DAY 7: Palma and Afternoon Tea

On the streets of Palm

Palma

Well today we arrived in Palma, Mallorca. And what a beautiful gem of a town that is. After the Saga Sapphire cruise ship arrived to the port in the early morning, we were allowed to disembark and make our way through the quiet sleepy town in the warm morning sunshine. This enchanting Balearic capital has a wealth of attractions to offer, including the Bellver Castle which has dominated the skyline since the 14th century, and a cathedral which is a Gothic masterpiece that took almost 400 years to complete. On virtually every street there is something colourful and wonderful to please the senses.

In Palma you can see, hear, feel, touch and taste Spanish artistic passion everywhere; the flamenco of the guitar playing buskers or the shouts of the street sellers.

Our one grouch with the Saga cruise company so far was that our time in Mallorca was ridiculously short. Unbelievably, the ship was scheduled to leave this wonderful place already at 13:30. 

And so it was with heavy hearts that we reluctantly returned on board, wondering if we had made the right decision. However, once back the pampering began and it didn’t take long before we were enjoying ourselves again.

Afternoon tea

Afternoon tea

Somebody told me the other day that the average age of the passengers on this particular cruise ship is 75. I suppose it is probably true, even though at certain times of the day it seems more like 85. The afternoon tea ritual which starts in the Britannia Lounge at 16:15 precisely, is one of those moments.  

As the nationality of the passengers is exclusively British, this is a very important part of the day. With a classical orchestra in the background, English scones are served with cream cakes and tarts of every flavour, while white gloved waiters tour the lounge making sure your cup of tea is forever piping hot and full. The conversation each day now turns to politely commenting on what your neighbour has managed to do ashore that day. Expressions like ‘oh, really’, I say, or ‘I quite agree’ are the usual way to make this a pleasing occasion. I have to admit, that after seven days of this I am starting to miss having the opportunity to curse and swear. Nobody ever does this…ever. And I think that soon the time will come to use some of my Finnish language skills again. This evening, for example, before going up to bed, I plan to go to the bow of the ship, face into the wind and at the top of my voice yell those immortal words of my adopted Nordic countrymen…  Perkele, Viitu, Saatana. Then, I know I will be perfectly fine for a little more afternoon tea conversation tomorrow.

Day 6: Hygiene hysteria

A sanitizer

Hygiene plays a major role in the daily life of a Saga cruise ship. The entrances to all public areas have sanitization points, and nobody is allowed to enter any of the restaurants if their hands have not been properly disinfected. The members of crew are continuously wiping and polishing every surface to ensure that the ship maintains the same hygiene rating as a hospital operating theatre.  

All this extra vigilance is standard fare on a cruise ship today and was originally put into place to counteract all the media interest in the norovirus aboard cruise ships. There are many horror stories out there of ships being forced to quarantine passengers to their cabins for the duration of the holidays in order to contain outbreaks of the illness.  Disinfecting passengers at every opportunity may seem a little over the top, but the procedure does work in terms of preventing disease, and after a while you hardly notice it going on at all.

Valencia

Our crew on shore leave

Today we arrived at Valencia, Spain. The harbour is a major container hub and for me the best thing about the city was watching the activity around the port area. Such hubs are where the biggest container ships offload their cargo before it is reloaded onto smaller ships for distribution to smaller ports. Unfortunately, I am sad to say that this really is the most interesting thing about Valencia in my opinion. I so much wanted to like Valencia but I didn’t. We took a shuttle bus into the centre and wandered around for a bit. Admittedly, there are nice buildings there but nothing really inspiring that we saw. However, we did spot some of the ship’s crew enjoying a few hours of shore leave in the city. They were having their pictures taken by the Cathedral door. 

Apart from that nice moment, I seem to recall that the cathedral square was full of litter, the few buskers around were looking more sinister than friendly, and the parks and alleyways were reeking with the unmistakable pong of urine.  I would have so much wanted a few of those hygiene dispensers around. Obviously, I am becoming far too institutionalized by life on a cruise ship.

Day 5: Land Ahoy!

Day 5: Land ahoy

A Sergeant Pepper moment.

There are few places in the world where you can really imagine a meeting between the north and the south.  Sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, with the lights of Africa to starboard and the Rock of Gibraltar to port, happens to be one of them.  Last night, while this north south juxtaposition came into sharp focus, my mother and I were actually enjoying a wonderful Asian meal in one of the ship’s restaurant called, believe it or not, East meets West. This rather bazaar unplanned coincidence set the tone for a rather surreal evening. After our meal we went to what was billed as a Beatles concert in the Britannia Lounge on Deck 8. I imagined it would be a rather tame affair in view of the average age of those on board. However, with the benefit of hindsight I have come to realize that the passengers on the Saga Sapphire cruise ship are actually children of the 60’s. I need to check more carefully what they put into those free drinks!

Almeria

A pool in the Alcazaba

Our ship awaits.

Anyway, the next morning we arrived at our first port of call, Almeria. This Spanish town gets over 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, apparently, and has the greatest number of cloudless days in the whole country. Today was one of them. It was wonderful to finally be let loose on shore and to see a few badly dressed people and dare I say it…children. In the midst of all the happy mayhem of this sleepy Spanish town, we enjoyed a nice sunny walk around the town’s splendid Moorish fortress known as the Alcazaba. How can you not fall in love with a place that has a name like that?  This Arab fortress was built by the Caliph of Cordoba, Abderramán III in the 10^th century and has three huge walled enclosures.

But all too soon, it was time to be press ganged back on board the Saga Sapphire for cocktails as the tugboats pulled us gently out to sea.

Day 4: Meeting the Captain

A Captain with two wonderful guests.

Yesterday evening was our first formal evening on board the Saga Sapphire cruise ship. Yes, the time had finally arrived for my mother to put on her stilettos and evening dress and for me to don the James Bond suit and dickey bow. It was also time for Captain McLundie to finally meet us. He is a gregarious Scot who has worked at Saga for more than 15 years. 

During his tenure as Captain he has even sailed the Baltic Sea on several occasions. After exchanging a few pleasantries about Finnish port towns, we all decided to have a picture taken to remind us of this momentous occasion. 

We then enjoyed cocktails in the Britannia Lounge before finally heading off to dinner. Unfortunately, the Captain’s duties prevented him from joining us for a meal on our table, so we dined instead with a very nice group of people, including a sprightly 92-year-old former spitfire pilot who had recently made a tandem jump for charity. And this is the unexpected part of this adventure. Instead of being a shipload of doddery fools, the other guests are incredibly fascinating people to meet. In fact, I have yet to meet a single boring ass. However, I have still not been to the gym on Deck 2.

Entertaining the guests

At the time of writing, the weather is enjoyably hot and sunny. Our balcony door is open and the hypnotic sound of the ship’s wake is all that can be heard. We have yet to make landfall, although we should be arriving off the coast of Tangiers this evening before entering the Mediterranean.  

As the theme of this cruise is Food and Drink, earlier today, after the Latin dance workout, we listened to an extremely entertaining 60-minute show by celebrity chef, Kevin Woodford.  The title of the show was reluctant cooks, and it was a bake off between the Captain and the Cruise Director. It sounds naff, I know, but it was actually incredibly funny to watch.

Day 3: No line on the horizon

Switching on the TV news this morning and one of the top stories was the fact that Amazon has decided to put warnings on any Tom and Jerry cartoons sold through its website as they may be racist. This is because the cleaner in the 1957 series was a black woman named Mammi. This really got me thinking because I had never thought of Tom and Jerry in this way; violent yes, but racist no. As a child, the fact that the cleaner was a black lady no way implied that all black ladies were cleaners. 

However, I couldn't help but wonder, should Amazon wish to pursue this line of reasoning, whether the same racist warning should also be put on any Saga cruises that are advertised through the Amazon site or any of their affiliates. After all, every single one of the 700 passengers on the particular cruise I am on at the moment happens to be white, while almost all of the crew (95%) is Filipino. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask the cabin boy bringing the morning tea to my cabin for his opinion on this one.

Walk the mile

Anyway, as white paying guests, the first place we visited this morning was the Veranda restaurant for a modest breakfast, in comparison to the full English the morning before. This was then followed by another bout of Latin line dancing in the Britannia Lounge. Next came a new activity for us; a two-mile walk around Deck 12 to burn off the excess calories we had put on yesterday. 

The crew on a fire drill

Unfortunately, on the Saga Sapphire it is all too easy to become distracted from a self-imposed health regime however. After all, free ice cream and hamburgers are always on offer to paying white guests and it is just so very tempting to simply stand around watching the hive-minded crew going about their fire drills and daily chores.  When it comes to the natives, the Captain obviously believes that a busy ship is a happy ship.

Tonight is going to be an exciting evening as we will have our first formal dinner. This will be an occasion to meet the Captain and be photographed with him. I have already seen the podium being set up for the occasion. Admittedly, I did become quite annoyed with myself when I realized that this type of photo opportunity would be taking place. Two days earlier, when we came to Southampton by taxi, I totally forgot to have my picture taken with the driver.  

Day 2: All at sea

At the time of writing I am in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, 150 miles from the French coast. The Saga Sapphire cruise ship is cutting its way through the gentle sea on a sunny day with only the mildest of rolls to remind us that we are actually at sea. To be honest, I actually feel a little disappointed that things are so calm here. After all, the Bay of Biscay is supposed to be a place of horror; at least according to the cruise aficionados I have met on board, who all have their personal rite of passage stories about ‘the Bay’ as they call it.  These yarns are told with relish as conversation topics at mealtimes, recounting the times when chairs and tables have flown across busy restaurants or when drawers have sailed out of lockers and crashed into opposing cabin walls. I am amazed that any of the tellers of such stories are here to tell their tales at all.

Heating up the dance floor

So, as the day was not going to be spent with all the hatches battened down, the entertainment programme suddenly became a topic of interest. The first thing we tried out on the cruise itinerary was a salsa dance class. Ok, admittedly I was a little self conscious on the dance floor with all the grannies and three granddads around me. It was actually a salsa line dance we were doing, by the way. But then I decided that since I actually had nothing to lose by joining in, it could be a lot of fun. And it was!

Then it was time to relax while listening to a fascinating lecture on Spanish history. This was really well presented and I was most impressed that the lecture was recorded so you could watch it again later on one of the TV channels in your cabin. Clever idea!

Wine tasting

After a barbecue lunch on deck, a pleasant afternoon was spent listening to another fine lecture on the differences between a Chablis and a Chardonnay, aided by a few nice glasses of expensive plonk (£30 bottle) to reinforce the instructor’s key points. Unfortunately, I now realize that I seem to have mislaid our notes somewhere. Well if we don’t have time to watch the repeat on the TV tonight, we will just have to join the lecture again tomorrow.

DAY 1 All aboard!

The time of departure is finally here. The mooring ropes have been released from their quayside bollards, the passengers are madly waving goodbye on the decks, and when the ship’s horn blasts a final farewell to dear old England, the hull begins to judder and rattle from the main engines coming alive. Well that’s how I imagined it would be. After all, this is Southampton and we have all seen how it was done in the film Titanic.  The reality was very different, however, but in no way a letdown.  What actually happened was this.

At the muster station

First we had a life-vest drill. Everyone was herded up on deck and made to stand in the warm sunshine as we were counted at our designated muster station. Unfortunately, a few of the passengers had managed to get lost in this exercise and two of the more elderly passengers who had found the right location eventually keeled over from the heat in the wait to find the others. This then sent the medics into action and we were all impressed at how efficiently they were revived. Everyone agreed that we should survive a sinking.

Spitfire flypast

Anyway, no sooner had we returned to our cabin, as the ship was leaving Southampton waters, when the captain announced that we should all go back up on deck again for a little surprise. I thought this was probably going to be for a little singsong with the house band or something similar. However, what happened next was totally unexpected. Suddenly some great patriotic music began blaring out over the speakers, which was soon accompanied by the unmistakable throaty growl of a world war two aircraft engine. Would you believe it, the captain had organized a Spitfire flypast just for us. The stage has been set for a very interesting trip.