Cultural landmarks of Egypt and India days 1 to 5

On the harbour at Tangier, Morocco

A very gentle start to day one, we only had a 20 minute walk, and check in wasn't till 13.45! We did try to go for a walk, but it started to rain.

On arrival at the dock we joined the queue, which felt slow, but in reality wasn't too bad. Got to the cabin to find our cases waiting for us, all very efficient. So equally efficiently we unpacked and watched the safety video. On reporting to our muster station we thought perhaps we'd better have something to eat as it was a long gap between our Ibis breakfast and our 20.30 sitting for dinner. The poolside bar serves food all day so that was fine. No danger of going hungry for the next month! We left there going for a little explore of the pool's facilities, went in to the changing rooms, found both men's and women's saunas and both popped out into the spa which brought us out into the gym where we were just in time for the champagne raffle. Not to win champagne, that was to drink, but to win a spa treatment. Amazingly I'll be getting my nails done, though to be fair we don't actually know if it was me or Brian that won, but either way, I'll be getting my nails done!

Sunset somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

Up to the Observation Bar, our favourite for a couple of pre dinner drinks. Just as we were thinking we might be hungry, with 45 minutes still to wait, the ballroom dancing started with 8 dance captains! I think it was only them and us dancing, and we were wearing the wrong shoes, but I'm sure others will turn up.

Off to dinner, via the library, where I managed to borrow, just the James Patterson I've been wanting for the last 6 weeks, so I'm happy. Big question of the day though,what will our dinner partners be like?

Our fellow dinner guests, Sue and Jim serenaded on their 40th wedding anniversary on our first night

Sue and Jim are pretty good, they too are only doing the 33 days (not the full 93 that apparently most people are doing) and we seem to have quite a lot else in common. Can't be bad, we were about the last to leave the restaurant, so that must be a good sign. They even shared their 40th wedding anniversary cake (which they weren't expecting as they hadn't filled out the required cake form) with us.

 We dashed to the theatre for the welcome show, which was only half an hour, but that took us to 23.00 and then we moved the clocks forward an hour...!

Sailing down the North Atlantic ocean in our first calmer seas

Overnight the sea got rougher, which was ok while lying down, but has affected Brian quite adversely for most of the day. The seasickness pill made a surprise reappearance before it could do any good, as did the sensible piece of toast I thought might do him some good! A cup of ginger tea did help, enough to have some lunch which probably also helped. Was chicken Jalfrezi really the best thing to pick though?

We found ourselves in the Observation Bar, just in time for Name that Tune, which was good as he could do it while staring out of the window. He even managed to spot a couple of dolphins, so that was a win. Down to the talk about Radio Caroline by the ex BBC producer which he found interesting but I managed to doze through!

Our dining area is on two floors and we're upstairs. This is our view from our table overlooking downstairs. The man in the white jacket is our captain along with some of his officers and they sat down to dinner on that round table. Apparently you need to be a gold member to experience that and we're only bronze. Need to do two more cruises to get to gold!

Now we've come out of the Channel and begun our crossing of the Bay of Biscay we are wallowing a lot more than we are going in up and down, will that be better or worse? Will he make the Pilates class we signed up to yesterday? The first formal night was meant to be tonight but the Captain has postponed it, and his welcome drinks till tomorrow, so he's obviously expecting it to be better tomorrow, so hopefully Brian too will be better tomorrow!

Jackie all dolled up for our first formal night. I had my dinner suit and dickie bow on but no photos unfortunately

Days 3&4

Tomorrow was definitely better, and Brian did feel much better. The day had been a washout for everyone, Pilates and social dancing were cancelled due to the motion of the ocean, balance was required just to stand up so anything else would definitely have been pushing it!

One of the many bands playing on board. These are playing in the afternoon by the indoor pool

Our mission on day 3 therefore was to explore the ship from top to bottom from the laundries (2.25 per load seems pretty good, just as well as I don't have 33 pairs of pants!)

It took most of the day as we stopped and talked to people, found ourselves in the bar just as the quiz was starting, did one circuit of the promenade deck, 3 laps is 1.6 km, so now he knows how far to run for his 5km. Just as well because Mapmywalk, was very confused, showing our circuit as a straight line due to the travel of the ship!

After three days of sailing we've finally arrived in Tangier, Morocco. Lots of history here having been occupied by the Portugese, English and French over the years. Its on the Strait of Gibraltar guarding the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic and we can see Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar from here

We had managed to sign up for Pilates and a Spinning Class which were both good and made us feel much better about eating to excess!

Tonight was the Captain's drinks and first formal dinner. We were very impressed by the Captain as he introduced us to the major crew members. He was really very funny. You've got to feel a happy Captain leads to a happy crew who all smile all the time leading to happy passengers.

Lots of Islamic history here

Day 4, blue sky and sunshine. We had lunch outside, at the impromptu BBQ. This is what we wanted! Having said that we've attended 3 lectures in the dark theatre and done Pilates and circuits classes as well as the ballroom class so we haven't actually been outside very much. The day has flown by as we sit in the bar waiting for the the dancing to start before showtime and dinner.

Tomorrow is Tangier, our first port of call, so it'll also be my first proper breakfast as opposed to just fruit!

And lots of cats so Jackie was very happy. This was the first one she wanted to smuggle home...

All didn't go quite to plan, I was rudely awakened by Brian swearing at his phone. The alarm hadn't gone off and it was saying 08.10. In one sense this was true, the alarm hadn't gone off, but it was only 07.10. where his phone had gained an hour, who knows. 

Eggs Benedict, and fruit, and a pastry.... We've got a lot of walking to do.

This was the second one...

We managed to miss the 1st shuttle bus to town but found port WiFi while waiting for the second, which will hopefully work well enough to post this blog.

We were suddenly aware that the bus driver was talking, though apparently not to us, he was on the phone. He obviously didn't actually know where we were to be dropped off. We found this funny, others were getting quite aeriated. All to save a 2km walk. We did make up for this as we went up and down, round and round, through the Casbah and Medina. Early was good, there were no people, there were also few shops open, hence our repetition! There were also many, many cats. I think Brian has now been put off coming to Morocco in Ted as there were at least 2 that would have been mine, and a third that would have been his, a tiny black kitten looking quite fearfully at the seagull walking around it and thinking how can I be a third the size of a bird?

And this was the cute  little one Brian wanted to take home!

So we've done as we would have if travelling in Ted, walked solidly for 3 1/2 hours and then gone home for lunch.

Walking round the indoor market in the Kasbah

An olive market stall..

Fabulous spices (the smell was amazing!)

A fish market

The streets of the Kasbah were like a maze. Good job we'd downloaded a Maps.Me map beforehand so we could find our way around

Even got a view of our ship The Bolette in harbour from a high viewpoint (greatly zoomed in)

More cats!

The Continental Hotel atop the old city walls. In the days of the original Portugese settlement we would have been standing in the sea to take this, the harbour is all reclaimed land

Arriving back at the ship we could see they were doing lifeboat training as you can see a lifeboat in the sea and another halfway up. That's it for now, next stop Malta in two days time...