After an uneventful trip from Manchester it was a smooth run to the ship and in spite trepidations about booking in we were on board eating our first meal by fifteen hundred. Unlike other cruise ships, we were lined up on the promenade deck like unruly school children while they did the muster. After re-arranging our cabin we soon unpacked and finished settling in. the passengers were a mixed bunch ranging from Australia, USA to the local! Spaniards, whether it’s being based in Barcelona or not but all communications were done in Spanish and English which we found a bit wearing especially in the theatre.

The ship was kept very clean with a preponderance of hand gel stations, but still some people were to ignorant or arrogant to use them luckily we avoided any outbreaks, the food was excellent with a limited menu in the dining rooms but the Windjammer restaurant had a wide and varied menu. Something to suit most tastes, hugh salad bar, self selection stir fry, curries and traditional English dishes. Dinner finished at 21:30 but the Park Café was open to 01:00 for snacks including soup and pizzas. Despite the ship saying it was a formal night we saw very few dinner jackets.

Our first stop was Villafranca ,this is where we ‘Tendered’ into town. The town was very busy and the inner harbour full of expensive yachts the reason was the Monte Carlo Rally was due. We then had two days at sea where we enjoyed some of the activities, the regular trivia Quizzes and games learning to dance. The Entertainment staff were mostly very good, all were happy to talk to you or have some banter during the activities, ‘Manchester’ has a lot to answer for! Piraeus our next stop saw a mass exodus for Athens, having seen this area before we wandered around the local town. The same happened in the next port of Kusadasi, Turkey, many people toured Ephesus the ancient Roman town. Those that stayed near the port there were hundreds of shops and bazaars, admittedly there were a lot of Carpet, Leather and jewellers shops but it was still worth a look round. Mykonos was a complete change it was a quaint little Greek fishing village. Read more