ShippersF47

10 hours ago, Tizzy-Jo said:

Before I knew him, my late husband had served in the RN and sometimes mentioned GUT. He reckoned he was was banned from Malta. This was in the 60’s and early 70’s.

He also showed me around Gib and had many stories to tell.

Gibraltar remains one of my favourite places and hope to cruise there again.

Gib has changed so much even since the Nineties, Tizzy-Jo. The majority of our old haunts have long gone but the fact we spent so much time there and the memories we made back in the day will always make it one of my favourites too, I'm sure your late husband would have felt the same.

22 hours ago, so,ton saint said:

 

Sorry pal was in M.N in the Sixtys, served most of Cunard.  Union Castle and Royal mail, my brother was a Musician in the Marines served H.M.R.Y. for fourteen years done Gib and Malta many times. how about you.

I served on frigates during the eighties and nineties but had the pleasure of serving on a merchant ship, RFA Diligence during the First Gulf War (it had a naval party drafted to it during that time, NP1600). How the other half live - we lived in two men cabins on board as opposed to twenty/thirty man messdecks, never experienced anything before or after that whilst in the RN unfortunately!

I heard that the HMY Britannia was a nightmare of a draft for obvious reasons, met a few guys that served on her and some of the tales make me thankful I never got drafted there! 🤣

Never visited Malta unfortunately mate but it's definitely on my bucket list, are you ex-RN too?

We cruised on Thomson Celebration six years ago, since then we have been on Discovery 1 and 2 and also Explorer 1 - we enjoyed our cruise on the Celebration but loved the modern, bigger Discovery ships more. We did a T/A on Explorer 1 and didn't enjoy it as much as the other cruises so decided to give it another try on a "Land of the midnight sun" cruise around Norway - again, we didn't really enjoy it as much as other ships. It's only my personal opinion and I'm sure many people will disagree but the layout and atmosphere of the ship was so different - there was even "quiet time on deck" twice a day plus it was freezing at times which didn't help! 😂

St Maarten for me too! Also Dubrovnik, Tortola and Gibraltar (some people will find that a strange one but it was like a second home for us in our Royal Navy days! Loved the place.)

St Maarten, St Thomas or BVI for me.