A friend and I took a short cruise on the Azura to Bruges, Guernsey and Sark. Embarkation seemed to take an age, one felt rather like cattle being herded and it's difficult for some to have to stand in line for what seemed an age in a very stuffy 'hangar'.

We booked a twin cabin with balcony, which was fine, and thankfully quiet, and we had a super sunny balcony on Saturday when the sun shone. However night 1 I couldn't open the balcony doors and when I asked our cabin boy the following day about this, he took hold of my shoulder and said push like this to open it = correct, but I was tempted to tell him to 'unhand' me. I travel a great deal to India and have never before had anyone there take hold of me, without permission.

Getting into Bruges was a bit tricky ie bus, train, taxi, but the train (3 tiers) was interesting and actually we found we had more time than we thought in Bruges as we got a taxi back to the ship, tho @ a cost of 50euros! A pity the ship couldn't arrange transport directly there and back @ less cost. Read more