Manchester Hotel: Premier Inn, Manchester Airport (M56/J6) Runger Lane North

We have one must-have and one would-be-nice-to-have when it comes to choosing a hotel prior to embarking on a holiday somewhere: it must have parking since we’ll be driving; it would be nice if it was close to a local real ale pub since we’d like a chance of a local drink if we’re staying outside our home region. The Premier Inn, Manchester Airport fit the bill perfectly on both counts and, as its name implied, it was very close to the airport too.

Checking in was simple enough although the machines to allow you to generate your own key card to the room didn’t have the ability to add on car parking so that had to be done in person at a nearby desk. After a close-to-five hours drive up from the south coast (with a short service station break after Oxford for a bite to eat) it was good to stretch our legs, throw the cases down, freshen up a bit, let Facebook friends and family know we’d arrived in The North safely, and snap a few photos of the room just in case nobody else on the internet has ever posted a photo of a Premier Inn hotel room before. I’m not even going to check; I’m just going to assume I’m the first person to do this.

The Romper Pub, Manchester

Five minutes after checking into our room in the hotel we were back out the door and heading towards the nearby pub we’d seen on the map, The Romper. This was only a walk of under ten minutes but did involve heading down an unlit road with trees on one side and fencing on the other and lots of cars parked along it, some with people in them, some with people standing around outside them.

Okay, so this is a bit scary.

We’re close to the airport. They’re probably taxi drivers waiting for dispatch calls.

They’re all silent.

Are you trying to imply they’re undead taxi drivers?

No, I’m saying it all feels like they’re criminals and we’ve stumbled into the middle of something.

It’s more likely dogging we’ve interrupted than engagements in anything nefarious. But I’m sure they’re just taxi drivers.

Well, they’re still scary.

All taxi drivers are. Anyway, I can see the pub now.

You too will be able to see the Romper pub when you spot the lion sculpture outside it. Initially a confusing piece of artwork this transpires to be thanks to the pub’s previous incarnation as The Red Lion and the origin of its present name (at time of writing) derives from a nickname applied to the unflattering sign it once sported, apparently closer in appearance to a “romping kitten” than any king of the jungle.

The pub itself was very nice. Large, lovely old stone and wooden beams everywhere. Staff were friendly. Some fellow patrons were a smidge boisterous – one was standing on a seat at one point and banging on the ceiling; what a charmer – but that could happen anywhere. Importantly, some bloody lovely regional beer that absolutely necessitated a second pint and a decent range of gin too.

Manchester Airport

In the morning we left the hotel and travelled the three minutes or so to park in the long stay parking at the airport that we’d pre-booked. Important tip: make a note of the level you park on and don’t rely on the level colour. We were on an orange level which seemed like an easy way to remember it until we returned from our trip abroad and discovered the elevator signs and external signs used different shades of oranges, reds, and yellows that confused us when pressing buttons and left us panicking that someone had stolen our car until we’d made three trips to different levels to check things out.

This was our first time flying out of Manchester Airport so it was all new and weird. It’s a far more compact airport than Gatwick or Heathrow but that made it very simple to find the TUI representative standing at the head of a snaking line of people with cases ready to board a TUI flight somewhere. We were allocated seats at that time (as we’d not been able to do so online for some reason) and were given a priority label for our luggage for unloading purposes as we were cruise passengers. Otherwise, we shuffled along with everyone else, got to play with the self-weighing and luggage tag-sticking machines they had, then pushed our bags onto the conveyor belt and headed off through security. The manual approach to checking your own bags in was a novel experience and not awful but I think we both prefer that someone at a desk do all that for us.

There weren’t many options for breakfast in the airport and the size of the queues made our minds up for us: Frankie and Benny’s won out the day. Beer and cider before eight in the morning? You bet! We were on holiday!

Naples Airport

Our flight to Naples was on one of TUI’s 787 Dreamliner aircraft and the one named Mrs Patmore specifically. You can read the story behind the plane’s name here. With it being a short trip to Italy no headphones were made available so the onboard entertainment wasn’t able to be used nor was any free meal part of the flight. My wife had her Kindle and I had my book and a window seat so could alternate between escaping into science fiction and saying irritating things like “Ooh, we’re over water!” and “Ooh, we’re no longer over water!” For a few hours that was just fine.

As we were near the rear of the plane and the plane came to a stop away from the terminal at Naples airport we got to debark from the rear exit which was an unusual experience for us. Also unusual was standing out on the concrete and tarmac for fifteen minutes waiting for a shuttle bus to come but preferable to spending any more time in the seats.

Luggage took its sweet time arriving on the carousel (whether those priority labels made a difference it’s not possible to say) but after it had finally turned up we found the TUI cruise representative and once sufficient numbers of us were present we were led out of the airport and to a nearby waiting bus where only a short drive sat in the way of boarding Marella Discovery.

In the next post of this travelogue series covering our cruise through the Suez Canal to Jordan I’ll cover our first day on the ship, a quick walk around it while still docked in Naples harbour, and the food and drink we forced ourselves to taste-test.

Deluxe Balcony Cabin 7072

First stop was to our cabin. We’d booked a Deluxe Balcony grade of cabin but hadn’t selected a specific room as there was an additional charge to do so and with this being our first cruise with Marella we didn’t have anything against which to decide where the best room might be.

I’m going to interrupt my own account of our first day aboard Discovery now with a quick aside to mention some of the booking differences between what we’re more used to with Princess and P&O, and what the TUI/Marella experience is like. With Princess, from our third cruise onwards when we finally found our feet with this whole cruising thing, we’ve always selected the room we want to be in. During the booking process you’re simply asked whether you’d like to pick a room or not and we choose to. We also never opt for an upgrade because you’re really gambling with other people’s ideas of “better” if you do that. With P&O they offer two price points for booking, those being the Select price where you choose your room and get a few perks or the Saver price where you’re allocated a room based on what’s available. We always choose Select. A Marella cruise booking is a little like defaulting you into the Saver option offered by P&O. Generally, everyone pays the same price for the type of room they’re in but if you want to throw some more cash their way then they’ll let you have first pick of the rooms rather than wait for the allocation system to slot you in somewhere. Now that we’ve completed a cruise with Marella we might well do that next time but we had no problems with the room we ended up with.

Deluxe Balcony Cabin 7072 is roughly at midship on the port side of the vessel. Our preference when cruising is forward and starboard but this turned out to be a decent location as it was close to the elevators and staircases which meant getting from our room to the buffet area for breakfast took around 30 seconds. If eating is important to you then you could do a lot worse than pick this room or ones in the vicinity.

The room was close in layout to a Princess mini-suite in that it had a seating area (which didn’t get a lot of use from us to be honest) but was otherwise mostly what we’ve come to expect from cabins on ships. I didn’t take very many photos because you can find plenty of them online and who am I to deprive those people of potential web traffic!? The only things I’d note about this room are:

• The wardrobe doors will kill you if they get a chance. The bi-fold arrangement caught our fingers half a dozen times and fellow cruise bloggers who you’ll be hearing about quite a lot during this Journey to Jordan travelogue set, Paul and Carole, have an even more brutal tale of assault from this piece of furniture that they might be willing to share.
• If you’re a fan of sitting on the toilet and staring at the toilet roll just out of reach then you are in for a treat on Marella Discovery. I can picture the person in charge of designing the cabin turning to her colleague and saying “So, how long are your arms? Okay, thanks. I’ll just add on another thirty centimetres then.”
• Showering was a two-person job half the time. No, not for the sexy reasons you’re thinking of. One person needed to be on guard to stop the bathroom from flooding which it did no matter how careful the person under the water was trying to be. I’d like to think that our steward was used to always picking up one absolutely drenched-through towel every evening because it was a known problem and didn’t think we were the sort of weirdos who wrapped ourselves in one when washing but we’ll never know for sure.

For the record, we’re a completely different sort of weirdos.

We’d been to the port of Naples once before, that being a stop during our Royal Princess cruise back in 2016 (there are a couple of posts here: Royal Princess – Italy) and so I’d been excited to see the Casa Del Portuale building again that I knew to be there. However, it transpired that on that previous cruise we’d been docked in the more industrial area of the port whereas Marella Discovery was alongside at the dedicated cruise terminal some way from it. On the one hand a shame because it’s a gorgeous piece of brutal architecture but on the other hand a better chance to appreciate Naples as being a little more attractive than it had seemed on that first visit. The views were more varied and I was very pleased to be able to see Mount Vesuvius from our balcony with other points of interest being a San Giorgio-class amphibious transport dock ship, San Giusto, and a horse’s arse.

Marella Discovery Atrium

To the hub of the cruise ship next, the atrium. This was a very bright, very open area, with plenty of natural light coming down and from alongside. We haven’t cruised with Royal Caribbean before (their family-friendly reputation is us-hostile so they’ve never been in the reckoning, although we have spotted some Asian itineraries they do that have started to worm their way into our travel-planning thoughts) but if you have then the Discovery will be pretty familiar to you as the ship is a Vision-class vessel and formerly the Splendour of the Seas. We were very impressed by the atrium area although as the cruise went on we started to find some issues with a lack of seating space in the evening and the final set of steps leading down to the ground floor were so smooth and reflective it felt like we were risking life and limb every time we descended them.

It was around the atrium that we upgraded to the Premium Drinks Package and that’s worth mentioning. If you cruise with Marella then the basic drinks plus gratuities are included in the price. That’s already a great deal because unlike certain other lines I could mention with a basic drinks package (cough, Celebrity, cough!) the basic drinks package for Marella covers a huge range of what’s available on board and what most normal people would like to actually drink. Premium drinks can be bought but there’s a small surcharge (very small) unless you want to upgrade the package. And here’s where Marella excels again: it’s £50 per person per week. That’s a tiny fraction over £7 a day to be able to drink anything, including the speciality coffees. For us this was an easy decision to make when you compare similar pricing on other lines. A feature of drinking to be aware of is that the drinks package only applies between 10:00 and 02:00 for some unfathomable reason. If you want a drink outside those times then you will pay extra.

Anyway, drinks package upgraded we promptly went and ordered some Bellinis and were charged for them because the upgrade hadn’t gone through the computer system quickly enough. Our waitress apologised and let us know we could talk to reception and get the charge removed but we couldn’t be bothered. We’re not the sort to quibble over a few quid here and there. We’re the sort who then get another drink immediately afterwards. Oh, and we loved the slanted glasses.

The Shops And The Pub

It doesn’t feel right to turn to your other half and say “Let’s go check out the shops and the pub” when you’re on a cruise ship but that’s what happened next. Of course, it was still early so the pub bar hadn’t opened and as you possibly already know, no shops open while a ship is in port because all the staff are ashore laughing maniacally at the low prices on land so this wander through these two areas of the ship was rather perfunctory.

The boutique shops were exactly what you’d expect to find on a cruise ship: some cruise line souvenirs, basic clothing, snacks, perfumes, designer bags, that sort of thing.

The Squid and Anchor pub was not exactly what you’d call a traditional-looking pub considering this was a British cruise line. Its name was arguably quite misleading in that it was more a general entertainments lounge than anything else. I think for the name I’d have liked some more features in line with a pub and perhaps more than just the squid and anchor motif on chairs and menus to bring that theme in more. However, it was a mostly fine venue with the only thing to consider if attending something where the screen at the front is in use being that some seats had very obstructed views thanks to the pillars.

Marella Discovery Speciality Dining Restaurants

Our initial exploration of Marella Discovery next brought us to the very top of the ship, deck eleven directly over the atrium. This was the location of Bar Eleven, the ship’s late night drinking and dancing venue and somewhere we knew we’d end up most if not all nights on this cruise. That’s the kind of people we are.

Just off from Bar Eleven were the two speciality dining restaurants Surf and Turf (no prizes for guessing what sort of food that specialises in) and Kora La (a general Asian restaurant). Prior to embarking on this cruise we’d decided we would be trying all the dining options anyway but it was good to see how the rooms were set up just to be certain. They both met with our approval, especially the views afforded by Kora La, so the next time we passed the self-assistance machines off the atrium we used our cruise card and booked dinner in each of them for the following two nights.

Miniature Golf, Rock Climbing, And Swimming Pools

Out onto the top deck of Marella Discovery next, the location of most of the photos you’ll see from cruise ships because this is where all the daytime fun happens. We’re not fun people – we’ve been called intimidating and irritating in roughly equal measures but fun doesn’t factor into most people’s reckoning – but we don’t begrudge others having some of it on occasion.

Heading aft brought us some more pleasing views of Naples, including those from the ship’s port side where coast guard and naval vessels were tied up. This was late afternoon, on the cusp of evening starting, and the sun was sinking in the early November sky bringing a cool dusk with it. The back of the ship on the top deck is where you’ll find a couple of the sporting activities you can enjoy. A miniature golf course decorated with boulders is the first thing you’ll come across. Behind that is the rock climbing wall, an activity I’d never tried before but which I told my wife prior to the cruise I was going to have a go at while at sea because it felt like the sort of random experience to boast about that we quite enjoy. Sadly, I didn’t make it mostly thanks to forgetfulness on my part but also partly because the time when you can climb is limited by appropriate staff being around, and on the one day when I did remember and when there were staff around I was so hot from just standing by the wall in direct sunlight that the thought of strapping myself into a harness and suffering the exertion of climbing as well just sweated itself out of my body.

I must confess to really liking the TUI logo on the ship’s funnel and also liking the way it was lit up. Incidentally, if you’re wondering about whether the ship is a TUI ship or a Thomson ship or a Marella ship then let me try to explain. TUI are the parent group who operate German and English hotels, flight operations, and cruise lines. Thomson were part of it but were rebranded to be TUI UK. The English cruise line was then rebranded as Marella while the German line are still technically TUI Cruises but everyone knows them as the Mein Schiff ships because they’re all called that with numbering after them (e.g. Mein Schiff 1, Mein Schiff 2, etc.), the reason for that being that German names for beautiful concepts such as discovery and exploration and jewels and glamour all run to around one hundred and twenty letters in length, are unpronounceable, and cost a fortune to paint onto hulls.

The main swimming pool area was just forward of midships on Discovery’s top deck and it looked incredibly pretty and felt very serene in the cool and quiet of the darkening evening. This would contrast markedly with a typical sea day on the ship when the entire area more closely resembled one of those Where’s Wally? drawings with barely a metre of deck space able to be seen amongst the throng of recliners and bodies rammed around the water’s edge.

Continuing our tour of the top deck we reached the front which held a small, slightly sheltered spot for lounging in the sun with a maritime/navigational sculpture and a great view ahead of the ship. In Naples this meant gazing across the water to Vesuvius once more. I do like a volcano.

Marella Discovery has an indoor swimming pool as well, located in a spot named The Glass House. Not to be confused with the place with the same name on P&O ships, this was a very nice spot too which, with hindsight, we should have taken more advantage of. I guess there will have to be a next time to address this shortcoming. What suffering. Oh no. How will we cope. Et. Cetera.

Food And Drink On Marella Discovery

Sailaway wouldn’t be until 23:00, the muster drill would be a little before that, and it had been a long day for us with not much to eat at this point so we decided on an earlyish dinner with the chance to try a few drinks after that in the lounges and bars that would be open by this point. Or even before that. We grabbed a pre-dinner drink in the atrium because, well, because we could.

After comparing menus of the two sections of the main dining room we selected the Italian option of Gallery 47 and the food would be good enough and more to our liking than that in the main section throughout this cruise.

Antipasti and bread was followed by our starter choices of Bruschetta for me and Calamari for my wife, fairly standard options for us in Italian restaurants in general. Our meal was accompanied by more glasses of red wine than I can remember, a benefit of those all inclusive drinks packages.

Saltimbocca Alla Romana for me and the unfortunately-named Stinco Di Maiale for my wife made up our main courses.

I finished with A Trio Of Tiramisu while Lemon Meringue Tart was the dessert across the table from me, and we both washed it down with a whiskey.

Waiter service during dinner was fantastic but let’s be clear: the food wasn’t spectacular. Then again, we weren’t expecting spectacular. The food was very good, though, and if you’ve nothing super-fancy to compare it to then you won’t be disappointed. We did have fancy things to compare it to and we still weren’t disappointed because we knew what sort of cruise line Marella were and where their budget sat in what they would provide. We were very satisfied throughout the cruise.

There was still quite some time at the conclusion of our meal before we’d need to gather for the muster and the pub was open at this point so deciding what to do next was fairly easy. Also, the drinks volume was mounting up by this point and you don’t want to stop when that happens or you’ll get a headache. We were only thinking of our health and not wanting to colour our perception of time aboard Discovery with pain. So, to the Squid and Anchor once again it was!

The drinks menu shows you just what’s included with the drinks package aboard Marella Discovery as well as the supplement you’d need to pay if you don’t upgrade your package. If you think you’d spend more than £7 a day then upgrade. I think it would be fair to say that we got our money’s worth on this cruise.

The muster drill took place on the promenade deck of the ship. I’m not sure quite how much of it people were paying attention to on the back of most of the day drinking (because we weren’t the only ones, that’s for certain) and I wouldn’t want to do it in driving wind and rain but it was quite pleasant in the Italian night air and thankfully short.

As Marella Discovery left Naples we made our way to Bar Eleven. You can order from a standard shipwide menu or one specifically for the venue with the special menu including some premium infusion and smokey cocktails. Both sorts of drinks menus are below.

Being the children that we are we had to try some of the special cocktails. The theatre with the presentation and pouring of the drinks is worth the cost alone.

We had a few more drinks, we listened to the music, we might even have danced at one point. Only one thing is very clear and that’s that we both felt horribly and wonderfully hungover when we woke up the following morning. Even had we been stone cold sober we both agree that there was nothing but very good first impressions of the ship and especially its staff and crew.

In the next post in this Marella Discovery travelogue series we’ll see some more of the ship, see what the first of many sea days is like, touch things from outer space (ooh!), and have our first close encounter with some fellow bloggers.

The sea view from our balcony upon waking was lovely because it was a view of the sea and that’s one of the big draws of travelling by cruise ship. With us being on the port side of the vessel and with it heading roughly south this meant we had the sun in the morning. An unbroken view of the Mediterranean wasn’t possible, though, as we were hugging the coastline of Italy and were in the process of beginning the cruise through the Strait of Messina. This is the narrow stretch of water separating Italy from Sicily and has been the subject of proposed plans to build a bridge over it on several occasions in the past.

Breakfast was taken out by the pool area after we’d selected what we wanted in the buffet. For my wife this was a chance to do a little happy dance because she’d found hash browns. She likes hash browns. I like hash browns too but not to her level. I don’t think anyone likes them to her level.

The availability of hash browns has been a bone of contention on previous Princess cruises because, unlike Marella where the food we were able to select for breakfast barely changed at all throughout the trip (which was a good thing if you like hash browns like a certain someone I’ve just mentioned), Princess tend to vary dishes from day-to-day while keeping some staple items; those staple items typically have not included hash browns which could be overlooked if other food items such as curried fishy rice then are.

“Who the hell is eating curried fishy rice in the morning, every morning? What deviants are this cruise line catering for? Nobody eats curried fishy rice in the morning. They shouldn’t even be eating them at any other time either. They had hash browns yesterday. I bet we don’t even see them again on this cruise. Did they only load one packet of hash browns at the dock? I knew I should have taken the whole tray and just brought them back today to be reheated. We should write to the general manager and complain.”

We’ve never complained and with Marella we didn’t have to.

While my wife was smiling serenely and savouring her hash browns I spotted a couple of familiar faces from the internet emerging from the buffet.

I’ve just seen Paul and Carole over there.

Mmm.

I think I’ll pop over and introduce myself.

Mmm.

You want to stay here and enjoy your hash browns?

Mmm.

I could literally be saying anything right now.

Mmm.

What word repeated four times comprises the chorus and makes up the title for a 1993 hit by Canadian group Crash Test Dummies?

Mmm.

And so I walked over. After introducing myself and receiving a look in their eyes that indicated they were clearly wondering if I’d appeared beside the juice machine just in order to mug them and trying to calculate the shortest route for help I added Marie’s name to the mix and broke the spell of fear.

We spoke for about ten minutes before parting as Paul was quite keen to get a seat to watch the rugby world cup final. It was rugby union or the slower and duller type of rugby if you’re not sure which one that is so we decided to give it a pass. I also had to play rugby union at school and that’s the sort of thing that leaves a mark on you. We had the strangest feeling we’d probably bump into Paul and Carole again. You’ll have to stay tuned to this cruise travelogue series to see if we do.

Or I could just tell you now. We do.

We went for another wander around the ship and stumbled upon one venue we’d missed the day before in Naples, the Broadway Show Lounge, Marella Discovery’s theatre. It was obviously a lot smaller than theatres we’ve seen on other ships but understandably so. We rarely watch shows on cruises anyway.

Out onto the promenade deck we then saw the pilot boat approaching from the mainland to pick up the pilot at the conclusion of Discovery’s transit through the strait.

The afternoon was spent trying to get into the swing of relaxing. We’d chosen this Marella Discovery cruise for a number of reasons, with the chances to sail through the Suez Canal and visit Petra in Jordan being the main ones along with experiencing a new cruise line and ship, but we’d also been drawn by the consecutive number of days aboard without disembarking. It’s true that we prefer a mix of port days and sea days on a cruise with more port days giving the opportunity to see and learn new things but in 2021 we’re taking a cruise from Japan to Alaska which will mean an entire week crossing the Pacific – over twice the length of the most sea days in a row we’d had to this point – so we looked at this Marella cruise as giving us a dry run (wet run?) for that. You’ve got to ease yourself into these things.

Getting into the swing of relaxing for us means me grabbing a book, my wife grabbing her Kindle, the pair of us grabbing seats and attracting the eye of a bar steward, and if there is a quiz going on somewhere then grabbing the chance to test our brains against our fellow cruisers. We’re also occasionally sensible so we often have a light bite to eat at lunchtime and that’s how we discovered that the Snack Shack on the pool deck serves chips with the most succulent, lightly battered pieces of fish. The brightly-decorated Live Room, another venue we’d overlooked on the first day’s exploration of Discovery, had some signature cocktails served in mason jars. To be brutally honest we didn’t find one we truly liked as the volume of liquid made the drinks taste quite watery but it was nice to see some innovation there.

We watched a little bit more of the Italian landscape across the sea from our balcony in the afternoon and realised we could also see one of the colourful alpaca sculptures that Marella are famous for if we leaned out a little.

Our balcony was a pretty reasonable size although the chairs were disappointingly basic. Sitting upright is the only option. We’re also not fans of obscured glass partitions between balconies, much preferring a solid sheet of metal that prevents you from being distracted by movement or the presence of neighbours adjacent to you when you’re reading or relaxing. And not because it reduces opportunities to stand out in the nude on the balcony. What sort of pervert do you think I am? I’m just saying that if the wind is in the wrong direction then it could cause your robe to come undone and accidental windmilling might occur. I’m not saying that has happened or that that’s a ready excuse to cover such an eventuality. This is just basic risk assessment here.

Marella have a far more relaxed attitude to dress codes than other cruise lines with whom we’ve sailed. Their formal night isn’t even called a formal night – dress to impress! – and the guidelines encourage a little more effort but probably only to the level of smart casual with other ships. What you’ll find, however, is that some people will treat it like a proper formal night anyway and the good thing on Marella is that casual and formal intermix and nobody cares one way or the other.

This first night at sea was one of these dress-up-if-you-want nights so after hanging around the atrium area long enough in the late afternoon/early evening to spot a couple of tuxedo-wearing men wandering around with their swish dress-sporting partners we decided we’d go the full formal route too, showered, flooded the bathroom again, then got into the fanciest gear we’d brought with us on the cruise. As I stepped out of our room another couple were emerging from theirs down the corridor, the gentleman also decorated in this season’s sleekest penguin look. “Oh, thank God!” he said loudly. “I thought I’d be the only one.”

In fact, we were quite impressed with just how many really did make an effort to get dressed up. We made our way to the atrium initially to do a little bit of people-watching, enjoy the background music, and have a little bit of fizz to start the evening.

Then we headed up to Bar Eleven because we had speciality dining booked in one of the spots just off it. There was still some time before our sitting so we ordered some pre-dinner drinks. With this being a sort-of-formal night and with us dressed up and with this being something of a tradition for us on cruises, I ordered a vodka martini. I was not expecting this to present a problem but it turned out that vodka martinis were not on the menu. There then followed a discussion between the steward and barman as to how to overcome this and eventually both of them came across with the drinks we’d ordered.

Okay, we have worked out a way to put it onto the system. Please don’t tell anyone you’ve had this drink, though.

Mum’s the word. I’ll only write about it on my website. That’s very nearly the same thing as not telling anyone at all.

Oh! I’ve just realised why you want a vodka martini! James Bond!

She wasn’t wrong.

And so to the first of our Marella Discovery speciality dining nights: the Surf & Turf Steakhouse.

We were seated and attended to throughout the night by Siegfried. We obviously made an impression because we were singled out for special attention throughout the rest of the cruise by him, our name being used in the wine-tasting he ran later in the week, him making sure to go out of his way and say hello whenever he spotted us around the ship, that sort of thing; that sort of service is something we’ve come to expect on Princess, something we’ve never had on any other ship, and something we weren’t anticipating with Marella. It was great.

The reason we made an impression might have been because we appeared to be practically the only people in the restaurant who bought a bottle of wine to go with their meal rather than simply take advantage of the inclusive drinks packages and individual glasses. The bottle price was ridiculously good, easily under half what you’d pay on Princess or Celebrity. I also had a small chat with Siegfried about the wine – “Yes, we’re after something heavy, lots of fruit flavours. Oh dear God, no, not French! Don’t start me on telling you all the things that are wrong with French wine. This one please.” – and that might have stuck in his memory too.

We were happy to see flavoured salts making an appearance with the arrival of bread and our bottle. It’s surprising just what a difference those salts make. We keep saying we should order some flavoured salts to keep at home but we keep saying a lot of things we’re probably never going to get around to.

No surprises with our selection of starters; my wife likes seafood and I most certainly do not so she went for the Crayfish and Prawn Cocktail while my choice was the Beef Carpaccio. We both had no complaints at all about these.

Side dishes of creamed spinach (for me), mushrooms (for my wife), and steak fries (for both us) accompanied our main course. We both went for the 8oz Angus Fillet Steak. Unfortunately, this wasn’t quite as rare as we like; not enough to send them back because we’re not those sorts of diners but they were definitely lacking the sort of juice we want to see when we cut into a steak. The meat was a little drier than we expected and had an odd, almost papery texture to it. I can’t fault the taste and with the sauce and side dishes it was all still quite delicious but a disappointment nonetheless.

Dessert was lovely, though, and light enough to not leave us feeling bloated. We also had to have some after dinner drinks and I’m a sucker for a Cardenal Mendoza when I hit fancy restaurants at home so it was nice to see its availability on board the ship too.

Our summing-up review of the Surf & Turf restaurant on Marella Discovery would be that the location was good, the decor was very attractive (just the right amount of dark for some fine dining), and the service was superb. When comparing it to other similar speciality dining offerings on other cruise lines we’d have to say that the additional cost was a little higher than normal, more noticeable in light of the not-quite-right steaks we had, but the wine bottle prices – and we always buy a bottle of wine when we’re having a fancy meal – more than offset that cost. We would definitely dine at the Surf & Turf again because every time is slightly different and we might have an absolute perfect meal.

Following our meal we caught a little bit of Jayson Keeler belting out some operatic tunes in the atrium.

The rest of the night included a little bit more drinking, sitting in on but not competing in a quiz, and a short visit to Bar Eleven to listen to the music and watch people strut their stuff on the dance floor.

In the next post in this Marella Discovery cruise travelogue series there’s another sea day to survive and another speciality dining experience in the evening at the Asian-style restaurant on the ship. We also get to touch a piece of another world! I know!

There’s a horrible rumour that we only ever drink alcohol (and lots of it) when we’re on ships on account of the number of pictures of cocktails and beers that decorate these descriptions of sea days and port days on cruises. Let me be clear: that’s only mostly true. We generally don’t have something alcoholic until the afternoon and even reject those offers of free glasses of fizz or light cocktails that are sometimes used to entice passengers into seminars and shops for promotions. As supporting evidence here are the first two drinks we had in the morning aboard Discovery: something hot and a mocktail. These were taken after breakfast in a couple of locations on the ship so that we could give our room steward time to clean our cabin.

We actually don’t usually drink coffee on ships either but our drinks package upgrade to premium included speciality teas and coffees in the dedicated café area off the atrium and it seemed sensible to take advantage of it. While we were sitting there – me with my filter coffee, my wife with her hot chocolate – there was a sudden presence at our table. It was the waiter from the previous night’s dining in the Surf & Turf restaurant.

Mr H, Mrs H! Good morning! You like wine, I’m hosting a wine-tasting, do you want to sign up?

Siegfried, we’d love to.

That’s a very abbreviated version of the discussion. There was friendly small talk there, there were several demonstrations that he’d remembered our names, but it was ultimately a sales pitch for the wine-tasting coming up the following day on the cruise and he correctly suspected we’d be up for it. Sure, we’ve never really had what we’d call an excellent wine-tasting experience on any ship before but you live in hope and this was our first time cruising with Marella; we were always going to say yes.

The morning was spent doing very little other than relaxing in the company of our books and those few soft drinks but we had more of a plan for the afternoon. The sun had burnt off most of the cloud as midday approached so it was nice to take advantage of our balcony once the distractions of late morning entertainment became too much in the public spaces aboard Discovery.

That plan for the afternoon involved two activities: attending a guest lecture and giving the afternoon tea a try. Before we set off to the lecture I decided to snap a few photos of the room and bathroom much to my wife’s confusion.

Didn’t you say you weren’t going to take photos of the cabin?

I might have said something like that. Shift over there or you’ll be in the reflection.

Didn’t you say that if people wanted to see photos of the cabins aboard Marella Discovery that there were loads of examples on the web and you didn’t want to clutter up the site with more?

That sounds like the sort of thing I’d say but I can neither confirm nor deny that those were my words. Do you want to stand behind me?

Didn’t you say that taking photos of the bathroom was the sort of thing a serial killer with a fixation on moulded plastic would do?

I’m pretty sure you’re making that up and it’s not going to work; I’m still taking the shot. Ooh! Look at the moulded plastic!

The Squid & Anchor was the venue hosting the lecture we were interested in. We initially sat off to one side and at the back of the room until we realised there was no clear view to the screen showing images accompanying the talk. A relocation to a spot – gasp! – near other people solved that. The talk was by a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, John Maclean, and was titled A Journey Through The Solar System. We’ve always had an interest in science and while we’re not avid attendees of lectures on cruise ships, those that we have made an effort to watch have tended towards the scientific.

The talk would perhaps have worked a little better on a ship that wasn’t adults only, with elements that might have been more of interest to children, and there was a strange HAL-from-2001 gimmick that played a part early on in the talk then vanished to never make an appearance again. Thankfully. We didn’t learn anything we hadn’t known before BUT there’s a very good reason to recommend this talk if you’re on a ship and John is the guest lecturer. At the conclusion we were told that if we wanted we could gather around the stage area where there were a few extraterrestrial objects we could see and touch. We’ve touched meteorites before but never held them and felt the weight; you could really sense the density of the mass of metals and wonder how John managed to get them through security at the airport. But most interesting was the fragment of rock brought back from the Moon and a piece of Mars recovered from a meteorite that had found its way to Earth after being ejected following an impact on our neighbouring planet. Have you held bits of the Moon and Mars? Are you jealous that we have? Excellent stuff.

After the talk and the excitement of having bits of the solar system in the palms of our hands we made our way to the buffet area where Marella had set up for afternoon tea. We typically try to make one afternoon tea on a cruise and to date would say that P&O do this better than Princess (it’s that British versus American thing). Marella’s idea of afternoon tea is more in keeping with their philosophy of “Yeah, it’s included, but it’ll be pretty basic and don’t expect us to make a big deal of it” and that’s absolutely fine. You’d have to be a special kind of crazy to expect gloved waiters and silver tongs delivering sandwiches, small bites, biscuits, and cakes at your table for the low price of a Marella cruise. Grab your plate, pick what you want, find a table and eat. The staff circling the tables pour as much tea as you want. It was all perfectly pleasant.

Listening in on quizzes without participating (a good thing as we would have done abysmally), reading our books, and making sure we were hydrated filled up the rest of the afternoon and early evening of this second sea day. It’s very important to stay hydrated.

From drinking to eating. There’s no reason at all to eat the same food every single night on a cruise. We’d dined in the Italian area of the main dining room on the first night, mostly enjoyed the steakhouse experience on the second, and for this third day on Discovery we had picked a speciality package for the second night in a row with a visit to Kora La. As with the Surf & Turf, this was located adjacent to Bar Eleven and as you might be able to determine from its name Kora La specialised in food with Asian influences. There was no one specific country or region represented with the meals fusing elements of China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and India.

It’s worth mentioning that my wife and I aren’t fans of hot, spicy food. We enjoy the smells of Asian cooking and suspect that there’s a lot of interesting flavours hiding in the sauces but we’ve long suspected that this region of the world’s cooking has evolved along these lines:

This is quite nice. Although, I wonder…

What? You’ve got that look. You’re thinking of a way to make this food better, aren’t you?

Well… Okay, so what if while you’re eating you sweat profusely from every pore on your face?

Ooh! Ooh, I like that! That’s probably healthy in some way I’m not understanding. Anything else?

I’ve sometimes become aware of my lips when I’m eating and it can be a distraction so if we could also render it impossible to feel your lips during the meal and for some time afterwards…

Of course! Food appreciation will be so much higher when you shut off your brain’s capacity to process information from unnecessary body parts! Genius!

I was wondering about shooting pains in the tip of your tongue. Like someone holding exposed wires sending electric shocks to the tastebuds at the end making them unable to appreciate any taste.

That makes sense when you think about it. Because not everyone likes every food but if you can remove the ability to taste any of it you can enjoy the vitamins and other goodness without flavours becoming an obstacle.

And I don’t know whether you actually taste food as it passes through your oesophagus but if we tweak the recipe so that whatever you eat makes it feel like someone is ramming a white hot, rusty, metal skewer down your throat and scraping the lining we eliminate any chance of that.

You are on fire! Just like anyone else eating this food will feel. That’s some good chef work there. And can I make an observation?

Please do! I’m open to any suggestions on how we can develop food the whole world will enjoy.

I’ve always liked the colour brown.

Man, you are reading my mind! Everything brown. Every shade of brown. I mean, who doesn’t like brown!?

We won’t, however, let preconceptions about something stop us from experiencing it – it’s that scientific slant to our thinking again – and since we knew that if the food was terrible we could still go and eat somewhere else on the ship we sat down at our table with its views out over the pool deck at night with as near open minds as we could dredge up.

We made sure to order the K2 Cooler cocktails because they had sake in them and we both looked at each other and sighed “Ahh, sake” at the same time, remembering our cruise of almost exactly a year before on Diamond Princess and the sea day with sake (and, coincidentally, another lecture with a science twist; spooky!) Bread and dipping sauces for an amuse-bouche prawn-based appetiser was delivered. We quickly surmised that only one of the sauces didn’t hurt us.

I correctly guessed that my wife would go for the Crispy Pork Belly as her starter course in Kora La. The fear of the accompanying Korean BBQ sauce didn’t put her off and she liked the flavours and texture. The Vegetable Samosas I chose were very nice too, and suitably cool thanks to the cucumber and mint sauce. Both dishes were presented very prettily on banana leaves.

We decided we’d both take a risk and pick a curry for the main course. There was a modicum of method in our madness in that we’ve been talking about trying the Indian speciality dining on P&O cruises for a long time (and if we can ever book a table we still intend to) so we want to give ourselves the best chance of coming to terms with plates of brown agony. Moreover, the curries could be cooked to order and the level of spiciness requested which meant we were able to say “How mild can your chef make this? Excellent. I’d like it milder than that then please.”

Side dishes of rice and vegetables appeared along with Chicken Kashmiri for my wife and Lamb Madras for me. We both agreed that my choice was tastier as my wife discovered she doesn’t like the taste of coriander and her dish was overpowered by the flavour. We reached the ends of our curry dishes with tingling lips but overall a good job from the chef at Kora La.

Those tingling lips from the meal needed soothing so we asked for another cocktail each while we perused the dessert menu. In a surprise to literally nobody who’s read any of these dining diaries on this site before my wife went straight for the restaurant’s take on crème brûlée, the Pandam Cream. The lure of chocolate and matcha flavours sent me scurrying towards the Green Tea Fondant. They were both lovely.

We’d had some slight trepidation in the lead-up to the meal at Kora La on Discovery but it was a very enjoyable speciality dining experience with the big plus points being the location with its views, the presentation of the courses, and the very different courses from what we’d usually pick. The service was perfectly acceptable though not a patch on the night before, but we thought that for the cover charge Kora La was arguably better value than Surf & Turf overall. We’d have no qualms with booking into Kora La on a subsequent Marella cruise.

As we were next to Bar Eleven it would have been rude not to grab a drink or two to finish off the evening.

Upon returning to our room we found that our steward had prepared a towel animal for our amusement. I think this is the first towel animal we’ve ever had on a cruise. We argued over whether it was supposed to be a dog or a superhero pig that delivered chocolates to those in need.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series aboard Marella Discovery I’ll cover the final day on the Mediterranean Sea before we hit the Suez Canal. It turns out to be a day of wine-drinking. Lots and lots of wine. So very much wine. Ridiculous amounts of wine. It wasn’t our fault. We were corrupted by other cruise bloggers.

But the day did not start with wine because despite all the things you may have read on the insides of toilet doors across the world we’re not quite that bad just yet. Our upgraded drinks package on Marella Discovery meant we could follow up breakfast in the buffet with a premium coffee (or chocolate for my wife) around the atrium.

It was in this location the day before – you remember that, because you read about it here: Solar System At Sea And Dining In The Kora La Restaurant – that we’d signed up for wine-tasting and that was the sole plan for this day’s events with the expectation for the rest of another sea day on the Mediterranean being one spent in the company of our books and the odd drink or two. The friendly person you see waving in the short tilt video (temporarily removed) in the ship’s atrium below is Siegfried, the member of staff who’d signed us up for the wine-tasting and who’d been in charge of wine when we’d dined at the steakhouse a couple of evenings earlier.

We had lunch in the Snack Shack again because those fish pieces are just divine. I’m not sure that I ever took a photo of them because I was too busy eating them. We also bumped into fellow cruise bloggers Paul and Carole again where we all caught up with what we’d been doing – getting used to all that relaxing for the main part – plus any plans. They’d been taking part in quizzes and had had some success so we agreed that after our wine-tasting we might look out for them and join in.

We spent a short period back in our room enjoying the balcony and the sea air and sounds. This really is why we get balcony cabins. It’s your own space to watch and experience the world passing by, a place to sometimes feel incredibly small on a blue seascape with nothing else visible on the horizon, a place to feel invigorated without the fear that someone with back hair sporting its own ecosystem and their belly hanging over their Speedos will wander into your eyeline and spoil the moment. We will always find time to get out onto our balcony every day without fail, whether that’s to feel insignificant on the ocean’s surface or insignificant under the universe’s twinkling starlight or to let the white noise of the waves and spray and wind do everything to relax you that a spa treatment will but for far less money. But not to stand out there nude and wink suggestively at your partner still in the room because that just doesn’t work.

We headed into the upper level of the dining room where the wine-tasting took place, took our seats, and waited for wine to be poured. Siegfried then proceeded to take us through all the things you expect from a wine-tasting: how to swirl the glass, how to guess the strength of the wine, how to sniff the aromas, how to look puzzled when someone says something tastes like strawberries and leather when it clearly doesn’t, how to annoy the Chardonnay drinker at your table by remarking how all Chardonnay smells like rotting ham, etc. There were some different aspects, though, with some details spent on soil types and labelling, both of which then involved Siegfried mentioning me numerous times to all who were gathered. “Suppose Mr H, here, has set up his vineyards on acidic soil” and “Now, if Mr H had his winery in France then it might read Domaine de Monsieur H along the top” and “The sorts of vintage wine would depend on what sort of business Mr H was running” and so on. That’s what you get for being memorable.

We had a nice surprise waiting for us when we joined up with Paul and Carole for the quiz; their prize from a previous quiz and something that they had already obtained on an earlier cruise but never used: Marella Reusable Metal Straws! Ecological and practical! Well, we couldn’t refuse.

Some joint quizzing took place and we got close… but not close enough. This quizzing was accompanied by plenty of chatting and some more drinking. Paul is a Peroni person. Carole is a Sauvignon Blanc slurper. We like the heavier reds so Cabernet Sauvignon ended up in our glasses.

As you probably know already, drinks are included on Marella so bottles and glasses were never empty for long before being topped up by a friendly steward passing by. We kept on drinking and chatting. And drinking and chatting. There was another quiz in there somewhere but the drinking and chatting took place a lot. Lots of drinking and chatting. Oh, and Carole spinning around in her chair (video temporarily removed).

There came a point in the evening where we realised around six hours of drinking and chatting and occasional spinning had occurred on the back of not very much food at all. Our fellow bloggers wanted to watch a show; we wanted to get something to soak up the alcohol; we went our separate ways.

We didn’t make it to any food-dispensing location because we foolishly got some fresh air first which was enough to more-or-less finish my wife off. Fresh air is a dangerous thing when you’ve been drinking inside for a long time. I just about got her back to the room without demolishing half the corridor walls on the way and we collapsed into oblivion. You can see whether Paul and Carole had more post-drinking success than us by watching their recollection of the day’s events on the ship on their video channel.

In the next part of this Marella Discovery travelogue series we’ll be transitting the Suez Canal. Expect fog. Expect flies.

We were roused from our comatose states by a low, rumbling sound we hear quite often at home. No, it’s not that! How could you think that!? Living near a busy port we are very familiar with fog horns and blinked ourselves to something resembling awake to stumble across to the balcony and throw open the curtains. Our first view of the Suez Canal was an unexpected one.

The thick fog that lay draped across what we assumed was land somewhere out there also enveloped the ship in a translucent pillow muffling sight and sound, the former quite fortunate as we’d not bothered to put any clothes on before seeing what the outside world looked like from our balcony. I’m not sure what the Egyptian take on public nudity is and I hope I never find out.

I’ve only once before been in fog thicker and that was terrifying because I was driving at night on a country road at the time when it rose up out of a dip in the road and suddenly smothered my car. I resorted to using the rough edge of the road as it gradually became the dirt and gravel alongside to guide the car in what I hoped was the right direction. Lights were useless, merely serving to turn what would have been a dark grey, formless void into a bright white, formless void and if I’d been confident enough to stop the car and leave the hazards on with some hope that nothing would drive into me in the void and if I’d not feared that something might snatch me out of the void if I left the car (hey, it happens more often than you realise) then I’d have done it. As it was, at speeds sometimes approaching three miles per hour I inched my car through the dense bank of road cloud with knuckles so tight around the steering wheel they matched the colour of the fog outside until the eerie emanations became wispier and the road ahead became more visible. I turned left at a junction I’d been hoping I hadn’t missed in the fog and almost drove into a dog that was standing in the middle of the road. The countryside is really overrated and should be avoided after dark.

I don’t think the captain of Marella Discovery had any such worries on this particular day, not least because it’s not really his ship so if he hits a dog then the company can sort out the insurance claim. You can see the fogginess of the Suez Canal from both our balcony and the top deck in the video below (temporarily removed) and you can see more highlights of the passage through to the Great Bitter Lake too by which time you’ll notice that the fog has become mist and the mist has become haze and the haze has become nothing at all.

After we’d regained our senses and thrown some clothes on, cleaned teeth, and exchanged very poor memories of the evening before, we decided to spend a little time out on our balcony again before heading up for breakfast. It’s not that we weren’t hungry because we hadn’t actually had any food for close to twenty hours but rather that the fog was showing signs of thinning out already. This wouldn’t turn out to be true; as every fog expert knows, fog is not uniformly thick, instead being formed from ethereal meat within its structure bound together by veils of misty tendons.

As our ship slid into a more transparent patch of water vapour we would see the canal banks on the eastern side of Discovery backlit by the sun over the Egyptian desert landscape. That landscape that for all we knew at the time might stretch on into Asia was actually just between half and one kilometre deep and formed the central barrier between two canal waterways north of the lake towards which we were heading. If you look at a map of the Suez Canal then you’ll see that it is only a single lane at the southern end, below the Great Bitter Lake, and for a small section at the northern end near Port Said. From above the lake and upwards for nearly half the length of the canal there are two shipping lanes and this arrangement means that ships can enter the canal from the north and south at roughly the same time and pass each other at some point in this great central section where either the waterway is wide enough or where there are two canals dredged.

Our first proper sights of anything in the fog were not far from a smaller lake along the Suez Canal, Lake Timsah, also known as Crocodile Lake. It’s not named that for any wildlife in the region but rather after its eighteenth century English discoverer, Lord Michael Crocodile, fourth duke of Southend-on-Sea. Prove otherwise.

The canal bank we first set eyes upon was near a ferry crossing and the sand was decorated with a few monuments celebrating the work of the Suez Canal workers as well as a large sign proclaiming Welcome To Egypt.

Monuments along the Suez Canal would turn out to be a thing. This area of Egypt was Ismailia and in addition to monuments for the people who’d dug the canal there was one commemorating Egyptian soldiers killed during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The Battle of Ismailia saw outnumbered Egyptian troops with inferior armour and weaponry successfully repulse an Israeli offensive that would have severed logistical lines had it been successful, and the delaying battle lasted long enough for the UN to impose a ceasefire.

The concrete AK-47 Bayonet Monument is my favourite piece of art along the Suez for a number of reasons: firstly, I thought it was Klingon when I initially saw it and until reading up about it for this canal travelogue that’s what I was still going to go with; secondly, it commemorates a brave battle by underdogs and that’s always a good thing; thirdly, the monument was donated by North Korea who’d sided with Egypt during the war and that just tickles the “Well, isn’t that an odd thing!” nodule in my brain.

I don’t think you could ever say that the view of Egypt and the Suez Canal we had from our balcony was beautiful but it had an appeal. It was helped by the November temperature and that residual fog – warm, but not baking – and by the restricted speed through the waterway – almost silent, almost effortlessly gliding over an ice-flat surface rather than cutting through water, with only the gentlest of bow wave ripples pulsing out from the side of the ship giving it all away. We sat and watched the world go by for some time.

A low rumbling sound roused us from our reverie. Not a fog horn this time but stomachs that had processed enough alcohol from the day before and were seeking breakfast. We headed up, ate, then spent some time on the top deck seeing what we could see from a higher vantage point and what there was on the western side of the cruise ship. As it turned out, not so much, as our timing coincided with another dense pocket of fog rolling across the land and cocooning us all.

It was on the top deck that we really noticed something that had only bothered us in a minor way when we’d been on our balcony: flies. Lots and lots of flies. Or possibly just a few making themselves appear like more through clever air manoeuvres, a Diptera tribute to the spirit of the fighters of Ismailia. I’ve never credited flies with having the tactical know-how to pull off a strategic move like that, though, so I’m going to assume there really were simply loads of the little buggers.

From a photographic perspective I really like flies. I’ve never managed to get a very good photo of one but I’ve had some interesting results with macro lenses in the past and their compound eyes and the incredible colours you can see on their bodies and wings through the viewfinder is gorgeous even if the swine move before you can take a shot. From an I’m-just-trying-to-stand-still-without-having-to-swat-my-face-or-slap-my-ear-and-shout-at-that-thing-that-just-flew-into-my-eyelid perspective they’re bastards. We weren’t alone in being bothered by the flies. Swivelling around the deck of Marella Discovery it appeared as if most of the passengers were taking the chance to practice semaphore or a tightly constrained martial art of dubious effectiveness and we didn’t stay too long outside there, instead making for the shelter of our balcony once more.

My wife spent most of this time reading on her Kindle. I had my book and would often get part of the way down a page before standing up to take a photo then return to my seat only to read the same part of the page all over again. My attempts to engage in conversation about the sand alongside and the water in the canal were not overly successful and even the odd appearance of a local fishing from a small boat got barely more than an acknowledging noise from my better half when I’d try to make the encounter sound exciting.

Another fishing boat coming up.

Right.

Three people in this one.

Uh huh.

I wonder if they’re fishing for crocodiles.

Mmhmm.

We just passed Crocodile Lake, you know.

Yeah, you said.

I wonder if the fishermen ever get attacked by crocodiles.

Could happen.

I doubt it. The lake’s named after an explorer called Crocodile actually.

Mmhmm.

One of the Essex Crocodiles.

Yup.

We’ve passed the boat now. Ooh, now that’s interesting!

Mmhmm.

I think I can see another boat coming up.

We’re not religious but we do like to see religious structures when we’re travelling around the world and it wasn’t a huge surprise to spot – we assume – a mosque along the shore of the Suez Canal. It might not have been; it might just be a fashionable form of architecture. This was at the Sarabum crossing point, a place to catch ferries across both lanes of the waterway when ships like ours weren’t passing through. Indeed, we’d no sooner passed it than one ferry pulled away from the landing we could see and headed across the channel.

The sand barrier separating the northbound and southbound vessels from one another had narrowed to under a couple of hundred metres by this point and its elevation above the water level was dropping noticeably too. We were approaching the exit to the Great Bitter Lake, a saltwater lake that allows for ships transiting the Suez Canal to not only pass one another easily but also to wait in order to change their position in any convoy of ships (no, I don’t know why you’d want to do that either; “Cap’n! That ship’s following us! I’m sure!” “Right you are laddie. Let’s pull to here and let her pass. Ha! The follower has become the followed! Wait, is that another ship behind us?”) or to turn around (“Crap! Who pinned the chart to the wall upside down?”)

It wasn’t just the landscape that was changing. With the waterway opening up the last remnants of the fog and mist were finally disappearing and we started to see some of the other ships using the same bit of water as us. There were far more fishing boats here too and the colour of the water of the lake which is filled tidally from the Red Sea to the south and seasonally from the Mediterranean to the north took on a glorious turquoise shade.

In the next part of this Marella Discovery travelogue I’ll conclude our passage through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea where we would anchor awhile to enjoy the sunset (there was probably a more important and ship-based or legal reason why we anchored but just go with it) and then it’s a final day at sea before reaching our disembarkation port of Aqaba and just the small matter of a visit to the ancient city of Petra to contend with before our trip comes to an end.

Let us start with some more photos from the starboard side of Marella Discovery since that’s where our cabin and its balcony were and it’s where we were too at this point of the trip. Using the power of your mind to picture the cruise ship pointing southwards and flicking through your mental dictionary to the definition of starboard (“Left. No, the other left”) you can tell that these pictures are generally facing eastwards and, like the majority of photos shown in the previous post, the eastern side of the Suez Canal was desert-like. Desert-like doesn’t mean uninteresting, though, unless unending flat areas of sand occasionally punctuated by sand-coloured buildings doesn’t excite you, in which case then, sure, go ahead and file this under uninteresting if you must.

The occasional artistic monument could be spotted as we floated along quietly. Artistic? Maybe not. If you’re in Egypt and you see rings with decorative markings on them and your first thought isn’t “Is that..? Have they..? So, is the Stargate actually real!?” then you’re definitely not me.

The final photos I took before we decided to grab something to eat for a late lunch and see what was happening on the other side of the ship was of a building and what appeared to be steps down into a football field-sized area. What it was really for, I’ve no idea, and searching on Google hasn’t even produced as much as a name for the place that’s visible in satellite imagery. It’s a mystery of the Suez Canal!

We grabbed some food in the Snack Shack (if you’ve read earlier content in this travelogue series then you’ll know how much we raved about the quality of the fish in Marella Discovery’s complimentary snack area near the main swimming pool) and decided to brave the swarms of flies for a circuit of the top deck in order to gaze out on all sides of the cruise ship as it neared the end of its canal transit.

Irrigation on the more highly-populated west bank area of the Suez Canal had transformed the desert landscape into gloriously green farmland. A patchwork quilt of ordered areas growing food was protected by walls, towers, and what appeared to be regular patrols on foot and in vehicles. To keep people out or the vegetation in? The former, obviously. Let’s not get too crazy here.

It was interesting to see how many people switched off from the views we were getting. This is one of those areas of travelling where our own experiences have changed how we feel about people like this. In the past we’d have been far more critical because the point of travelling on a cruise ship for us wasn’t to lounge about by the pool and eat all day long; it was to see new things. And, of course, as younger people who’d not even ventured outside the country together before, everything was new. When we’d done our first cruise – our honeymoon and you can read all about it here: Far East Cruise – back in 2008 we were awake at all hours, we were watching the sail into industrial ports in the rain, we were making the most of every moment we could, and we were amazed by how different that made us; we would see some people wouldn’t leave the ship at all and we were incredulous that anyone would spend their money to travel but not to experience anything. And then age and wisdom crept up on us, and we realised that some people would have seen these things already, maybe many times. And for some other people it’s the shipboard experience they crave. We still don’t fully accept that it makes total sense but we can at some level appreciate it. A little bit.

We more-or-less followed the walking/running track around the top of Discovery which is a decent size although for those who like to stay healthy it does involve passing through the cloud of cancer from the designated smoking area at one point. Scenery along the east and west sides of the Suez Canal followed a simple rule at this point south of the Great Bitter Lake: desert to the east; greenery, buildings, and an increasing number of docks to the west. You can see that quite clearly in the photo from the forwardmost point of the ship’s deck below.

It was early afternoon at this point and it was hot on the exposed top of the ship. We like a bit of sun but the sun doesn’t like us. I’m half-Irish while my wife’s genetic lineage comes straight from the Viking hordes (or day-trippers) piling out of Scandinavia. We’d put some Factor 30 on before we’d headed out from our room because we’re sensible like that but we also know that this gives us limited protection regardless. My wife’s been slathered in Factor 50 before and needed three days in bed off work following a few hours out in the sunshine and still getting sunstroke so we’re incredibly cautious about any time exposed to UV especially when we venture closer to the equatorial regions of the planet.

All of this preamble is part of the reasoning behind us choosing to head to the Live Lounge on the ship. Firstly, it was in the shade because it was inside. Secondly, it was quiet because nothing was going on in there and that meant we could take our books for some reading. Thirdly, it was possible to see through the windows on either side of the ship and spot anything of interest. Fourthly, it was easy to simply walk through the exit on either side of the forward part of the lounge and step out onto the promenade deck to take some photos if something interesting popped up. Fifthly, there was a bar so we could have some drinks. New readers won’t know this but we have been known to have the odd tipple.

Thus the final stretch of the Suez Canal aboard Marella Discovery involved me mostly having a swig of my drink, reading half a page of my book, putting down my book, walking out to one side or the other of the ship, taking a photo or two, then wandering back to where my wife was with her Kindle and repeating the process all over.

Eastern Egypt was still the arid, barren landscape of not a lot but sand, but I found an electricity pylon that posed nicely for me against the clear blue sky and probably drew a few puzzled thoughts along the lines of “Has he never seen a pylon before?” from fellow passengers out on the deck watching the world pass by.

Western Egypt gradually became far more visually arresting, though, as signs of civilisation increased; buildings, yet more docks, cranes. We were approaching the end of the canal and the location of Port Tawfiq (a thousand variations of the spelling exist).

When you pass the gorgeous-looking mosque at Port Tawfiq in Suez then you know you’ve completed your transit of the impressive waterway. For us this was a chance to mentally tick off a couple of achievements: we’d done the Suez Canal and we’d now found ourselves in a new stretch of water of the world, the Red Sea.

Port Tawfiq is a very important part of the Suez Canal waterway. In order to reduce the draught of some vessels on account of its depth limitations at points it is necessary for some cargo vessels to offload a portion of what they’re carrying at Port Tawfiq or Port Said then transit the route by water while the cargo travels overland to be reloaded. As with any important port around the world the surrounding area then tends to explode with human life and its necessities such as schools, housing, recreation, etc. Plenty of trees and bushes and grassy areas made the port look very appealing especially when the greens came together with those azure skies, teal water, and golden sand colours.

Marella Discovery’s emergence into the wider waters of the Suez Gulf coincided with the arrival of a boat from ashore and the excitement that comes from seeing people leap on or off smaller vessels alongside cruise ships while they’re both moving. Do you know that bit in The Last Starfighter where Alex wins the game and gets invited to fight the Ko-Dan Armada for real? Well, fairground funhouses with moving floors are exactly the same thing. Behind those mirrors are people waiting to see who can walk easily between the sections with the most able then approached for a life on the water stepping from small boats onto bigger ones. Sure, fighting a space armada sounds more interesting but you’re more likely to be killed and not everyone can pull off beige spacesuits.

Discovery kept its gentle speed going and drifted past the last buildings of Suez’s port area.

We had expected the cruise ship to simply carry on through the gulf now that it had completed the Suez Canal portion of our journey but it quickly became clear that the ship, like several others in the vicinity, was coming to a halt. We weren’t sure if this was for legal reasons, for reasons of shipping lane management in the area, in order to take on supplies, or to take on fuel, and no explanation was forthcoming (or we missed it; quite possible). One interesting view in this part of the world was of a capsized ship just south of Port Tawfiq. If you’ve come to this page in search of the name of the vessel on its side then I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’ve no idea what it is. If you know anything about this ship then please leave a comment.

With nothing new to see we took a break for a few hours in order to participate in some of the quizzing going on around the ship (where we did atrociously) then freshened up with a shower and a change for the evening on the ship. Ahead of dinner we then enjoyed the never-gets-boring spectacle of a sunset at sea, or a sunset in the Suez Gulf in this case.

It’s difficult to describe to someone who’s not experienced it, the sense of peace that comes from watching the sun dip below the horizon or beyond a distant strip of land when you’re on the water gently bobbing up and down with the waves. The quiet hum of human and ship activity while the colours of the sky deepen and shift towards the purples and reds, the feeling of not being quite still, that tiny movement that makes you more a part of the whole planet rolling around its solar orbit, and the gradual appearance of pinpricks of terrifyingly distant light in the heavens that make you feel so small in such an immense universe all come together to soothe us and remind us that we’re not important, we’re less than atoms on the cosmic scale, so just enjoy this fleeting moment called life.

After spending time feeling small there’s nothing quite like feeling huge and on a cruise ship that means hitting one of the restaurants and eating until you come close to bursting. Other than the first couple of days where we’d tried the speciality dining venues on Marella Discovery and excluding the previous night when we’d got absolutely rat-arsed and skipped eating altogether, our evening meal location of choice was the upper tier of the main dining room and its Italian menu. We’d checked the main menu every day but in each case had decided that our tastes were better served with some Italian dining instead.

Another very good meal. As I’ve stated before in these travelogues the quality of food wasn’t to the same standard as, for instance, Princess, but you’re paying a lot less overall and there certainly wasn’t anything to complain about. Service was as excellent as ever, lots of humour, just the right amount of attentiveness. Our experience of Marella throughout this week-long cruise was that the staff seemed to be happy and that’s a good sign for the cruise line as a whole.

After dinner we enjoyed some entertainment in the Squid and Anchor pub, firstly with some music from the party band New Generation (lead singer’s vocal range was pretty spectacular) and then with a gameshow called Spies Like Us. This show was a little too much like a highly-rehearsed theatre piece than any form of game for our liking but it had plenty of humorous quips and was flowing over with double entendres. You can see a little of both types of entertainment in the video (temporarily removed) below.

We like to finish off an evening on a cruise ship in whatever its late night disco location is so for Marella Discovery that meant Bar Eleven. As the elevator started to rise and we gazed down at the atrium and the people gathered there we caught the eyes of Paul and Carole with whom we’d gotten bladdered the day before. I gestured that we were heading up and tried to flash eleven fingers at them before remembering I’m not a mutant but we weren’t sure if they’d got the message or were with other people. However, about a minute after we’d arrived in the club the pair of them stepped out of the elevator too and a few more hours of drinking and dancing began.

We ended up drinking beyond the time limit that the drinks package covers. If you buy a drink after 02:00 then you have to pay regardless of whether you have a drinks package or not. Nope, I have no idea why. The important thing, though, is that the drinks prices are excellent on Discovery so who cares?

We were seeing elephants by the time we rolled into our room. Well, one elephant, and it was white not pink.

In the next part of this travelogue series we’ve got one more day at sea aboard Marella Discovery heading down the Gulf of Suez, past Sharm El-Sheikh, then up the Gulf of Aqaba to our final destination. It will be a day of taking photos around the ship (because you can never take too many) and going behind the scenes at the theatre.

With the Suez Canal behind us we had a final full day at sea aboard Marella Discovery and it would be spent recovering from the hangover kneading its tiny hangover claws into our brains and seeing what manner of relaxation a gentle cruise down the Gulf of Suez, around the Sinai Peninsula, and up the Gulf of Aqaba might bring.

It’s traditional for us to emerge from our slumber when one or other receives an urgent message from the bladder department. With cabins on a cruise ship being very dark and with the pair of us being clumsy oafs this typically involves at least one stubbed toe and a clattering into something on the stagger across to the bathroom that will waken the other, and if that doesn’t do it then switching on the light usually does the trick. While the first person is engaged the second will then tend to open the curtains for a moment of blindness before the outside world reveals itself.

Open sea and the occasional oil platform was the order of the day from our balcony.

We’d actually woken early enough that after breakfast we were able to head down to the Broadway Show Lounge for a backstage tour. We’d never done one of these before on any ship so didn’t know what to expect. Upon arriving we saw a group of around two dozen passengers and two members of the entertainments team gathered at the foot of the stage. One of the staff mentioned they’d never had so many people turn up before so after a quick gathering on the stage to explain where the various bits of lighting and moving areas were, where the scenery was stored, that sort of thing, we were split into two groups to explore the backstage areas in sensible numbers.

There were two main areas behind the stage in the lounge: to the left were the audio and video monitors, electrical equipment, and some props storage, including some huge skeletons; to the right there was more prop storage and the dressing area with clothing and wigs for the shows that were put on.

It was small and cramped and our host explained that costume changes were swift, often involved help with one person pulling pieces off while things were being put on by someone else, there was no point being coy about nudity because it happened a lot out of necessity, and that storage was severely limited on a ship like Marella Discovery so there was plenty more equipment and clothing all over the vessel in various locations.

What we could easily tell from the tour was just how much the entertainers liked working on Discovery. Technically, they are contractors hired from an entertainments company so they can move from ship-to-ship and from line-to-line every season. Previously, we were told, they’d worked on P&O and while the P&O ship was bigger and the stage area was larger and the backstage area was nicer and more sensibly-arranged, as contracted entertainers they were considered not quite part of the crew and often mocked for doing less work whereas with Marella they were treated as part of the whole family and the hard work of rehearsing, looking after their own equipment, helping out where they could, etc. was respected. That general feeling of the staff enjoying working for Marella was a common theme during this cruise and speaks volumes about the company.

The tour wasn’t long because there wasn’t a huge amount to see but it was entertaining, there were plenty of anecdotes about mishaps, and all questions were answered. We enjoyed it and would do it again.

In an earlier travelogue covering this cruise to Jordan I’d taken a walk around the ship on arrival to get some first impressions of Marella Discovery with the aid of my camera. It’s what I do. My wife had accompanied me on that exploration of the ship because it made sense to but when I mentioned that I’d be taking advantage of the clear skies on this final sea day to head off for a second photographic tour of the vessel I already knew it was going to be a solo affair. I left her in the Live Lounge with her Kindle and went for a stroll to capture more shots of this vessel we’d very quickly found ourselves liking.

First stop was the atrium and it was a space that we’d come to appreciate a lot because of the light streaming in from the tall windows either side of its floors and from the skylight at the top. The two aspects that we weren’t quite so keen about were those steps at the bottom – very shiny, very reflective, very disconcerting when walking down them; although we never actually tripped or missed a step and didn’t see anyone else do so either – and the general lack of seating, particularly in the evening when events might be taking place in the area.

In front of the bank of elevators around midship on each floor is a perspex model of the ship indicating where things can be found. Marella Discovery isn’t huge so within a couple of days you likely won’t need to refer to this but it’s there in case you are incapable of remembering a few numbers.

Another thing I liked about Discovery was that it’s floors were – or seemed to be – slightly lower in height than those on other cruise ships on which we’d travelled. This was most noticeable (if indeed it’s true at all; I can’t be bothered to find out for certain because there are limits to my fact-finding and this is beyond them) on the stairwells which were generally quite easy to walk up. Compared to a Grand-class ship with Princess or P&O where we tend to be a “Well, we might walk up two floors but any more and we’ll take the lift” couple, we had no real trouble with walking up any number on Discovery. I traipsed right to the top of the ship and to our usual haunt at the end of each night, Bar Eleven.

Adjacent to the stylish nightclub venue and forward with a nice view out over the swimming pool on the ship’s top deck was the Kora La speciality dining restaurant in which we’d dined on our third night aboard.

The night before that we’d dined in the Surf & Turf Steakhouse which was also just off Bar Eleven and to the aft of Discovery.

The next destination for my short tour of Marella Discovery was the aft of the ship. Down a flight of stairs from Bar Eleven and before heading out there was a piece of abstract art that reminded me of the Sibelius Monument in Helsinki. I liked it.

At the aft of Discovery is a climbing wall. Before we’d taken this cruise I’d said to my wife that if I got the chance then I would definitely have a go on the wall. Well, I had the chance and didn’t but in my defence it’s because I always assume that everyone around me is a thieving toerag and there was no way I was going to put down my camera around strangers while I scaled a rough surface that looked like it had been shot at by a blunderbuss loaded with Skittles. That’s right: I’m blaming my wife and her not being around to guard my camera equipment for me not experiencing the thrill of ascending a wall at sea and the humiliating trauma of being lowered gently by a team of staff when my grip inevitably failed or my knee popped out because my legs can’t do that any longer a third of the way up.

I stood and watched one passenger ascend and descend the wall, though, and enjoyed the sun beating down on me in this quite sheltered spot on the ship.

I didn’t really enjoy the sun beating down on me in that quite sheltered spot; it was baking hot and neither of us cope well with hot. Other people seemed to enjoy lounging out near the view of the wake but while I find the wake attractive (who doesn’t?) I don’t like being cooked so a few photos of the area sufficed before I continued on my way.

Directly in front of the climbing wall was the miniature golf course. It was a good size and a good layout for a cruise ship and a few people were making use of it.

The rest of the top deck afforded some pleasing views along the ship’s length and around the swimming pool area which always make for decent photos when promoting cruises unless you don’t like crowds of semi-naked, overweight people on loungers everywhere.

Our biggest disappointment with Marella Discovery was probably the pool space. We like to swim and had expected we’d be doing so most days on this cruise but it wasn’t to be. Remember that thing about me always assuming people are thieving toerags and not wanting to let things out of my sight? Well, it applies to the pair of us and we don’t feel comfortable in pools if we can’t see where our bags and towels are, and when you’ve got a pool area with every single lounger in a fifty metre radius occupied from first light then that pretty much rules us out from using it.

Now, you’re possibly thinking “Well, couldn’t you have used the indoor pool?” and the answer to that is yes, we could, if it hadn’t been for one tiny probem: we forgot it was there. I’m going to blame our familiarity with other ships here and the location of the buffet and gym as being the issue. On other ships we’ve cruised on the buffet has tended to be beyond the indoor pool relative to our cabin so we pass through it on the way while the gym has tended to be right where we couldn’t care less about going. That wasn’t the case on Discovery. Beyond the indoor pool was the gym and the only thing we can say about gyms on cruise ships is that we’re aware they exist. The buffet was in the opposite direction. The result was that we possibly only ventured into the indoor pool area and the Glass House venue sharing the space on two occasions together, both late at night after we’d been drinking. In fact, when I got back from my Discovery trek I did remind my wife that the indoor pool was an actual thing and that it looked reasonably quiet but this late into the cruise we’d both gotten quite used to doing stuff all so decided not to bother.

Outside the inside pool (I think that makes sense) and surrounding the main pool was a bar which I don’t think we used at all and the Snack Shack which we used almost every day. I’ve said it before and I’ll likely say it again but Marella’s battered fish pieces in this location are to die for. Possibly even to kill for.

Back into the ship I next found myself in Gallery 47° overlooking Restaurant 47°. The restaurant provides another place you can grab lunch on a sea day on Marella Discovery if the Snack Shack or the Islands buffet aren’t your thing and there were people doing exactly that when I visited.

As I passed back through the atrium on the way to the lounges at the other end of the ship I discovered that a choir practice was taking place. This seems to be a fairly common activity on cruises with passengers invited to come along, learn a few songs, and belt them out in a performance towards the end of the holiday but you probably won’t be surprised to learn that it’s not the sort of thing that appeals to us. I mimed along to hymns and songs at school or church when I was young and I’m going to assume that’s why my ability to hold a note now is listed in The Big Book of Things That Simply Aren’t. It’s for everyone’s benefit that I don’t join in now.

To complete my self-guided excursion of Marella Discovery’s highlights I passed through the shopping arcade and briefly entered the Squid & Anchor where a close-up magic demonstration was taking place before returning to the Live Lounge where my wife was busy reading.

The afternoon saw us failing miserably in the trivia games with Paul and Carole once again and enjoying some views of the Sinai Peninsula from our balcony as evening approached and we were getting ready for dinner.

Dinner was once again in the gallery part of the main dining room and its Italian menu. We had a central view over the restaurant and even got to look down on our quizzing and drinking and blogging companions who were seated directly below us.

Dinner was as lovely as it had been every other night of the cruise.

The evening of this last sea day for us on Marella Discovery included some activities in the atrium featuring the Captain’s Dance (a Mayfair Quickstep) and the Crew Flag Parade, bits of both of which you can see in the following video (temporarily removed). We were quite pleased to be able to find some seats for this and were joined by Paul and Carole once again for some drinks and entertainment from the crew.

We all decided not to have a late night in Bar Eleven like the night before because the following day – our last full one on Marella Discovery – would find us in the Jordanian port of Aqaba where we all had early excursions to set off for. The next post in this travelogue series will feature the first part of our visit to the ancient city of Petra.

Now, if you’ve read previous accounts of when we’ve taken excursions with the word “hike” in them then you’ll know that we are absolutely awful when it comes to hiking. Neither of us is fit and my wife has old injuries that make uneven and uphill surfaces particularly painful to traverse, but we are both determined when it comes to taking on experiences we may not get the chance to attempt in the future so, for us, despite knowing we would probably suffer during and after it, choosing this particular excursion in Petra was an easy decision.

One thing that’s worth noting up front about this excursion is that it did not include a stop for lunch which other excursions did; instead, a packed lunch was provided on the bus and to call it basic would be a stretch. If you brace yourself for a piece of fruit, a piece of cake, and a small bottle of water then you might be pleasantly surprised at any additional components. That said, there are places to buy food in Petra itself so if you’ve got some cash on you you’ll be fine. You’re not supposed to take any food in but we didn’t see any checks taking place.

Let’s get onto the excursion then. We were off the ship nice and early and onto our bus without much delay. With this excursion being a strenuous one there was only one bus needed to cater for the number of cruise passengers who’d elected to do it. We had the usual moment of worry when we saw what some of the other people on the bus were wearing. It had been recommended that you wear multiple layers because it could apparently get cold in the higher altitudes we’d be reaching, for instance, and many were doing just that with t-shirts and shirts and light coats and walking sticks and belts and packs and hats and glasses on cords. My wife and I were in t-shirts, her with some leggings, me with shorts, and we each had one large bottle of water. It is possible that at other times of the year those layers everyone else was wearing would make sense but what we had turned out to be perfectly adequate and we saw some people make the decision to leave some of their layers on the bus at Petra when they realised that it probably wasn’t going to be quite as chilly as we’d been warned too.

The drive from Aqaba to Petra involves a security check when leaving Aqaba on account of it having a special economic zone status that means certain things aren’t taxed there. That is to help with imports, of course, but does make it a point where smuggling can occur as our guide explained. The drive heads north and starts ascending soon after and the landscape is barren, rugged, but really quite beautiful. The journey took around two hours and while we’d been told there would be a stop on the way there wasn’t and nobody was bothered by this.

From where the bus parked there was a short walk of a couple of minutes across a road, down a sloping area, and into the Visitors Centre. This was a large, circular space lined with souvenir shops and some information boards plus toilets for those who wanted to use them. We waited until all those who’d wanted to had done so.

Just before we made our way to the ticket area we were grouped in front of a map of Petra where we received a little bit more information about just what we’d be doing on this excursion. If you view the full size image below you’ll be able to see that the entrance where we were standing is on the right side of the map, the Treasury that everyone knows Petra for and where this first travelogue post will finish is low down and near the centre of the map, and our final destination of the Monastery is in the top left corner.

As with everyone else in our group we ignored the option of riding a horse or donkey down the main route which was included as part of the ticket entrance cost. We would also be ignoring the option to pay for a ride up the hiking trail too. We didn’t see any of the animals being mistreated – the occasional slap on the rump, perhaps, to guide them from their handlers – and there were signs asking people to report any instances of cruelty but the whole tourist-riding-an-animal thing simply doesn’t sit well with us.

One of the first sights along the walk from the vistors centre to the entrance to the Siq, the narrow gorge that takes people to the Treasury at Petra, were the Djinn Blocks. It’s from djinn that we get our word genie and the purpose of the blocks is unknown for certain although their presence close to tombs may indicate a funerary connection. Should you find yourself in possession of three wishes following a lamp-rubbing incident perhaps you can find out.

Opposite the Djinn Blocks were a couple of important tombs, the most visually-appealing of which was the Obelisk Tomb even though the relief designs on the front were actually nefashot. The four columns likely represent the four people buried in the the chambers within.

The walk from the visitors centre to the entrance to the Siq was about a kilometre and was gently downhill for the most part. The walk through the Siq was also gently downhill and if you’ve got a keen sense of how directions work you’ll have realised by now that this means the return walk was uphill for its entirety, and while that slope is fairly gentle in appearance it turns out that a few kilometres of it constantly can be quite a strain on the calves. If you’re not used to that sort of walking then keep an eye on the clock and how long it takes you to get down to where you want to be in Petra because you’re going to want to add half that time back on for the return trek.

The entrance to the Siq was marked by locals dressed up as ancient Nabataean warriors. The Nabataean people were chiefly responsible for most of Petra’s functions and designs. Arabic in origin, the Nabataeans loosely controlled a series of trade routes in this region of the world for around 500 years from the fourth century BCE onwards, and Petra’s location and ability to be defended thanks to its walled gorges eventually saw it become their capital.

When people think of Petra they’re most likely thinking of the sight of the Treasury and also the walk through the Siq that leads to it. Literally meaning shaft, the Siq is a little over a kilometre long and winds through the rock walls of the area which at points are only three metres apart and over ninety metres in height. This natural gorge is the result of a tectonic split later smoothed down with water erosion and you can expect to get neck ache walking through as your eyes will constantly be taking your head on journeys up those walls and across the natural and carved niches and occasionally shockingly-red colouring of the sandstone.

We stopped a couple of times on the walk through the Siq, mostly to make sure that everyone was keeping up. Our guide was very keen that we not dawdle as he wanted us to make the most of the time we had at Petra and he got no complaints from us in that respect. From the entrance to the Siq until seeing the Treasury the walk took us about twenty minutes.

Understandably, after twenty minutes of walking everyone began stopping of their accord whether they were part of our cruise excursion group, part of some other tourist group (of which there were many), or individual travellers; the reason, obviously, was that classic image of the Treasury seen through the western entrance of the Siq.

Its Arabic name is Al-Khazneh and the name was picked up because of the belief that there were treasures within. It was most likely just a mausoleum, though, as determined from the sculpted eagles which were thought to carry away the souls and by the images of Castor and Pollux, twins who lived partly in the underworld. The sculpting of the structure in the sandstone cliff would have taken place in the first century CE.

The Treasury was certainly impressive to see in person and it’s one of those places that benefits from having someone in front of it to truly get a sense of scale. The relief is forty metres in height. You can see this more clearly in the photo and video (temporarily removed) below.

The area in front of the Treasury was in almost total sunlight and the contrast with the shaded walk down the Siq to reach this part of Petra was intense. We managed a couple of minutes of photos of the surrounding sandstone before huddling in close to one of the walls where the sun couldn’t quite reach us. We had about fifteen minutes in this spot to allow people to take a look at some of the stalls offering souvenirs or coffee, the latter of which which didn’t appeal to us and the former of which we wanted to wait until after we’d completed our hike to the Monastery.

Naturally, this was a very popular spot for tourists with everyone either taking photos of the Treasury or posing in front of the structure. For many this would have been the main or indeed only thing they would have come to see. This was also a popular spot for hiring camels and donkey-led wagons either to head further into Petra or to head back through the Siq and avoid that uphill slog.

After our short time at the Treasury our guide called us together and led us off down the Street of Facades.

In the second part of this travelogue series covering our visit to Petra I’ll take us past the parts of Petra that sprang up during its period of absorption into the Roman empire all the way to Ad-Deir, the Monastery, ahead of the final part recounting our return hike all the way back and a surprising and very welcome discovery in the Rose Red City.

The Street of Facades is a wide area beyond the Treasury with numerous Nabataean tombs and Nabataean decorations on them in their typically grand scale. The placing of tombs doesn’t reflect the age of when they were constructed or any real significance with the person entombed as the tombs were simply produced in the most suitable sandstone spots at the time.

A lot of the damage on the tombs is natural so possibly the most distinctive of those in this part of Petra was the Aneisho Tomb which seemed to be standing separately and withstanding the assault of time better than others around. The tomb includes features in Greek and Egyptian styles, was built for the minister of Queen Nabatiyeh Shaqilh II, and its interior is split over two levels and covers around four hundred square metres in area.

Carrying on our walk we next came to the Theatre. Built early in the first century CE like most of the more impressive architectural feats in Petra and later modified during Roman rule, this was nevertheless a distinctly Nabataean theatre on account of it being carved out of the surrounding sandstone rather than constructed independently in the Greek or Roman manner. Its location was picked to have the best view of most of the more impressive tombs leading up to it and its capacity is estimated at around eight and half thousand people. A couple of days after our visit to Petra we would visit Chester which also has ruins of an ancient theatre and I can assure you that the one at Petra is a smidge more impressive. Maybe even a tad more than a smidge.

A little further along from the theatre was a place to stop and simply admire the views for a while as those who needed to use the toilets could do so at a spot in front of the Royal Tombs where a number of shops and stalls were set up. The tombs looked particularly impressive and if we return to Petra at some point then I’d certainly like to explore them but on this trip we were too limited for time.

The main walking trail in Petra then curved to the west and took us down the Colonnaded Street. This would have been the main shopping street in the city with a large market area to the south. The street includes drainage channels under its curved shape to remove excess water from rains and while it was originally Nabataean it had clearly been improved upon and rebuilt during the period under which Petra was ruled from Rome.

The Colonnaded Street took us to a structure that didn’t look that impressive but which was the Temple of Qasr Al-Bint, one of the most intact buildings in Petra and still standing at its full height despite seismic activity in the area. From the perspective of our excursion, though, this was an important location that indicated the last bit of flat ground we’d have for a while as it also signified we had reached the start of our hiking trail.

And so, with a final gathering together and some words of encouragement from our guide – “This will be hard work and I will push you to get you up as quickly as possible. Please let me know if you feel ill at any point” – (okay, not exactly words of encouragement) we started our hike to the Monastery.

If you read about it ahead of time, even if you read it here, then you know that the Ad-Deir Trail (the hiking trail to the Monastery) consists of approximately eight hundred steps. But that doesn’t mean you’ll take eight hundred steps to ascend because there are long, sloping sections in between the steps. And that doesn’t account for the fact that some of those steps are steps in the loosest definition possible. And the steps are covered in sand and stones in places. And they’re different heights and angles. And some areas have sheer drops near them. And donkeys thunder past every couple of minutes. And donkeys are wider than you realise. And donkeys don’t care about you.

It is, in short, not an easy hike, and if you’re the wife of someone writing this who just happens to have old injuries to her ankle and knee to contend with plus a fear of any unstable surface under her (edge of a cliff: fine; stand on a foot stool: palpitations) then it’s a horrible hike. I very quickly saw that my wife was experiencing a panic attack on the ascent and I think it was pretty obvious to most of our tour group that she was struggling too. In fact, at one point heading up we passed a French group coming down and one woman in there approached us to say there wasn’t much further to go and we could do it so it was even obvious to kind but complete strangers passing fleetingly. Of course I offered to stop the hike because that’s what a caring husband does but I also only offered once because that’s what a caring husband who receives the Glare of Impending Homicide If You Ask That Question Again does.

Our guide was true to his word and kept urging us all on but we did stop three times briefly up the enclosed trail to rehydrate. Out of necessity because of the time we’d arrived and would need to depart we were probably hiking up the trail at the worst time of day with long sections in full sunlight so it was hot, but probably because of the time of year not terribly so; it was considerably hotter when we’d hiked in Nicaragua earlier in the year, for example. Even still, we were very glad to have packed some wet wipes with us as their cool dampness helped to bring down our temperatures quite nicely during those moments of respite on the climb.

And so I shall let the pictures do the talking for the hike up the trail to the Monastery at Petra now. You’ll see how there are sections of flattish ground between the steps and see how the trail zig-zags back on itself in places. You will also be able to get a feel for the narrowness of the trail and height of the surrounding walls of sandstone at parts along the hike as we made our way to the summit.

From the start of the hike to reaching the plateau at the end took us just under an hour. What greeted us was definitely worth the trek.

Despite its name, the Monastery was most likely a temple or tomb (those Nabataeans really liked their tombs) to a king, Obadas, who was later deified. The fantastic facade is fifty metres wide and almost as tall. If you’re visiting Petra and you think you can do it then the hike to the Monastery is highly recommended by us.

The wide plateau in front of the Monastery was artificially created by the Nabataeans for social and ritualistic gatherings and in more recent times, as you’ll see from the video above, rest facilities have been established. After a short gawp at the Monastery we headed to the café to get some more water as we’d almost depleted everything we’d brought with us on the hike. Other people were eating as they – as well as cats and dogs – were sheltering in the seated section of the cave adjoining the café but we were content to just get some liquid inside us.

It didn’t take me long to recover but I wasn’t fighting an hour’s worth of panic-attack-induced adrenalin coursing through my system so I left my wife to rest a little longer while I took a walk around the area for some more photos. Behind the café was a raised area of ground affording better views of the impressive Petra building and which included some rock mounds with hollowed out rooms and windows carved into them. There was also an area up another set of steps that claimed to offer a fabulous view to the west over the Jordanian landscape but I wasn’t sure if I’d have the time to make it up and back without my wife worrying so satisfied myself with some pictures of the people and sights more close by.

When we checked the time we realised that we had plenty of it left. We have to thank our guide for that because his constant pushing for us to complete the hike meant we could really relax if we wanted from this point on. We could probably have stayed around the Monastery for another forty five minutes if we’d really wanted before starting on the way back but we decided we’d make our return ahead of everyone else in order to be able to take our time going down – those fears of my wife and her issues with the uneven terrain would return just as much on the way down as on the way up – and potentially explore some of the areas we’d passed on the walk through Petra to the hiking trail.

It would transpire that something would distract us from exploring more of Petra’s ruins on this visit. Something wonderful. You can find out what that was in the final part of this travelogue series covering our cruise excursion to Petra which takes us from the Monastery back down to ground level and out of the fabulous Jordanian city.