This wasn't the best or most enjoyably cruise that my wife, Rosy and I have been on, but I want to celebrate the good things and not dwell on the negatives, except to say that we were unwell for much of the cruise and some thieving toe-rag nicked my camera on the last afternoon, so no pictures!

We boarded 4 days late as we attended my mum's funeral the day after we should have left Barcelona, so we missed out on the first port - Palma, Mallorca and joined the ship at the second port - Malaga. We were very excited to be finally boarding our dream voyage and to be meeting many of the people we'd talked to on CC and Facebook, for the last few months.

On arrival at the port we seemed to take everyone by surprise, as they were not expecting any passengers to embark, so we clashed with all the day-trippers leaving for their excursions. We quickly established that there had been a breakdown in communications, which was soon sorted and we dis-embarked for a sight-seeing trip, whilst Carnival got our Spa Balcony Stateroom ready. They had to find our Bon Voyage gifts etc. Read more