be having essential engine maintenance all day in Cartagena so decks 6 and 7 aft would be closed off for the duration.  John came forward and we chatted as we sailed out of the harbour before he went to get ready for the quiz.  We won again - yay!  I was soooooooo pleased I got the answer right to the Duran Duran question, even though I haven't been a fan for thirty years.  Now I have tied with the number of Discovery pens.  Dinner and just me, John, Carol and Carolyn went so Lauren kept us company until she had to go and prepare for the show.  According to the info channel it was 4354.4nm to Cartagena - which was almost the distance to the one in Colombia!  That would make getting to Gibraltar the day after interesting.  Late night munchies to watch A Streetcar Named Desire with before bed.
Cartagena was our next port and we would have company in he shape of Island Escape, both of us down to sail at 5pm.  I had only been here once before, on the maiden voyage of Celebrity Equinox in 2009, and did a tour so was looking forward to exploring a little.  We were eighty minutes early, docking at 6.40am and had a beautiful sunrise.  Once the tours had gone, I headed to reception to ask about euros, only to be told it was cash only and it could not be added to your account.  That's no good if you've taken little cash, forgot your PIN number or the card only works in UK cash machines (as my Debit card does).  As it was still cool, I went for some photos and phoned my dad to see if he could get some for me as I was flying to Lisbon the day after arriving in Portsmouth.  

Next

© Patricia Dempsey 21st April-4th May 2014
Not to be reproduced without permission