We set off from Glasgow on our Eavesway coach at 3:45 a.m., which was a very early start so as a result we slept most of our first sea day asleep!! We stopped en-route for pick-ups in Carlisle, Lancaster and Stafford, and had two meal breaks so it was 1:50 when we arrived at the Ocean Terminal. Check-in went very smoothly and although there was a bit of a queue at security we were onboard and in our cabin by 2:30. Our luggage arrived really quickly so although we'd intended to leave unpacking till the first sea day, we just got on with it before the Muster drill then we were ready to set sail.

WHAT WE DID IN THE PORTS

Our cruise was 35 days to the Caribbean so we spent the first three days at sea before reaching Madeira. It was a Sunday so we didn't quite know what we should do, but actually there was a lot of entertainment around the town and a good bustling atmosphere so we enjoyed just walking around. After crossing the Atlantic, our first port was Antigua, a beautiful island. We took a local bus to Nelson's Dockyard and had a super day. We used Cosol Tours in St Lucia which we'd thoroughly recommend. My husband's a cricket fan we visited the cricket museum and the Kensington Oval in Barbados and in Grenada we took our only ship excursion with the Rhum Runner. We had organised a tour with Aruba Trikes on our next stop and it took us round a lot of the island but to be honest apart from some lovely beaches, there was little to admire. We enjoyed a part-transit of the Panama Canal before heading for Roatan in Honduras. This was a new port for us and for many on our cruise and it was our only rainy day in the Caribbean. It is not too developed yet, and there is a lot of poverty and we were upset by how many hungry street dogs we saw. Our last ports of call were Montego Bay (avoid at all costs!), Tortola where we had a fantastic tour on a jimney (open-sided bus) which was only $20 for 3 hours and finally a shopping morning and a final afternoon on the beach in St Maarten. I must just say that in the P&O info it said there was a "small town beach, but there is probably about a mile of beach, easily accessible using the water taxi from the port ($7 for unlimited journeys). We had quite a lot of wind on the way to Ponte Delgada but luckily we were able to dock and we took the little train which was somehow boring but hilarious at the same time time. We also managed to find the local market which is something I always love to do wherever we dock and otherwise just enjoyed wandering round taking in the atmosphere, although lots of the shops closed at 1:00 p.m. as it was a Saturday. The last leg across the BoB was pretty rough (Force 11 at times according to the crew member we asked) but Oceana coped well with the weather. Read more