terrierjohn

Many of the wines on the menu are also available by the glass, small 175ml , large 250ml

Just be careful you don't get dizzy looking at the tiled promenade.

Not sure why this topic always seems to mention port soaked stilton, I avoided that like the plague, I much prefer plain stilton, either scooped from a wheel, or plonked on a plate from a larger chunk.

After I had a retinal vein occlusion 20 or so years ago, the ophthalmic consultant put me on blood pressure tabs, and advised that it should be below 140/80, and I was only in my 50s then.

Nothing wrong with a cheesewheel, let's all have a chuckle over a Truckle.😁😇

A very unfortunate economic fact of life for a finite service, but lets hope Moleys wrong and Majortom is right on this one.

We were on Iona in October and used the P&O app to join the virtual queue of a restaurant of our choice while we were getting ready to dine, and it worked fine. A couple of times the app told us our table was ready when we still felt we needed more than 15 minutes to get to the restaurant, so we cancelled then almost immediately re booked and that worked well. BUT Arvia does not have the 2 smaller MDRs so it might make wait times a little longer. Hope you enjoy the cruise.

I had assumed that most recharging would be done in ports of call, it would be madness to have diesel generators to top up the batteries, and as you say impossible for solar or wind to produce enough energy to even keep the galleys going.

I am sure I saw shorts in the Quays area in the evening on Iona in the Canaries in October, and I always thought shorts were acceptable in the buffet in an evening anyway.

If we get to the position of having very efficient high energy low weight batteries, then I suspect the first and most cost effective use for them will be as storage for excess renewable electricity on land. Only when this reaches the point that no generated electricity is ever wasted, say in 50 to 100 years, is it likely to be used for borderline beneficial operations like cruise ships, and probably never for cargo ships that spend many days at sea.

Only a few turnround ports have shoreside electric hook ups, it needs quite a powerful purpose built substation to provide safe , steady voltage facilities,and I suspect we are many years away from having batteries powerful enough and light enough to replace the current fuel tanks.

Very similar to the lower floor access to the theatre on the 2 Grand class ships, and although longer and a bit narrower its not very different to the 2 mid ship MDRs on the same ships.

I think I would still prefer a free shore excursion from my totally free OBC, rather than one that costs me 90% of the sale price.

I would guess that both their target demographics will be even lower than P&Os but, just like P&O, they will happily take your money.

I thought you got slippers from Mediterannean level?

Dont be so sure, we are now Baltic and were Caribbean 6 years ago, but we have never had a calendar or a moments magazine.

They don't need to fill the monsters to make a profit, because the break even point is much lower on the big newer ships. So once past that point every single pound is profit on the bottom line, which is why they can afford to sell the unsold cabins at very low prices. However on the 2 tiddlers, they need high prices for a much higher percentage of the capacity, and they are therefore reluctant to reduce prices for fear of upsetting all the traditional cruisers who have paid these higher prices. But please do continue to sail these old ladies as it is helping to ensure that the bigger ships continue to offer such good deals to the rest of us.

Never been in one so have no idea, but even though we now use place mats, as do most of our relatives, I do prefer tablecloths in the MDRs when cruising, it goes to differentiate them from the buffet.

Sunshine and blue skies at present, but scattered showers are forecast. Christmas dinner again today at number one son's with both granddaughters, yesterday was Xmas dinner at number 2 son's, with both grandsons. A cooking free christmas for us.

But they do mop up any spills better than it goingstraight onto the table top, and if dirty they are changed before the next party uses the table.

If you truly are Yorkshire man then you are probably the most depressing one I know.😁

You dont need maths, all the new ships have been 3600 lower berths up to 5200 lower berths, with 8 excel class, 3 Royal class plus 1 each for HAL and Cunard at nearly 2969 lower berths., all since late 2019. That's 13 new ships with probably more capacity than the 18 they have shed, probably with an overall higher operating profit of about 25%. But with the current economic downturn it is going to take time to push the operating profit up to pre covid levels.

A very Merry Christmas to everyone on the forum, and happy cruising in 2023.

I wonder if this was taken during the loyalty embarkation lunch, I seem to remember that on Iona we only had table mats for the buffet lunch.

I did preface my comments with that very point, but these will generally be the smaller ports that don't have the current infrastructure to deal with 5000 plus passengers, but these will be a small minority, and their local councils will no doubt be as anxious to maximise their tourist revenue as most other cruise ports seem to be.