Selbourne ‘Live’ from Aurora’s 2024 Grand Tour

[jh1809]

32 minutes ago, Sheila127 said:

Just got it! Pronounce as "ain't Eager"!

Thanks. Not being fluent in Estuary, I hadn't got it until you explained it.

[pennib]

Ah, Selbourne, St Kitts. My first visit there was in 1983 and we had booked a three week holiday staying at the Ocean Terrace Inn (known locally as the OTI). We hired a car and drove all around the island as well as relaxing by the hotel pool. In those days, the sugar cane industry was still going strong and we managed to get a guided tour of the sugar factory which was very interesting. The canes were brought to the factory using the railway system that you went on during your trip. 
There were no cruise ships then and Port Zante had not been built to what it is now. Also no international airport but just a landing strip. We took  day trip on the ferry to Nevis (which I stayed on some years later). It was all so laid back until the hurricane arrived to coincide with our journey home. Our LIAT ( also known as “Leave

Island Any Time) - get it??? flight to Antigua to connect with BA’s flight home was cancelled as it was stuck on St Thomas so we had no alternative but to return to the OTI and were given our old room back. We then spent the best part of another week watching the little fishing boats being smashed up in the harbour. A Geest banana boat took refuge in the harbour and the weather was horrendous. To cap it all I got the flu and spent most of the time in bed being comforted by the hotel staff bringing hot water bottles in those old fashioned stone bottles and a not inconsiderable amount of rum!

Happy memories of a very welcoming island. Stayed since and played golf at the Royal st Kitts golf club just outside Basseterre.

[happy v]

4 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

Thanks. Not being fluent in Estuary, I hadn't got it until you explained it.

I didn't even look until I read the posts. I just thought it was predicted text😊

[brian1]

33 minutes ago, jh1809 said:

Thanks. Not being fluent in Estuary, I hadn't got it until you explained it.

Yeah,like wot I do.

[Selbourne]

Just now, mrsgoggins said:

So very many things I chuckled at in this report; just brilliant! Although Ventura didn't make it into St Kitts this year (insufficient power for the conditions) we have been before and the scrap cars reignited my memory 😁. I can't wait to show DH the report on your scenic railway trip and the reasons for the delay - he's a railways buff but always refuses to go on these tourist trains. His one exception was the White Pass and Yukon railway from Skagway in Alaska, which was excellent.

 

Your description of the karaoke bar and its contributors also made me titter.

 

I wish you a more communicative Captain for the final leg (James Brown on our 35 nights was good even if his 'facts' and jokes were a bit cheesy, but that made him very human. I was told that he was a popular Captain with the staff too.). We had excellent speakers on our journey back from the Caribbean and I hope you are as fortunate.

 

I know that you were generally happy with the food on your P&O cruises last year, and I would chime in that we enjoyed most of our meals on Ventura, as I believe did you. It's a shame that so many meals, or parts of meals, have fallen short on your very long trip.

 

I'm still loving taking the journey with you, so thank you again for all of the detail you put into your reports.

Many thanks. We are now in Antigua which is our last Caribbean port. Having cancelled my excursion a few days ago I am now done with those ruddy mini-buses 👍. At least I hope so…… Do I recall that you did the ‘South Island Sights and Angra’ tour in Praia da Vitoria on your way back? If so, do you recall if it was a proper coach? 🤞

[annieuk]

I've been on the St. Kitts Railway Trip twice, we enjoyed it so much the first time when we visited St. Kitts again we decided we'd do it again.  Our journey was a little different from yours.  At the time we did the trip some passengers were taken straight to the train and did the coach part after the train ride whereas we did the coach journey round part of the island first and were then taken to the train.  We were transported on an air conditioned coach, very comfortable and there was a video of the Train Journey left on our seat as a gift.  We boarded the train and sat up top where the sides of the carriage are open.  There was enough breeze so we didn't feel too hot - and believe me if anyone's going to complain of being too hot it's me!  Drinks were brought round to our seats and I have fond memory of a banana daiquiri which was delicious.  We enjoyed the journey and it was a Saturday and at various places children were alongside waving at us.  Then three young women appeared to sing to us.  They went from carriage to carriage.  They told us they were from a local church.  I think everyone in the carriage was amazed when they proceeded to sing. 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka dot Bikini!'  It seemed so incongruous hearing that song while sitting on a slow old sugar train going round a Caribbean island, sipping a banana daiquiri, listening to those women from a local church.  We loved it.  As I said we enjoyed the whole journey so much that a few years later we did the whole thing again.  I think we were on Azura.  We last visited St. Kitts on Aurora back in 2018 but that time we concentrated on shopping as we needed gifts to take back home.  

[mrsgoggins]

44 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Many thanks. We are now in Antigua which is our last Caribbean port. Having cancelled my excursion a few days ago I am now done with those ruddy mini-buses 👍. At least I hope so…… Do I recall that you did the ‘South Island Sights and Angra’ tour in Praia da Vitoria on your way back? If so, do you recall if it was a proper coach? 🤞

 

It absolutely was! A fleet of modern coaches pulled up outside of the ship and it was a wonderful sight after those mini buses - DH did not feel the need to check on the numbers of missing wheel nuts 😂. I am envious that you will be going there as this was our favourite port of call and so few ships call there. This is most definitely a 'European' port in the middle of the Atlantic.

[Fionboard]

43 minutes ago, mrsgoggins said:

 

It absolutely was! A fleet of modern coaches pulled up outside of the ship and it was a wonderful sight after those mini buses - DH did not feel the need to check on the numbers of missing wheel nuts 😂. I am envious that you will be going there as this was our favourite port of call and so few ships call there. This is most definitely a 'European' port in the middle of the Atlantic.

Praia is lovely. So much better then P del G. Wish they stopped there more. 

[Adawn47]

10 hours ago, Selbourne said:

 

Day 55 - Monday 26th February - Basseterre, St Kitts

 

Another ‘interesting’ day in the Caribbean! We had docked in St Kitts very early in the morning. After breakfast I was booked on the St Kitts Scenic Railway excursion but it was due to leave at 10am so there was no rush. There had been some heavy rain whilst we were at breakfast and as we returned to the cabin there was a small rainbow alongside the ship. We could see the entire rainbow and it made quite a sight. The photo doesn’t really do it justice. 

 

The scenic railway was a very popular trip which probably a good 150 passengers had booked to go on. We were loaded onto the now infamous minibuses and were taken the long way around the island to the pick up point. The driver & guide Kirk was very funny. One chap asked if we could stop at a restroom. Kirk replied that he would pull up somewhere so that the guy could go behind a tree (which he did)! As he stopped he warned the guy to be careful as “we have monkeys and they like to grab bananas”. The passengers wife piped up “Oh, he’ll be alright. He’s only got a small one” 😱 That must surely be grounds for divorce 😂

 

I have mentioned before that many of the stops on these tours have been tenuous at best. Well today took the record. We stopped and remained in the minibus whilst Kirk said he had something to show us. It was a water stand pipe. He gave us a demonstration of how it worked. When he got back in we then had a detailed account of the fact that the government is gradually removing the levers from them, making them key operated only for farmers. Fascinating 🤔

 

At this point Kirk received a call to say that there was a problem with the train and we would be delayed, so we then had time to kill. This enabled us to stop briefly to see a couple of other stand pipes, as well as semi derelict houses. When we were on Grand Cayman, my lasting memory was the hundreds of chickens we saw roaming around everywhere. St Kitts has the same (and sheep and goats) but the thing that struck me most was the scrap cars everywhere. We must have seen hundreds. When a car meets its end it’s just abandoned in verges or outside peoples houses. Kirk covered this as well. The government is going to start fining people if they don’t dispose of them environmentally. Good luck on that one!

 

The train was meant to leave at 11am and when we arrived at the pick up point at around this time we were told it would be around half an hour late. This turned into an hour and finally the train turned up at around 1220. Profuse apologies from our host for the delay (apparently a pin had come out holding a rail in place) and we were off. It’s a double decker train with open sided seating on the top and an air conditioned saloon underneath. I went for the air conditioned saloon. The views weren’t quite as good but it was a pleasant temperature. 

 

The 18 mile trip lasts 1hr 45 mins, during which time there was some dubious ‘traditional dancing’ (two teenagers with a ghetto blaster, angling for tips), an informative live commentary and free drinks (rum punch etc). Having learnt the hard way in Honduras, I disciplined myself to one rum punch but in reality I only took 2 or 3 sips of it. Two reasons. The first was that my sore throat is fine much of the time now, but alcohol causes me real discomfort within minutes. Secondly, it tasted horrible 😂. For my second drink I had a Virgin Colada which was far better. 

 

After 10 minutes we stopped abruptly. We were at the spot where the rail had separated and it happened again! Thankfully the engineers were all still there with their equipment so we were on our way within 10 minutes. In truth I’ve been on far more scenic train journeys in the UK, but it was still a good experience. When we got back on the minibus it was very apparent that a number of my fellow passengers had partaken of one or two too many rum punches. We arrived back at the port 1hr 45 minutes late (pretty good going for a 3 hour tour) and my wife was beginning to get quite concerned where I was, but obviously the problems were entirely out of P&Os control and “all part of the experience” 😂

 

In every single port in the Caribbean we have been told to take photo ID (passport or driving licence ashore), yet we have never been asked to show it anywhere - until today. Utterly pointless. It just caused queues and delays and the checks were not conducted properly anyway. What do they do with the people who didn’t have any photo ID? My guess is they let them through anyway as the ships have their own security! Whilst I was queuing a very elderly couple in front of me were both struggling to stand, not through infirmity but (through their own admission) too many rum punches 😂

 

When I eventually got back to the ship we dashed up to the Lido deck for a quick lunch and then I took my wife ashore. Arvia was also in port, so the Port Xante cruise terminal was very busy. There was a karaoke bar in the middle where a succession of people who thought they could sing, but couldn’t, were belting out one song after another. Why is it that the only people who get up and sing at those places are all tone deaf? It reminded me of the Eric Morecombe line “all the right notes, but just not in the right order”. It was truly excruciating. There were also people in various states of inebriation around the edges ‘dancing’. A very unkind and deeply insensitive person prone to sweeping generalisations might have said that this could have been the sort of place that was attracting Arvia passengers who were perhaps partaking of the drinks package, but thankfully that’s not the sort of thought that would ever cross my mind 🤔😂 

 

Prior to looking around the cruise port we went into the town, which isn’t much but is another authentic place. I had a note to see the Circus (clock tower) and Independence Square. Both were only a short distance from the cruise port so that didn’t take long. One thing that we thought was lovely was that all the school kids were walking home and they are obviously told that tourists are the life blood of the island and to be respectful to them. As they passed us they all smiled and said “Good afternoon”. Can you imagine school kids at home doing that?

 

I got brownie points from Lady Selbourne because she only wanted one thing from the shops and, amidst all the shops selling the usual tourist tat, booze and bright clothing, I managed to find it - Hairspray 😂 (no, they don’t sell it on the ship). Talking of hair, my number 3 & 2 clipper cut has lasted well and may even get me home, where I can do it myself for nothing 😂

 

Back on the ship we went to Raffles for a drink and as we were departing the Captain announced we were leaving and that indeed he was himself leaving us tomorrow and a new Captain is taking us back to Blighty as planned. Nothing against the guy, he seems very pleasant, but he has been the most uncommunicative Captain that we have ever had in almost 30 years of cruising. I genuinely believe that he needs reminding that being Master of the vessel is not just about the seamanship side of it (which, in all honesty, the majority of which is done by the bridge team anyway), but is also about enhancing the passenger experience with useful nuggets and by being visible. He has done neither. I wish him well, but for a Grand Tour such as this, which is a huge adventure, we drew the short straw. I shall be sure to feed back on this if I ever get the chance on a feedback survey and I hope that many of my fellow passengers do the same, as I’ve heard enough of them commenting on it!

 

Sail away was nice and peaceful, as we were thankfully spared a band on the top open deck. A few honks were exchanged between us and Arvia (we were the first to leave - I don’t think we had any stragglers in the karaoke bar 😉) and we sat on the balcony well past darkness as it was still so warm and lovely and quiet other than the relaxing noise of the ship cutting through the water. 

 

We’ve had very few pre dinner drinks since my throat issue, so next stop was the MDR for dinner. Another hit and miss experience but mostly miss unfortunately. My leek soup starter was very watery and was quite insipid. My wife enjoyed her cauliflower tabbouleh salad. I had roast beef and had two really thick slices cooked exactly as I’d asked. However the Yorkshire pudding was like cardboard and tasted like it had been cooked a few days ago. The usual barrel shaped spud and a few overcooked root veg with a flavourless gravy. My wife had lasagne and said that she thought it was nigh on impossible to mess up a lasagne but they had managed it. I asked what was wrong with it and she said that the pasta was ‘gluey’. She left 90% of it. I had rhubarb and ginger crumble, which was fine, but their custard (or sauce Anglaise) is always dreadful (it manages to be both runny and lumpy at the same time and flavourless) so I asked for ‘Honey Combe’ (as they call it) ice cream instead. My wife had just the ice cream. 

 

The 10pm show was Jayne Middleton’s second show, also as Annie Lennox. I looked her up after her first performance as I just knew that she was putting on a very bad Scottish accent and, sure enough, she’s from Stoke on Trent 😂. Why do some tribute artists think they have to talk like the artist as well as sing like them? They almost never do it well and sound silly. Anyway, thankfully this girl has a great singing voice. The second show wasn’t as good as the first. She’d done many of the big Annie Lennox & Eurythmics hits in the first show. There were a few more this time but she also did some covers that Annie Lennox apparently did but that I was unaware of. Tomorrow is Antigua, which is our last Caribbean port before we start the long drag home via the Azores. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your best write up yet Selbourne, hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing at your tour recollections.🤣  Your writing skills are impressive and I felt as though I was there. 

Avril

[happy v]

Maybe you will get a change of chef as well as captain 

[Selbourne]

Just now, happy v said:

Maybe you will get a change of chef as well as captain 

🤞😂

[david63]

1 hour ago, happy v said:

Maybe you will get a change of chef as well as captain 

Or maybe a change of green beans as well as chef and captain😂

[Selbourne]

Todays MDR menus

 

Edited February 27 by Selbourne

[Megabear2]

I love the Del Monte - did you see the man who says yes, or is it straight from the tin?

[Selbourne]

 

Day 56 - Tuesday 27th February - St John’s, Antigua, Leeward Islands

 

It’s a fairly short hop from St Kitts to Antigua so we were already in the cruise port when we woke. Having got ready for breakfast in good time I decided to pop a quick load of washing in the laundrette. I think that will be the last time now and anything else will be sent to the service wash (if it requires ironing), or can wait until we are home next Friday if it doesn’t. 

 

Unfortunately, my throat is as sore as it’s ever been again and hurts when I swallow. It seems as though these things just go around and around on these longer cruises. Every tour I’ve been on there have been at least two people coughing vigorously and on those small minibuses you are within the danger zone wherever you sit. I suppose looking on the bright side there have been no incidents of Covid or Norovirus (that we are aware of) but this has blighted my entire time in the Caribbean somewhat and is a definite risk to take into consideration with long cruises such as this. 

 

Once breakfast and the washing and drying were done we ventured ashore. Don’t ask me why, but I had it in my head that Antigua would be one of the better ports for wheelchair users. I was completely wrong. It was one of the worst. The area that is effectively the cruise village was fine, as was the boardwalk along the side of it. However, we like to see the old towns and this was as bad as it gets for accessibility. Very few dropped kerbs (and those that they had were too steep and may only be dropped at one end), wide gully’s alongside that you can’t bridge etc etc. We realised quite quickly that this was going to be more effort than it was worth so, added to the fact that there wasn’t really anything of interest in the town we headed back to the ship. 

 

After cooling down I decided to venture out on my own, firstly to see if there was anything of interest to snap a photo of further up in the town and secondly to try to find a supermarket, as these seem to be very thin on the ground around cruise ship ports. I couldn’t find any ‘pretty’ parts of the town with obvious squares etc so just took a few snaps of the ‘real’ Antigua. 

 

I had studied Google Maps before leaving the ship and could see that there was a supermarket on one side of the bay, so I started to make my way in that direction. At one junction I spotted a pharmacy called ‘G Mighty’. Now I don’t have a religious bone in my body, hence my lack of interest in all the mediocre churches that so many of the tours stop at, but that name made me stop and think. I know enough about religion to know that he can apparently perform miracles, so I decided to see if a visit here could result in my throat being healed. I spoke to the pharmacist and explained my plight - sore throat for 4 weeks, hurts to swallow, no temperature, feel pretty much ok otherwise. I’ve tried antibiotics and several boxes of Strepsils and it’s no better. As always, I am a quirk of nature so he was flummoxed. A more senior pharmacist was consulted. In the end he said that he could prescribe me a short course of Azithromycin to try to blitz any residual infection that is refusing to budge. Two 500mg tablets today followed by one tablet for the next 3 days. How much I ask? $60 he replies. Ouch. Probably still a lot cheaper than the ships medical centre (which I don’t want to go to anyway), but then he said “Eastern Caribbean Dollars”. That’s $23 US. That’s better. The admin system was intriguing. He gave me a tiny ripped corner of paper on which he just wrote ‘60’ and nothing else. I had to go to the till elsewhere in the shop and I paid my $23 and she gave me a proper printed prescription for Azithromycin (how did she know?) which I then took back to the pharmacist who handed me the tablets with printed instructions on the box. A very odd system but a darned sight quicker than the faffing about at pharmacies in the U.K. where they seem hell bent on making you wait even if you are the only soul in there. 

 

Whilst in the pharmacy I asked if I was heading in the right direction for the supermarket and was told it was 5 minutes and just past the bus station. This part of town was a bit dodgy. One chap had a load of bottles and pestle & mortars lined up on a wall and asked if I wanted any ganja. When I declined he mentioned something about sex. I quickened my pace 😳. Just after the bus station I saw people going in to a building so chanced going in and it was indeed a supermarket of sorts, but definitely one for the locals. Quite unlike any supermarket we would have! I asked the security guard if this was the main supermarket that I was looking for and he laughed and said no. He pointed to a large pink roof behind the bus station so I headed there instead. I wanted to get some local treats to take home for the family but once inside this vast supermarket I couldn’t really find much that was suitable, so my main purchase was bottled water!

 

Back on the ship we decided to go to the Glasshouse for lunch as the MDR menu didn’t appeal. When we got there we were told that the F&B manager has decided that they are no longer going to do food at lunchtime on port days. That’s a shame but I’m not surprised. There are rarely more than 2 or 3 couples in there at lunchtimes although, in typical P&O fashion, there’s an obvious reason why - they don’t list it as being open at lunchtimes in Horizon, so nobody would know and, being where it is, hardly anyone passes by. It really isn’t rocket science. If you want business, you need to tell people that it’s open 🙄. As we don’t do the buffet, we went to Raffles and had a bite to eat there with a drink. Not quite the same, but the food was free! During this time I looked up Azithromycin on the NHS website and it is prescribed for persistent throat problems so I don’t think I’ve been given something dodgy. Of course, I shouldn’t doubt G Mighty as he always knows all. 

 

Just after the all aboard time we had our new Captain (Simon Love) on the airways for the first time. Rather than just the scripted basic announcement that we had from his predecessor, he gave a more detailed explanation about our route out of Antigua and genuinely sounded as though he was pleased to be with us. I have a much better feeling about him already, especially when he said that the forecast is looking good for all of our transit to the Azores 🤞

 

MDR dinner was one of the better ones of late. I had to play spot the venison in my Venison and Game ‘pie’ (which was actually a stew with a small balsa wood disc randomly placed on top - they can’t do pastry), but this was made up by an extra helping of braised red cabbage, which I love. We also had our favourite ice cream tonight (burnt coconut), even though it was half melted. Incidentally we had been chatting to a couple who, like us, have been on a number of different cruise ships of late and they also felt that the food had been the worst on this ship. We’ve heard this from enough people now to know that we are far from alone in thinking this. 

 

The 10pm show was magician Philip Hitchcock. I’m afraid that magicians fall under the same category as comedians for us. If it was Dynamo or Peter Kaye then we’d be there, but the ones that appear on cruise ships…..nah!

 

Clocks forward one hour tonight, the first of 3 changes en-route to the Azores, so we will just be 3 hours behind the U.K. The next 5 days are sea days, so can I manage expectations that my updates won’t be as fulsome as the last few days have been. Of course, this may come as a relief to some 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 28 by Selbourne

[paulatsea]

I predict your sore throat will get better the day you arrive back in Southampton.

Edited February 28 by paulatsea

[brian1]

Loving the humour in your posts Selbourne despite the frustrations.OMG,I see what you mean by not wheelchair friendly,they look like tank traps in the road.

[Megabear2]

It's a shame you only saw the immediate area around the cruise port as Antigua is a beautiful island filled with fascinating history.  Even some of the beautiful beaches hold amazing stories.  Galleons Beach in particular is fascinating with skeletons appearing after a hurricane in 2010 and then even more surfacing after the catastrophic 2017 hurricanes which made Barbuda uninhabitable.  After the first bones were recovered it was assumed these people were captured slaves being sent to English Harbour for sale onto the British.  However testing of the bones showed they were of European descent and caucasian.  They also contained extremely high levels of lead which totally bemused the investigators.  Fast forward to 2017 when the sand had moved even more.  The skeleton numbers rose enormously from the 7 original ones until 258 had been discovered, all clearly not slaves.  They were at first thought to be victims of Yellow Fever or other tropical diseases, however again they were full of lead.  It transpired from records held at English Harbour that the British Navy were purchasing huge numbers of barrels of local rum as rum was considered to be good for health- daily tot of rum ration etc.

 

Unfortunately it transpired that these local distilleries had pipework with extremely high levels of lead and the poor hapless individuals onboard the ships actually died from lead poisoning.  The disposal of the high numbers involved was carried out on Galleons Beach and it is actually a graveyard. Unfortunately due to Antigua relying for its income from tourism the digs have stopped.  The 2017 hurricanes solved the mystery but the huge losses to the twin nations of that devastation and then the pandemic has meant a plunging income and economy only just being rebuilt and recovered. Most tourists sitting on the beach have no idea what they might ge sitting on!

 

Antigua remains in the Commonwealth but received little aid in 2017 from the UK apart from the initial few months of aftermath help. They intend to have a referendum on becoming a republic after Barbados' success.  

Edited February 28 by Megabear2

[twotravellersLondon]

8 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Clocks forward one hour tonight, the first of 3 changes en-route to the Azores, so we will just be 3 hours behind the U.K.

 

Three hours down but one day up... must be chaos at the international date line.😅😅

[Selbourne]

4 hours ago, paulatsea said:

I predict your sore throat will get better the day you arrive back in Southampton.

All joking aside, I’ve had this throat issue for so long now I can’t help but feel that there’s something on the ship that’s aggravating it, so I will probably need to be at home for a few days before it starts to ease. Hope I’m wrong because that could mean I’m stuck with it for another 2 weeks 🙄

[zap99]

19 hours ago, Selbourne said:

Todays MDR menus

 

Belmont pineapple. Isn't that the stuff that comes in tins. I thought the real wild pineapples would have been available in the Caribbean.

[zap99]

11 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Belmont pineapple. Isn't that the stuff that comes in tins. I thought the real wild pineapples would have been available in the Caribbean.

Spellchecker did it again. Belmont pineapple indeed.!!🤣

[Megabear2]

20 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

All joking aside, I’ve had this throat issue for so long now I can’t help but feel that there’s something on the ship that’s aggravating it, so I will probably need to be at home for a few days before it starts to ease. Hope I’m wrong because that could mean I’m stuck with it for another 2 weeks 🙄

Azithromycin was one of the antibiotics given to me in Barbados.  Apparently it is often prescribed for people with repeat chest infections.  My GP confirmed this when I arrived home and said it is quite strong.  Certainly it helped me to reduce coughing and sore throat to get me home, although it really only last week that I could say I felt almost completely better.  Hopefully the Azithromycin may at least give relief till you get home.

[david63]

28 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

I can’t help but feel that there’s something on the ship that’s aggravating it, so I will probably need to be at home for a few days before it starts to ease.

And then you will have to go on another cruise - just to prove the theory😄

[Selbourne]

Just now, Megabear2 said:

Azithromycin was one of the antibiotics given to me in Barbados.  Apparently it is often prescribed for people with repeat chest infections.  My GP confirmed this when I arrived home and said it is quite strong.  Certainly it helped me to reduce coughing and sore throat to get me home, although it really only last week that I could say I felt almost completely better.  Hopefully the Azithromycin may at least give relief till you get home.

Interesting. It comes in 250mg and 500mg tablets and G Mighty gave me 5 x 500mg tablets with instructions to take 2 yesterday and then 1 for each of the next 3 days. Seems a very short period, but then the dosage is high, so who knows. No improvement this morning, although I guess that would have been a bit optimistic!