Introduction
Yes, Carol and I are back doing the thing we love best, cruising the seven seas to far flung places, and as it is hopefully going to be such an epic voyage, I have decided to do some more posts on my blog, albeit in a much shorter form and less frequently than I have done in the past. It simply costs too much to do what I did before – in money for the ship’s WiFi, and in my time in preparing all the words and photos.
So where are we going, and how long will we be away? The answer lies in the name of the cruise – Around the World in 80 Days. Our course, all the way around the world (how lucky are we to be doing this for an astonishing third time), will roughly follow that taken by Phileas Fogg in the book of the same name, and yes, we will be away for 80 days! The main differences from our previous around the world cruises is that we are travelling the other way – west to east, and we will stay in the Northern Hemisphere the whole way around. Going this way means we will lose an hours sleep on 24 nights, but in return we get to have Good Friday twice over!! The big attraction of the itinerary for us was the chance to visit Vietnam, China, Hawaii, sail under the Golden Gate bridge into San Francisco, and most of all to have several stops in Japan at what should be cherry blossom time – our fingers and toes are well and truly crossed!! We were originally going to Japan on a Grand Voyage cruise in 2020, but we all know what happened then, so this is our replacement cruise. Here is a map of our planned itinerary:
It has been a difficult and frustrating countdown to this cruise, which rather took away the excitement and anticipation we normally have before departure. This can best be summed up in two words – covid and visas. With covid, we just have not known for sure where we will be visiting – and to be honest we still don’t as things could change in a trice. For a long time it looked like Vietnam, China and Japan would all be no go areas, but at the moment we are ok, except for China where we can still go to Hong Kong, but not to Shanghai. With all the problems on mainland China, we wouldn’t have wanted to get off the ship anyway, so that is no loss – especially as we are getting an extra day in one of our favourite places, Singapore, instead.
The big problem with visas was for India, which for a long time was not allowing people from the UK to apply for an e-visa online – you had to make an appointment at a consulate which were all but impossible to get. Fred. Olsen got as far as announcing alternative ports instead of the three Indian ones, if people could not get e-visas before a certain date. With a handful of days before that date, the e-visa scheme was opened up to UK residents, so Carol and I put our applications in quickly. Big mistake. The system was jammed up with applications, and although the visa was promised in 72 hours, weeks went by. Eventually after some chasing e-mails, ours came through, but dozens of other passengers were still waiting weeks later. For those booked on long and expensive overland tours in India, it was even more stressful. However for other people like our friends Darien and Brian who waited until after Christmas to apply, they had theirs back in less than 24 hours! As far as we know everyone on the cruise did get theirs in the end, and the three Indian ports have been reinstated.
All this of course was on top of all the usual extensive preparations for a long cruise – getting affordable travel insurance (from my bank), securing enough medication to more than cover the planned voyage, arranging for family to stay at our house for security and insurance purposes, and this time obtaining costume pieces for the various theme nights we will be having during the voyage. The secret – lists – packing lists, things to do lists, things to arrange lists, lists of lists….
The cruise is on Borealis, and it is our first time on this ship. However she is the sister ship to Bolette, the ship we had our last eight cruises on, so we are sure we will soon find our way around and feel at home.
Day 1 – Embarkation in Southampton
At last the day came for Phileas (aka Carol) and her trusty manservant Passepartout (aka me) to take up the challenge of sailing all around the world in 80 days.
Embarkation was very smooth, especially as we were super organised with all the paperwork we needed to show at the check-in – passports, covid test cassettes, covid vaccine records, and our USA and Indian visas. We dropped off our hand luggage in our cabin, and made our way up to The View, the cafe, for our lunch.
Usually by the time we return to our cabin our cases are there ready for us to unpack, but not this time. We have no idea why, but they seemed to have a big problem with the luggage – it was mid afternoon before ours arrived, and some of our friends did not get theirs until just before dinner. We did hear that one lady passenger was so concerned that her luggage had not arrived that she stopped an officer in the corridor and asked him to help, only then noticing that his name badge said Captain! Still they do say, if you want something done then go to the top!
Something that was waiting for us in our cabin was our Oceans gift. Oceans is the loyalty scheme, and once you reach a certain level there is always a gift waiting for you at the start of every cruise. Carol and I have never understood why for a couple, even though each person has paid for their cruises to clock up the loyalty points, they only receive one gift between them. We are both at the highest tier of the loyalty scheme, Diamond Elite, and are once again sailing in one of the most expensive suites on board on this very long cruise, but this was the extent of the gift we received between us – a hessian bag containing this:
I will let you decide whether you think this is appropriate or just an insult…
Unusually, we did not set sail until just after 8pm.
Days 2-3 – At sea
Our two days at sea sailing down to our first port, Lisbon, were quiet and uneventful – even the sea behaved itself in the infamous Bay of Biscay.
Having made unfavourable comments about the food and menus on previous posts, I must note that we are noticing real improvements. On our last cruise we had noticed that the quality of the food, especially the tenderness of the meat, had improved; and this time the dinner menus have improved too – hurrah the British Dish of the Day providing a different meat choice is back! Well done Fred., it’s take quite a while, but it seems you have finally listened to all the comments and complaints on social media etc.
Day 4 – Lisbon, Portugal
We docked in Lisbon between two other huge cruise ships, just as a big red sun was rising over the river.
We were booked on a ship’s tour to the historic and very pretty walled town of Obidos.
There was a good hours coach ride each way, and on arrival our local guide led us up the main street, where we were able to sample Ginjinha, a local cherry liqueur which was served in a little chocolate cup. I was not interested, but Carol asked me to get one so that she could have two – not for the cherry liqueur but for the chocolate cup! We were then left to wander around the pretty narrow streets by ourselves. My first stop was the delightful parish church of Santa Maria, inside the walls were covered in the blue and white Portuguese tiles, and the ceilings beautifully decorated.
The main street was far too crowded for our liking – yes we do know we are part of the problem! – so we do what we usually do in this situation – headed off down the side streets and just explored at random.
On our way back to the ship the coach took us through the city centre, and the guide pointed out many of the lovely buildings and monuments there.
We would both thoroughly recommend this tour.
It was an early sailaway at 4pm, and although we have been to Lisbon many times before, I could not resist going up on deck to photograph again the attractive buildings, bridge and monuments we passed as we sailed back down the river towards the open sea.
Days 5-7 – At sea, including the Straits of Messina
On the first of the three days at sea sailing towards our next port of call, Brindisi in Italy, they held a coffee morning event for the fifty or so Diamond Elite Oceans members on board. As well as the hot beverages from the Bookmark Cafe, we were offered free drinks (fizz for Carol, orange juice for me), and a range of sandwiches and little cakes as if it were afternoon tea. It was all very pleasant, not least the chance to chat with some of the senior staff who were mingling.
Just before dinner the Captain announced that there would be a helicopter making a medical evacuation of a passenger from the rear top deck – how sad for someone to have their voyage of a lifetime cut short so soon and in this way.
The second day at sea was quite rough, but everything had calmed down nicely as we sailed along the northern coast of Sicily on the third day. Later that day we could see the volcanic island of Stromboli on the horizon, with smoke rising from the top, before we picked up a pilot to guide us through the Straits of Messina, the narrow waterway which separates Sicily from mainland Italy. I went out onto the rear deck to take some photographs at the narrowest point, which is just 3.1 km (1.9 miles) wide.
Day 8 – Brindisi, Italy
Around 10am on the following morning we slipped into our second port of call on this voyage, Brindisi in the heel of Italy. It was a first visit for both Carol and I, and it was soon clear that this was very much a working port, and rather than a swish cruise terminal, we would be docked on an industrial quayside. We both instantly agreed that this would be a good candidate for that coffee table book that we are always joking about writing, the one showing all the grim industrial ports that Fred. Olsen so often seems to end up docked in!
In Brindisi we had decided not to book a ship’s tour, and instead take the shuttle bus into the town centre and explore on foot. I had downloaded a guide map on my phone to sort of direct us, but as most of the places marked seemed to be either churches (mostly) or monuments, we were happy to take things as they came and divert wherever caught our eye. We wandered around for a good hour or so, but we both agreed that it was just one of those places which didn’t grab our attention, so we made our way back to the shuttle bus and our ship for a late lunch on board.
At least I could take advantage of a quiet afternoon on board to complete this post and get it posted on the internet while I had free WiFi from my mobile phone being still in Europe.
Well talking of this, this completes the European phase of our circumnavigation, as at 18:30 this evening we are due to set sail for our next port of call, Port Said, the first of our two Egyptian ports.
Postscript
We had another gift left for us in our cabin at the start of the cruise – or should I say two – one each. This was a specially bound hardback copy of the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days. A thoughtful gift, but without hopefully not sounding too churlish, does a couple really need two copies. I thought what might have been better was if the second volume, bound and covered the same, just had blank pages, for us to keep a journal about our voyage around the world.
An Englishman Onboard 