Josy1953

Clear blue skies and 12° here ths morning, I just hope it lasts 🤞. Nothing planned other than the school run and staying in the house. I have developed a bad cold which will make bowling fun tomorrow afternoon but at least I will be out getting fresh air and exercise. My sister has threatened us with a visit tomorrow morning with her toddler grandson who likes to explore the bungalow looking for the non-existent stairs 🤣

It certainly wasn't the situation on Monday, when we left Sky Princess we were given a time to leave the ship and our luggage was not in the baggage hall.

Beautiful cat, looks like our last cat Tom. We always had a cat and a dog until we had to have the last dog euthanised because of old age and a few months later the last cat followed him to the great animal party in the sky. We were both so upset to lose both of them so close together that we could not bring ourselves to try to replace them

We have done over 40 cruises with Princess and have never encountered problems before, the disembarkation groups were being called out on board but when we got into the baggage hall the bags had not arrived. I think there was obviously some miscommunication somewhere which didn't surprise me since the whole cruise was one problem after another. We were thinking of cancelling our next cruise but have decided that hopefully things will have settled down before then and if not we will switch either to Celebrity or Cunard next year.

New car chosen, ordered and expected delivery end of April / beginning of May. We are both looking forward to getting back to driving a Mazda rather than a Toyota.

Back to normal this morning with the school run, I'm just glad that the weather has improved, I hate driving g in the rain. We are going out to look for a new car today because we both dislike the Toyota, we also want a manual car because DH dislikes the automatic. I'm not particularly bothered about whether we get a manual or an automatic but I agree with him about not liking the Toyota. We are thinking of going back to either VW or Mazda though I quite like the Mini that one of my friends has so we are also looking at those.

You know that you love us Andy. How is Michelle ?

Keeping a card that is only used for cruises means that any hold doesn't impact my normal non-cruise spending.

We came back with Eavesway yesterday from Princess and like on P&O we were asked to try to be on board by 8:30 but we didn't leave on time because the Eavesway driver said that there were 4 missing people according to his list and had to ring his head office to check whether he could leave without them and them wait for the office to call him back after they had checked with P&O. He didn’t say what had happened to the missing people but he got the go ahead to leave without them. I agree that there are often some passengers who stroll up. Baggage collection in Southampton was chaotic because the ship was given permission to disembark everyone but when we got into the arrivals hall a lot of the baggage was not yet there. I have no idea whether it was Princess's fault that the baggage hadn't all been unloaded or whether it was a port problem, our bags arrived about 10 minutes after us.

I have a Berghaus jacket that I bought when we went to Alaska on a cruise and stay holiday that included going into Glacier Bay for a day whale watching from the ship, it kept me warm even when we went for a trip up on to a glacier. It has also been to North Cape twice for Northern Lights cruises. 14 years later I still wear the jacket during the winter for walking.

Did anyone get to see the solar eclipse? We didn’t bother to look because of the low cloud cover. I went to bed just after 10pm last night and slept quite well. My fitbit is saying that I managed 6hrs 7 mins with only 1 long awake period between 3 and 4:35 before dropping off again with small periods of waking. My day is looking busy with a trip to Tesco for a big shop then a trip to the optician to pick up my new glasses. DH has suggested that we should go to look for a new car because we both dislike the Yaris that we bought last year and don't feel comfortable driving to Southampton in it and after yesterday's looooong journey home on the coach we both said that we want to drive down for our next cruise in the summer. No school run for me today, my sister rang last night to say that she will do it today and I can take over again tomorrow, I resisted reminding her that they are her grandchildren not mine. Have a good day everyone.

We are happy to be home from our cruise though it looks like a busy few days. I have an appointment to collect my new glasses tomorrow, a dental appointment on Wednesday and appointment at the cardiology unit on Thursday. Bowling season starts on Saturday so I will be hoping for a dry day for our first match.

Morning all, we are in that "what shall we do today" framework of mind. The packing is done apart from the clothes that we are wearing today. I am really looking forward to getting off this ship. If our cruise that we have booked for the end of June on this ship is as bad as this one it will be our last Princess cruise. It has been dreadful with the behaviour of some passengers and their children. Last night was "Dress to Impress" which we took to be "Smart Casual" so we ended up being in the minority who weren't dressed in shorts and tee shirts. The lady on the next table told us that she had looked online to see if hhey could get a flight home from Bilbao a few days ago because she was fed up of "feral children". Our experience has been that the many American children are far more polite and better behaved than the UK children.

Avril, All I can say is to avoid Staysure, we came very close to cancelling our current cruise because Staysure was appalling to deal with following my recent health problems but we did end up staying with them because when I tried other companies most didn't want to know because I was awaiting test results. We paid an extortionate price and have to speak to them before we go on our next cruise in June so that they can decide whether or not to extort more money from us. I have a cardiology appointment for next week which hopefully will give me better news since my GP thinks that I may have had an allergic reaction to the brand of statin and has reduced the dosage of the statin that caused my problem, I have been ok since reducing the dosage and taking a different brand yet again. Good luck with your search for Frank's insurance.

I am just catching up on posts for the last week, we are on Princess and I have to say that it is not only P&O where things have changed and not for the better. The behaviour of some people leaves a lot to be desired, smart casual now means that it is OK wear a bikini top and shorts to dinner in the main restaurants and to let your children throw food at each other. We got out of a lift this morning when we saw a family of 4 push past a lady in a wheel chair and her partner to get in to the lift. We have said that we will not be sailing on Princess again after our next cruise which we have unfortunately already paid for so would lose over £5000. Carnival's current push to price low in order attract a rowdy heavy drinking sort of passenger is not for us.

Thank you. We are trying to decide whether to go away for Christmas next year because for the last few years we seem to have been visiting family rather than staying in by ourselves and we both feel that we don't want to be doing round trips of about 80 miles to go to family get togethers when it is cold possibly snowing or icy. We have already warned DH's sister that we will be staying at home on Christmas day this year and she is not happy.

Is it mainly families on board to Christmas cruises ?

We had a grey morning but it has turned to a beautiful blue sky with just a few high wispy white clouds but it is still cold so I am sitting inside watching the birds in the garden.I

Our robin visited this morning to remind us that it is still winter

+1

It is really strange weather that we have here this morning, we have had bright sun and blue skies, heavy rain and now hail. Will we get nice weather for my Easter Sunday birthday ? I hope so but I won't be holding my breath.

I am sure that most reasonable people would agree with you and would want to leave the family in peace but I am afraid that the media aren't always reasonable and I am afraid that they will be camped outside wherever they think Catherine and Charles are. I can't get those poor children out of my mind, it is so hard for them.

The problem with trolls is that they have no shame and don't care about the affect that they are having on their victim and their family especially if the person is in the public eye.

We are praying for the Royal family at this awful time. We had a similar situation last year with my niece and brother-in-law so know how horrendous it is to have 2 members of the family to have this awful news at the same time and particularly for the children. 🙏