Just Back 3rd-10th April Colourful Coasts

[ekco]

Yes, we need a good south westerly with gales and showers for a week. Like the October gales and blow it north over the Arctic.

 

Volcano dust. We've had nothing here, but I was talking to a chap from Mold near Wrexham when we were in Chester. It's a few miles inland and they've had a coating of the dust over their cars overnight. We've got nothing here, I think because of the sea breeze.

 

Berwyn

 

Not seen it here yet. I read in Mail Online that Newquay had ash settling, bizarre. Strangely we've not had much wind over the winter this year so we're due a good gale.

 

I noticed the weather over Spain and Portugal is wet and windy this weekend but even so the airports in northern Spain have closed.

 

Do you think we should start a new thread on Island re. travel problems? We've gone a long way from the original thread now. I volunteer you to do it.:D:D. We could have a whole thread on your holiday problems alone. lol.

 

Having a nice cold glass of Pinot Grigio, very nice it is too. I usually drink red though, Cabernet Sauvignon or my favourite Rioja.

 

Just watching the volcano erupting on Sky, doesn't look good for the next couple of days but there might be a gap opening over the north for a short time. They're saying it could be a week to sort out Manchester. Pray for westerly winds!! KLM have sent a plane up with scientific instruments to see how bad it is.

 

Jan

[Cymro1953]

I noticed the weather over Spain and Portugal is wet and windy this weekend but even so the airports in northern Spain have closed.

 

Do you think we should start a new thread on Island re. travel problems? We've gone a long way from the original thread now. I volunteer you to do it.:D:D. We could have a whole thread on your holiday problems alone. lol.

 

Having a nice cold glass of Pinot Grigio, very nice it is too. I usually drink red though, Cabernet Sauvignon or my favourite Rioja.

 

Just watching the volcano erupting on Sky, doesn't look good for the next couple of days but there might be a gap opening over the north for a short time. They're saying it could be a week to sort out Manchester. Pray for westerly winds!! KLM have sent a plane up with scientific instruments to see how bad it is.

 

Jan

 

Hi Jan,

Yes That would be a good Idea if you want to start one.

Not much point in Spain opening airports if rest of Europe is shut.

 

Yes the Pinot Grigot is lovely. We'll go and look again tomorrow.

Like you I like Red, mainly Italian, especially from the Venice area. But DW likes white.

:eek::eek: I'm not looking :D We are watching repeats of come dine with me.

Safer.

 

Berwyn

[jessie36]

Received a letter from Thomson today regarding our cruise back in April. Have recieved a good size voucher off next holiday and can transfer new booking on IE to another without charge. So have booked celebration next May having had a great Christmas 2009 cruise/stay on it in 2009, have even booked same cabin.

With Dream to look forward to at Christmas this year we are really over our dissapointment on IE. I am sure once IE have their promised refit it will be a great ship, but the itinerary including Morrocco just not for me, having said that IE holds more great memories than bad so a different itinerary could sway us in the future, just have to keep working. Berwyn, Jan thanks for all your support at the time, see you on the other Thomson forum avidly watching the AI posts and Dream reviews.

Best Wishes to all future IE cruisers.

Jessie

[Cymro1953]

Received a letter from Thomson today regarding our cruise back in April. Have recieved a good size voucher off next holiday and can transfer new booking on IE to another without charge. So have booked celebration next May having had a great Christmas 2009 cruise/stay on it in 2009, have even booked same cabin.

With Dream to look forward to at Christmas this year we are really over our dissapointment on IE. I am sure once IE have their promised refit it will be a great ship, but the itinerary including Morrocco just not for me, having said that IE holds more great memories than bad so a different itinerary could sway us in the future, just have to keep working. Berwyn, Jan thanks for all your support at the time, see you on the other Thomson forum avidly watching the AI posts and Dream reviews.

Best Wishes to all future IE cruisers.

Jessie

 

Hi Jessie,

Glad you had an answer and some compensation. I'm still waiting for them to reply to my complaints about the Dream.

I have just sent them another email to shift them along hopefully.

 

Berwyn

[jessie36]

Hi Berwyn,

I hope you hear from them soon, I will say that in my excitement to open the letter inside the envelope was also a letter addressed to another customer with another offer of compensation for them. I have just called Thomson and apparently they are snowed under dealing with complaints but at least they can re-send the other letter onwards. They did say allow 28 days for a response and it did go over by a few days so hang in there.

Best Wishes

[Cymro1953]

Thanks Jessie, hopefully they'll get it sorted soon.

 

Berwyn

[ekco]

Hi Jessie

 

Nice to hear from you again, I was wondering if you would change, I think you made the right choice as it's difficult to revisit somewhere that a).you didn't like and b) somewhere you were ill. Good that you've got a voucher. Have you been on Celebration before? We're on her at the end of June and will let you know how we got on.:):)

 

Jan

[jessie36]

Hi Jan,

Nice to hear from you too. yes I am sure we made right decision although looking back I can think of worse things to happen.

We were on celebration last Christmas (2009) doing the Red Sea Magic Cruise and then had a week in Sharm after. We really liked the Ship

and happy to go back on there again.

Regards

Jessie

[Cymro1953]

Hi Jan,

Nice to hear from you too. yes I am sure we made right decision although looking back I can think of worse things to happen.

We were on celebration last Christmas (2009) doing the Red Sea Magic Cruise and then had a week in Sharm after. We really liked the Ship

and happy to go back on there again.

Regards

Jessie

 

Hi Jessie,

We're doing the RSM cruise on Spirit at the end of March, followed by a week in Sharm.

How did you find the hotel part of it ?

 

Berwyn

[jessie36]

Hi Berwyn,

We found the hotel just the ticket for relaxing after the busy cruise. We stayed in the Jaz Mirabel beach which is in the Nabq Bay area. The hotel was lovely, lots of pools and the rooms were great. Food was pretty much similar to the cruise (Lido restaurant) although Celebration was better. We had AI at the hotel and there was a good range of drinks with lots of cocktails. Evening entertainment centred around the hotel and wasnt brilliant. Lots of Russians doing there evening fashion shows with the men showing off their "nieces". We did a couple of trips and they were excellent. We found a british pub outside of the hotel so the boys could watch football, it had good food. We had a brilliant holiday and would go back to Sharm for a weeks winter sun. A bonus for us was were were delayed due to the snow and had two extra nights in the Tiram Sharm which was like a 6 star hotel with swim up rooms.

Fantastic time had by all.

I hope you really enjoy it.

Jessie:)

[Cymro1953]

Thanks Jessie,

 

That's great. We're staying there too. We'd originally booked a double cabin for us and single for the youngest son, then a double and single in hotel.

But they could only get us in the Dreams vacation to get a single room for the son.

 

Then later DW was browsing the brochure and said "These suites look nice and they take 3" .

So I went down to Ta and the manager sorted us into a suite on the ship and as we only now need 1 large room in hotel we were able to get into the Jaz.

Only £160 extra for all 3 of us.

 

Berwyn

[jessie36]

Hi Berwyn,

The room we had was a good size and had a sliding door down the middle of room which made it in to two rooms and in the other half were two double sofa beds which I guess would also have suited two extra adults. The bathroom was big with a large marble walk in shower. There are two heated pools on the complex and the others were very cold but it was January. There was just so much space everywhere, really relaxing.

The beach is ok with sun loungers and windbreakers (it can get really windy), there is a nice restaurant near it. There is also a bar on the beach. There are two main restaurants for your meals, one requires long trousers for men of an evening, the other is casual. There is also a Pizza bar. There are also three restaurants on the complex that are not part of the all inclusive although you can by a meal voucher that allows you to use them three times. The AI We only tried the chinese (did not rate it ) but there were other people from the cruise who said the Italian was excellent. The beach is mainly made up of coral so you will need beach shoes and to swim/snorkel you have to walk quite a long way out. The hotel next door has a really long pier and they will let you use it for a small fee, they rarely let the russian contingent use it. Dont be put off by all of the building work on your way from ship to hotel, Nabq is an up and coming resort and it will not interfere with your holiday. If you turn left out of the hotel and walk for about twenty mins you will come to a shopping area and the British Pub is here (I think it was called the three crowns), they were also building a Hard Rock Cafe when we were there not sure if/when its finished. If you want a sandy beach then there is a public beach also turn left about 15mins walk.

The Thomson Reps based at the hotel were really nice too and helpful as were all of the waiting staff in the main lobby/bar area.

I think you and the family will have a great time and the AI on the Celebration covers practically everything apart from water and Cider although that might have changed since the latest AI complaints.

Jessie

[Cymro1953]

Thanks very much for all that Jessie.

Looks like we'll have a good time. I know the cruise would be OK, it's just the hotel bit we weren't sure about. It looked quite out of the way, but thought it would be better to have a better quality hotel than one nearer to the amenities with not so good ratings.

 

Berwyn