Travelled through to Glasgow Airport and had a cooked breakfast in the landside Wetherspoons. Our flight took off on time and less than 3 hours later we arrived in Palma, Majorca. Collected our suitcases and transferred onto a coach to take us to our ship. There was a really long queue to check in before we could board.
We narrowly missed the lifeboat drill at 8.15pm so had to attend a safety drill in the cinema at 9pm. We then went for something to eat in the Lido buffet whilst the sailaway party was on. We managed to get one of the few seats left in the Broadway Lounge for the show at 10.30pm. It was Motown Hits from the 60s and 70s with singers and dancers. Afterwards we had a drink in Raffles Bar before returning to our cabin.
Wednesday 4th April - my birthday - at sea
Had breakfast and then watched a presentation of excursions that are available when we dock at each port. We then took a backstage tour of the show's dressing rooms by one of the entertainment crew. OMG - they were so small that we were full of admiration for the 5 girls and 5 boys that did all their many changes of costume in such a tiny space. We then explored the ship and filmed and took photos.
the games room
the cinema
the shops
the show lounge
the Explorer Lounge
Raffles Bar
the Mediterranean!
photos of the ship
cauliflower sculpture
watermelon sculptures
We then took part in a trivia quiz on the pool deck and then discovered that they were serving pizza, burgers and chips on the Lido deck so we had a bite to eat!
Next we took part in another trivia quiz and when we returned to our cabin housekeeping had left me a birthday card and balloons.
Took part in another quiz later on before having dinner in the Lido buffet. We watched a different show in the Broadway Lounge called Retro Concerto then we went up to the High Spirits lounge for a music trivia quiz before having a drink in Raffles Bar to finish off the night. Returned to our cabin to find our bed turned down with a chocolate on each pillow and a towel sculpture of a lobster which made us smile.
Thursday 5th April - Livorno, Italy
Woke up to find we had docked in Livorno, Italy. Had breakfast and relaxed on board in the sunshine then had some lunch before we caught the coach for our tour to Pisa at 2.15pm. Arrived in Pisa about 40 minutes later and had to walk for about 15 minutes to get to the Leaning Tower. Our tour guide showed us where we were to assemble for our walk back to the bus at 5pm.
We took lots of film and photos then walked to the Piazza Del Cavalieri which was marked as a place to see on our map. We enjoyed our excursion apart from the many street vendors selling umbrellas, watches and sunglasses who wouldn't leave us alone. Arrived back on board at 6.15pm and watched from the deck as we sailed away from Livorno. It was really chilly by that time so we didn't watch for long and went to get our dinner in the buffet. Showered and changed ready for our show. Sat in the front row for tonight's show - Copa which is loosely based on Barry Manilow's Copacabana song. Very good show and the entertainment crew all sang and danced extremely well. Had a drink in Raffles Bar after the show and played the slots for a while with an £8 profit.
tonight's towel sculpture
Friday 6th April - Monaco
Woke up to a beautiful view of multi-million dollar yachts - absolutely stunning.
Had breakfast looking out onto the harbour and then disembarked. Walked into the town and managed to find our way to the casino in Monte Carlo.
there is a tennis racket in the background advertising the Monte Carlo tennis tournament
We stopped for a little while at a McDonalds to use their wi-fi then walked all the way back to the to the ship. Had a very late lunch overlooking the harbour again then relaxed in our cabin. Had showers then went on deck and watched us sail away from Monaco. Took our seats for the 8.30pm show which was comedian from Devon called Tank Sherman. He was quite funny but had to be careful what jokes he told as there were a few children in the audience. Watched his show again at 10.30pm and he told slightly different jokes. After that some of the restaurant staff and waiters performed for us as they do once a week on a voluntary basis and two of them were very good singers. We retired for the night after that and tried to set our phone alarms for our early morning start but discovered that when you are at sea the time on your phone clock is different to the time zone you are in so we just set them for 6 hours time as we have an early morning excursion.
tonight's towel sculpture
Saturday 7th April - Toulon, France
Up early and had breakfast whilst watching the ship sail into Toulon harbour. It took a while to dock so we didn't disembark until 9am. Caught the coach for our trip to Marsaille which took about an hour to get there. One bonus was that the bus had free wi-fi so we managed to catch up on all our emails etc. We were dropped off at the harbour area and left to explore ourselves. We did ask for a map but the tour guide didn't have any.
One stall had a single live octopus in water until a young man came along and wanted to buy it. The stall holder weighed it and they agreed a price then we witnessed it's demise and it's body being stuffed into a carrier bag.
He did try to hide what he was doing under his stall but we just had to look! Enjoyed the return coach trip with the free wi-fi again then nipped back onto the ship for a quick bite to eat (burger and chips) before catching the little train in Toulon at 2.30pm for a 45 minute tour of the town.
tonight's towel sculpture - think it's a flower
Sunday 8th April - Barcelona
Woke up to a misty rainy day. Had our usual cooked breakfast and then had to wait for over an hour for the heavy rain to go off. Caught the shuttle bus into the city and eventually found which hop on hop off bus we had booked ourselves onto via the internet. It had Barcelona Tourista in big letters on the side of the bus and in tiny writing on the front it said City Sightseeing (the company we had booked with). We sat upstairs which was covered but open air and we were absolutely freezing. Our first stop off was Gaudi's Sigrada Familia.
We took film and photos then hopped back on to our next stop off which was the Barcelona Football Club ground, Nou Camp, which Jim particularly wanted to see.
By this time we knew we were running short of time to get back to the boat so we quickly took some photos and film and jumped on the next bus that came along. It seemed to crawl along and get stopped at every single traffic light. We got off at the nearest stop to La Rambla and hurried down the 1.5km street to get back to where we caught the shuttle bus back to the ship. We would have had much more time in Barcelona if the rain hadn't kept us back and if the ship had been leaving at a later time. Relaxed, showered and ate our dinner in the buffet again. Visited the reception on board and booked our shuttle bus for tomorrow to take us into Ibiza Town. Took our seats for the show tonight which is based on the Blues Brothers and once again stayed for the repeat performance. At 11.30pm there was a late night show from the same comedian who had been on midweek.
Monday 9th April - Ibiza Town
Docked early morning and discovered that a Saga ship was docked right beside us - Saga Sapphire.
Had breakfast and caught the shuttle bus into town and wandered about looking at all the yachts and ferries in the harbour.
It was a beautiful sunny day so we went for a walk and climbed up to the castle ramparts and took photos and film of the lovely views from there.
Walked down from the castle and looked round the town before ending our day with a quick drink in McDonalds to use their wi-fi then caught the shuttle bus back to the ship. We were just in time for afternoon tea and ate it whilst watching an ice-sculpture demonstration.
We went up to the High Spirits bar for a trivia quiz followed by a game of bingo. The prize money was great - £65, £163 and £882 for each full house. The same lady won both the second and last houses - how lucky was that! We quickly packed our suitcases and showered then had dinner whilst the ship sailed away from Ibiza. We managed to catch the finale of the 8pm show then took our seats for the 10pm performance. Tonight's show was Broadway Blitz which consisted of songs from 4 musicals - Cats, Miss Saigon, Hairspray and the Lion King. What a spectacular show to finish off our cruise. We then took our drinks through to Raffles Bar and listened to the piano player until a couple from Glasgow came and sat beside us. We chatted to them for a while then returned to our cabin and had to finish off packing and have our suitcases outside our door by 2am.
Tuesday 10th April - Palma
Up at 6.30am and had breakfast before disembarking at 8am. Collected our suitcases at the dock and caught our bus to the airport where we checked in for our flight home.
Final thoughts
We really enjoyed our first cruise and all the places that we visited. We will probably do another in the future when we get fed up with the long haul to Las Vegas and other US cities.
Excursions - both our trip to Pisa and Marsaille were booked with Tui before we left as we didn't think we would be able to make our own way to those places. The local female tour guides were very knowledgeable but they both had very strong accents so we struggled to understand what they were saying most of the time. Also the lack of a map in Marsaille was a bit disappointing.
The entertainment crew were outstanding. We met quite a few of them around the ship when they weren't performing and they were friendly, polite and very grateful for all the positive feedback we gave them. They do 10 different shows over 2 weeks and perform twice nightly except for the days when we board/depart or when the comedian is on. How they remember all the dance moves and words to the songs for all those shows we will never know.
