A frenzy of recent write-ups means it’s time for another round-up of all the content that’s new on the site since the last of these blogs so that it doesn’t all become too overwhelming. I think you’re probably quite capable of maintaining your whelm levels within a sensible range, though. You’ve got that look about you.
As usual, there will be a little note about any recent developments or points of interest in the general travel or cruising world, or at least as it affects us, at the end. There won’t be much. We’re in that lull period at the start of the year where nobody’s really got a lot of news to share.
Back in 2024 we tried MSC Cruises for the first time and there’s another post on this site which summarises that not-too-pleasant experience. You can hunt it down using your skills and the tools available on the website’s menu if you’re super keen to know about that. Although, I will say that we subsequently had a vastly improved experience so maybe ignore that post. What wasn’t covered at the time was what we got up to in Cherbourg and that’s now been addressed. Spoiler: not a lot, because it’s Cherbourg. But we did visit a museum because we’re cultured and whatnot.
The remainder of the travel posts recently added to the site all come from the start of a cruise taken aboard P&O Ventura in September 2024. It was a cruise with some bang average food, unmemorable entertainment, but some lovely time ashore, and the shore elements are why we booked the cruise, after all.
The cruise started with a sea day so expect a brief account of sea day activities – which for us aren’t worth mentioning and are barely worthy of photographing either – but mainly the food and drink on Ventura we had, including speciality dining and the premium afternoon tea offering.
Our first port of call was new for us and this was Santander. We spent absolutely no time exploring Santander, however, as we had an excursion booked for the day to check out the architectural delights of a couple of nearby towns. Architecture, art, and history are the things we cruise for. And beers of the world of course. You can’t forget those. We began with a visit to Comillas to take a look around one of Gaudí’s earlier works, El Capricho. It’s a fabulous building.
From early Art Nouveau to somewhere decidedly more medieval-looking next when we looked around Santillana Del Mar.
There wasn’t time to look around Santander after that trip to the nearby towns but we enjoyed the view of it from the balcony and it looked like a place we’d like to explore at some point. Given that there’s a direct ferry link from our home city of Portsmouth to Santander you might wonder why we’ve never done that before. Reasonably expensive and inconvenient sailings would be the answer there.
We had a sea day and more speciality dining on Ventura next.
Three posts conclude this round-up of new travel content, and they’re all from the city of Vigo. This is a place we’d cruised to before on Ventura but on that first occasion we’d taken a tour – we often do on a first visit – while this time around we set off on foot with only a few points of potential interest to hunt down.
In the first post from Vigo we decided to hunt down some art and architecture – see, I told you that’s what we like doing on cruises – which included some street art, a museum of modern art (not to everyone’s tastes but we usually find things to enjoy), and the main attraction for us, a piece of modernist architecture with strong Streamline Moderne Art Deco about it.
There’s a good viewpoint to be found in Vigo at the Fortress of El Castro where you can expect to look down on your cruise ship. Of course, this does mean making your way up here and Vigo is quite hilly. We made it, though.
The final post just shows off some of the scenery of the sail away from Vigo, and it largely mirrors a post that was published when we visited this same port three years earlier.
Regarding next month’s cruise on Norwegian Jade we’ve had confirmation of the name of the driver who will be meeting us at the airport when we land in Lima, and walking through an airport to find the person holding your name up on a board will be a whole new experience for us. We’ve never felt so fancy-pants.
We’ve also completed the check-in for the cruise already, and we’ve picked up some spending money. We’ll be in Lima for four days before the cruise so we wanted some money for sundries as well as tipping our driver, and there’s a bar we’re interested in visiting (suppress your shock!) that apparently does the best Pisco Sour but only takes cash. Additionally, guides we’ve read about Antigua Guatemala suggest that money is advisable as credit/debit card payments may not be widely used in the city, and US dollars aren’t generally accepted. We also picked up some Mexican Pesos as we’ll be visiting five ports there and, again, the more southern ports are more likely to feature local cash only. Finally, having physical money gives us more of an incentive to spend it locally and that’s always a good thing to do if you’re a considerate cruiser.
After we get back we’ll have to wait until July to cruise again but that will be with Fred Olsen. New line for us. Naturally, even though we haven’t started our upcoming cruise yet we’re already digging into write-ups and videos about what to expect on Borealis. It’s just what we do. It’d be nice to see more general experience blogging write-ups and videos because there are only so many ship tours you can watch (one) but we’ve no control over what content other people produce. Yet.
Anyway. There probably won’t be another round-up post before we set off on our South and Central American cruise adventure so the next blog update like this on the site is most likely going to be immediate thoughts about our newest cruising experience. Everything crossed that it’s all super-positive.