Our cruise was only seven
nights, and after a friend had warned that she knew of someone who gained two
stone on a two week cruise, a week sounded quite long enough. After all, we
only had a limited luggage allowance and I needed to be able to travel home in
the clothes I wore out.
So is cruising all about
over-indulging? Is it one long food and drink fest? Well it’s certainly very
easy to be lazy. You don’t have to get
off the ship if you don’t want to, on Britannia there are at least three
sundecks, four pools and ample space to lounge around.
Haunted by the thought that I
wouldn’t be able to fit back into my airplane jeans, I insisted that the lifts
were out of bounds for us. We were going to walk up and down the stairs (there are 17 decks), we
were going to complete the seven laps of the running track that constituted a
mile every morning before breakfast (we
did it twice) and we were not going to grab as much food as we possibly could from
all inclusive buffet. With breakfast available from 6.00 am to 11.30 am, lunch
starting at 12 and continuing until 2.30 pm, afternoon tea from 3 to 5, and
dinner from 6.00, there really is only a very small window of time when food is
not available – and even then you can always grab a slice of pizza or a burger
from the poolside grill. Even people who eat in their sleep are catered for as late
night snacks from 10.00 pm until 2.00 am and then there’s round the clock room service.
Formal dining on board was pretty special. We opted out of the main dining room a couple of times, once for a pre-booked evening in the Limelight Club where the food was definitely up a notch and the entertainment was provided by soul-singer Jaki Graham, and the second for an impromptu meal in the Glasshouse restaurant just to make a change. We’d originally opted for freedom dining which meant you can eat when you like, and with whom you like, either choosing a table for two, or ‘sharing’ which is a bit like speed dating, meeting a new couple every night. Sometimes you gel, sometimes you don’t. Fortunately it’s a big boat, and we rarely met the same people twice!
If you like everything done for you, cruising is the perfect escape. Chocolates on your pillow, entertainment morning, noon and night; a theatre, a pub, a nightclub, a casino. What more could you want? Peace and quiet? Well you can even have that if you want to escape to the Serenity Pool, or even pay extra to sunbathe away from the rabble in the exclusive Retreat.
Mr T and I like to
explore. In Dominica we took an organised trip to the Rain Forest, in Antigua
we took a local taxi to the beach. St Maarten was a bit of an anomaly – the island
is split into French and Dutch territory. We landed on the Dutch side and took
a taxi to the French capital Marigot, our Dutch driver (fifteen years in
Rotterdam) filling us in on the history and customs of the island as we battled
our way through the traffic. (Traffic jams in the Caribbean? Yeh man, there
were five cruise ships in port that day.)
These islands rely on tourism and
retail opportunities abound. Traders are very keen for your business; you end
up saying ‘no thank-you’ an awful lot, and in fact, we had two rival beach
sunbed vendors almost in fisticuffs as they competed for our custom in St
Maarten. But most of the time, we found the locals pretty laid back.
Back on board, we took part in a ‘James
Martin’ cookery class in Britannia’s million pound demonstration kitchen.
Unfortunately James wasn’t on hand himself but his substitute, a jolly Irish Dara
O’Briain look-a-like chef taught us how to make the perfect pasta, and yes of
course we promised that we would retrieve our pasta-making machine from its permanent resting place in the back of the cupboard and make our own pasta as soon as we got home.
The highlight of our holiday?
Snorkling with turtles in Barbados most definitely. Rum punch at 9.00 am in the
morning? Why not?
And yes, I could still fit
into my jeans for the flight home. (Just!)
No comments:
Post a Comment