SarahHben

I didn’t think it would be enough but it was just about right.

Thank you. I do like wine but it doesn’t like me at the moment 😞 We are hoping to try the Glass house at some point.

We’ve had 2 MDR dinners in Cinnamon and 1 MDR breakfast in Saffron so far, we’ve enjoyed all of the food that we’ve ordered, except the cup of tea at breakfast, over stewed and not very warm. We will have dinner in an MDR tomorrow evening and will let you know how we get on with a table for 2.

Afternoon Tea time in the Retreat 😊

It can be used to book specialty dining & to check your bookings, on board account etc. For theatre shows you just turn up, no booking required and for Freedom dining it’s turn up, queue when necessary and get a pager if necessary. The first night we went straight in to Cinnamon restaurant, last night we waited for 50mins with a pager.

Thank you, you wouldn’t say that if you could see it right now 😂 I just use hair straighteners on it, it’s thick so holds its shape reasonably well. I don’t always bother in the morning, especially if I’m likely to put it in a pony tail, but i do use them before going out to eat in the evenings.

I’m glad they’re getting on better than my family. My sister was due to go to the Briksdal Glacier but they’ll just have a wander around instead. One of the ones who have been sick has never been on a ship of any kind before, not even a ferry.

My sister and her family are on Iona at the moment and are not having the best time at all. Two of them have been quite sick with the rough seas. They managed to dock in Olden this morning but their excursion was cancelled due to bad weather & a landslide I think she said.

Morning. Tom Ball was incredible last night, he’s got one of the best voices I’ve heard. He sang one of my favourite songs and I got all teary. He’s back on Thursday evening so we’ll definitely go back to see him again! We’re finding we’re doing things a bit differently on Ventura compared to Iona. We barely used the buffet on Iona but we’ve had breakfast in the Ventura buffet 2 out of the 3 mornings so far. It’s probably because we got up too late but it seems harder to get a breakfast table for 2 in the MDR. The outside decks and pool areas are very busy so we’ve been very grateful that we bought passes for the Retreat and glad we got a C deck cabin with a big balcony. It’s warm but cloudy today. Mr B has gone to the gym while I’m sitting in the Retreat 😁

We’ve just got back to the cabin after a very nice meal. We really want to see Tom Ball in the theatre tonight so we headed out for dinner soon after 6pm. Saffron & Cinnamon both had pretty long queues, but they moved fairly quickly. My husband wanted a table for 2 so we were given a pager & told it would be at least an hour. We had a drink and then we’re called for our table after about 45 mins. We shouldn’t have bothered waiting for a table for 2 because we had a lovely evening chatting to the couple next to us 😁 I didn’t take any food pics as we were chatting and it felt rude to get my phone out. Like Andy, we found the vast majority of people dressed up for formal night, even the children. There were a couple of teens milling around the atrium in shorts and hoodies but I don’t know if they tried to get in a dining room. We are now off to have a drink and then go to the late theatre show, Tom Ball is supposed to be very good.

I’ll let you know what it’s like in the MDR on formal night tonight. I don’t want to describe what one person was wearing in Sindhu last night in case they read this 😂 but technically they ticked the no trainers/no football shirts requirements but they may have looked smarter if they had worn trainers & football shirt. There was a real mix of people, some very glitzy & glam, some smart casual evening wear, some in what I would consider day wear, a few dressed for gardening 😂 I didn’t see any football shirts, but some were pushing the boundaries of ‘smart denim’. I hope that doesn’t come across as snobby, it was our observation not a judgement… except the few dressed for gardening anyway 🥴 I remember a discussions about smart shorts recently & it does now say in Horizon that “tailored shorts with smart shoes can be worn in the buffet, Glass House & Beach House.”

We had a lovely dinner in Sindhu, friendly service unlike our Cinnamon waiter last night. I’d read that Sindhu don’t give you little extra dishes anymore but we got several extras. I had the beef starter and my husband had the chicken, then he had the lobster & I had the signature plate of tamarind salmon curry, lamb rogan Josh & saffron chicken korma, all delicious! Mr B had bread & butter pudding & I had Chocolate Textures which was nice but a bit heavy. My husband photographed the mains and he doesn’t have internet. I was very cold in Sindhu and around the ship tonight, I had goosebumps & had to put a woolly cardi on. We were going to go to the late theatre show but we are both really tired so we’ve gone to our cabin. One thing we’ve noticed is that on the smart casual nights there seems to be a fair amount of not at all ‘smart’ casual. People dressed up more on Iona last year. We’ll see what tomorrow’s formal night brings. Night

The early arrivals queue was outside but under shelter. I think because we had the latest boarding time it was all of the 3:30 arrivals that were asked to queue and then they took us through in batches. We went in around 3:15.

We went to breakfast in the Saffron MDR at 9am, there was a short queue but didn’t take long. If we had wanted a table for 2 we would have been given a pager but we were hungry so agreed to join another family. They were lovely and it was a nice start to the day. The little boy spotted one of his teachers on a table near by, not sure who would have been more horrified 😂 We have spent most of the day in the Retreat after a wander around the outer decks. The sun loungers are so comfortable that I dozed off for a few hours. They brought coronation chicken salad & dessert round at lunch time which was very nice and then at 3:30 we were given afternoon tea, scones, cream, jam & fruit cake. I could get used to this, you don’t even have to fetch your own drinks 😊 Seas are reasonably calm today, it’s sunny and windy. My sister & her family are currently on Iona and she’s sent me a message saying they aren’t going to Stavanger tomorrow.. again…we missed it last year due to bad weather. We’re off to Sindhu later for dinner, will report back later I expect.

I was a bit chilly at dinner time yesterday so took a cardigan to the theatre but then didn’t need it.

Hi, yes we have done that now.

We just brought glasses of water down from the buffet last night. Can’t see anything in the cabin about ordering water so I’ll leave a note for our room steward this morning.

They were brilliant! Funny as well 😊 Thank you

We are onboard, unpacked & fed 😊 Our arrival time was 3:30 but we arrived an hour early. It took a while to queue & sort the car with CPS, we dropped off the cases then waited in the early arrivals queue briefly before checking in & security. We embarked around 3:40, went to our muster station then straight to our cabin. Our cabin steward was waiting for us, she’s lovely, very friendly & helpful. Our cases arrived quickly so we unpacked before sail away, waved to my family on Iona as we passed them. We hadn’t had lunch and were starving so we headed down to eat at 6pm. There was a small queue outside saffron but no queue at all outside Cinnamon so we went there. Our waiter was a bit surly to begin with but cheered up as the meal went on. He didn’t offer us the drinks menu, we had to ask and the drinks turned up after we’d eaten out starters. Food was good though, smoked trout for starter, lamb (with green beans of course) followed by passion fruit pavlova. We then had a wander around before seeing the Privateers in the theatre, they sang folk music & sea shanties and were very good. We’ll go to see them again later in the week. There doesn’t seem to be any drinking water to buy unlike when we were on Iona, and the tap water isn’t cold enough to drink so we’ll go in search of the buffet soon and find some, I’m sure hubby will get some snacks too. The sea is definitely a bit bumpy but nothing bad so far. The cabin is very nice, better than I expected and being c deck the balcony is huge. Oh and we bumped into someone we know, small world!

Oh dear, very murky 🥴

Sorry, a quick question, I know it’s 1litre of spirits that we can take onboard but my hubby has put 4 cans of beer in his bag which come to more than 1ltre, is that allowed or should he leave a couple behind?

I always spell it wrong 🥴

Morning, I am a bit worried about rough seas tonight and tomorrow but I have my sturgeon ready. The hotel bed is very comfy and the room is very quiet other than OH snoring. We’re meeting my sister & her family for breakfast later before they go to Ocean Terminal and we head off to waste some time before going to Mayflower Terminal. I may try to do a ‘live from’ thread once onboard.