TREVOR’S 60th BIRTHDAY Our jet-lagged sleep was shattered by a wake-up call at 06:45 hours this morning (!!) as we were due to leave the hotel at 08:15 to board our tour coach for a very full, action-packed day. Today is Trevor’s 60th birthday, and here we were spending it in Shanghai. Certainly a different…
While watching the Skymap I suddenly noticed that, for some strange reason, the destination had changed from Shanghai to Beijing, and the time left had dropped to one and a half hours. Strange, as we aren’t due to visit Beijing until later in the holiday. Just then, one of the flight attendants made an announcement…
So many destinations, faces going to so many places where the weather is much better and the food is so much cheaper… So state the opening lines of The Motors’ 1978 hit single Airport. An appropriate song as we set off for another holiday, this time to the mysterious Orient, in other words, China. Another…
We had to be up early this morning to disembark the Marco Polo. When we looked out of our window, we could see the ship making her way slowly into Leith, the cruise terminal which acts as the gateway to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. We could see the Royal Yacht Britannia at her permanent mooring nearby. We…
We should have spent today at sea, but because of the change in itinerary we awoke to find ourselves docked in Invergordon, on the Cromarty Firth. Once again the day was bright and sunny – we really have been very lucky, considering how fickle the weather is in Britain. Our excursion today would take us…
The Marco Polo dropped anchor this morning in Loch Broom, upon the shores of which is located the picturesque little village of Ullapool. We had not booked any excursions today, deciding instead to explore the village ourselves at leisure. When we went down to breakfast the day already showed signs of being another scorcher without a…
When the alarm went off at 7.45 this morning the first thing we did was look out of our window to see what the new day was like. There was not a cloud in the sky or a ripple on the sea. We were already at anchor in Stornoway, capital of the Isle of Lewis…
We awoke this morning to a bright day with a little fog on the horizon and a flat calm North Sea. It looked as though it was going to be another fine day today. We were due to arrive in Kirkwall, Orkney at around mid-day. We went along to the buffet restaurant for our breakfast,…
Well here we are again folks, on yet another cruise – our 30th to be precise. 🙂 This time it’s a mini 5-day voyage on board the M/V Marco Polo, a delightful old ship (built 1965) on which we have cruised twice before; in the Mediterranean in 2001 and all the way down to Antarctica…
Having taken our first cruise almost 24 years ago when there were relatively few good cruise ships about, we have noticed many changes, and not all of them are for the best. For a start, ships actually used to look like ships. That is, their outlines were long, sleek and streamlined and (when viewed from…
