Cruising is FUN

Now, I’ll let you into a little secret. When I first met my wife, over 15 years ago, the first real holiday we ever went on was to Benidorm. Now at the time I knew nothing about the place but very quickly got to grips with the place and we ended up going back about half a dozen times. We really enjoyed the place and if we didn’t like cruising then I’m sure we’d still be going there. So when we found out that today we could take a day trip to Benidorm, we jumped at the chance.

We set off nice and early from the ship for a 45 min coach ride. We were dropped off right in the centre of Benidorm and had mostly the whole day to explore on our own.

We visited all the old haunts, stopping for a beer each time!! – Then we hade some lunch and a little shopping before a few more beers. One thing I could not get over was the number of motorised scooters there were, you know the type used by people with walking difficulties. They were everywhere on the roads, on the pavements in the shops and bars.

Nevertheless, we had a great time and were a little sad when it was time to re-board the coach back to the ship.

Tomorrow it’s Gibralta.

Not really a lot to report today, other than we had a very lazy and relaxing day at sea.

We arrived here nice and early in the morning, around 7.30am, this was so all the tours could get off and into the Italian Traffic. We have been to Rome a couple of times before, so we decided this time to spend the day relaxing on board. This evenings entertainment was very good, a Comedian by the name of Adrian Walsh. Now I do vaguely remember seeing him on TV some years back, but no matter. He was very funny, not rude and did not pick on anyone in the audience, which was good. Up on the main deck there was a production of ‘Plunder’ which involved the singers and dancers in a Pirate themed show around the main pool. We didn’t go up but were told it was quite good. Later in the Exchange they had video horse racing. Amanda won £12 and I won £50 at blackjack, so all in all not a bad day. Tomorrow we have a lazy day at sea, so I’ll check back with you when we get to Alicante.

Santa Margherita is a tender port, this is because the port itself it a tiny fishing village, however it does have a bay large enough for s hip the size of Ventura to anchor. So we took the tender boats to the shore. Today we are booked on our first excursion, a walking tour of Portofino. To get to the secluded bay of Portofino, it’s just a short ferry ride.
Portofino itself is really quite beautiful and should be on anyones list of must see places. In fact Rod Stewart was married at the Castle on the hill (Browns Castle) and Portofino also featured as part of the wedding celebrations of Wayne Rooney.
Once ashore, we started our walking tour, which took us up a steep incline away from the port and up past Browns Castle and onto the small church that sits up on the hill. Needless to say, walking back was much easier and after a short ferry and tender back to the ship a glass of wine and lunch were very welcomed.
Entertainment varied tonight, your choices, apart from the bands, were a talk by Lord Sebastian Coe, Comedy Club and Test Ventura. We went for the latter and it was indeed very interesting. Each audience member had a small hand held keypad. Questions were then projected up onto the big screen and you pressed your answer on the keypad, A, B, C, D etc. The keypad then acted like a remote control, sending the answers back to a computer, at the end of each round, scores were displayed on the big screen. Then the winner of each of 2 heats would take part in the final later that week, to win a mini cruise later in the year. We came a very close second.

Tomorrow we dock in Civitavecchia, which is the port for Rome.

Hi Everyone,

As some of the more observant amongst you may have noticed, I have been away from my blog for quite a few weeks now.
There are any number of reasons why I have not been posting, including having gone on 2 more cruises!
In any event, I have returned and will be completing my review of the Ventura Maiden Voyage before starting upon, The Monarch of the Seas from Los Angeles to Enssenada Mexico and a 3 night mini cruise on The Fred Olsen ship, the Boudica from Southampton.
Also, I am looking forward to my next cruise which will be with NCL around the UK, with stops in France, Cornwall, Southern Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Holland and Belgium.