Cruising Archives - Meandering Mumfords

April 5, 2024April 17, 2024

Ambassador Cruise – Singapore to Cape Town

We boarded the Ambssador cruise ship Ambience in Singapore on its inaugural world tour, and we were just doing one 25 night leg of the trip.

Joining a ship half way through a world tour has proven to be an interesting insight into the human psyche – the cliques have already formed, favourite quiz tables and theatre seats identified, Queen and King bees have amassed their audiences, interest groups have developed waiting lists, destination experiences nearly fully booked up and heirarchies have been forged – and then in come the “interlopers” causing ripples to run through the various groups dynamics.

There is no “free dining” times on Ambassador so we elected to try the 6pm sitting on a table for 6 and we were very lucky with our wonderful dining companions Sue, Liz, Peter and Denise and subsequently had some very entertaining times with them.

Our first port of call was Penang , which we’ve visited a few times, so we just had a wander around Georgetown and enjoyed the wall art and the colours and smells of the spices in Little India,

then onto Phuket – ww were moored miles away so had to take a taxi to old town for an explore of the Wats, old streets (reminiscent of Melacca) and enjoyed a Singha beer and mango, sticky rice (yum). Then had a crazy tuk tuk taxi back to the ship! That nights entertainment was the Lady Boys of Phuket – an excellent show that the locals put on for us.

Next stop – Sri Lanka and its crazy capitol – Colombo, where we took a tuk tuk trip around and visited a stunning temple, complete with donations from Rolex watches to an old Rolls Royce car! Again, we had an excellent show from Sri Lankan locals that evening before we sailed away. It was lovely to see the Litus Tower all lit up.

Male in the Maldives was next – not at all what you see in the tourist brochures – for that you need to get out to the atolls and big resorts – we just did a submarine dive but sadly, although lots of fishes, the Reef looks in a bad state.

Then onto Mahe, Seychelles, which was much more our style with lots of lush green hills. We did a tour of the botanical gardens to see the famous Coco-de-mer double coconut and the giant tortoises

and then a quick trip around the north of the island – very beautiful.

Then it was 2 days in Mombassa where the ship was met by local tribes dancing and drumming (they certainly have plenty of energy!) Sadly, Andy wasn’t too well, so we just visited Fort Jesus on the second day, which was very interesting, but it was extremely hot and humid! The port put on a shuttle bus to a hotel in town, which was safer for visitors.

Durban came next, not sure what we were expecting, but we enjoyed it here – took a walk to the Golden Mile beach and a bus tour out to the botanical gardens where we saw pelicans in the trees, weaver bird nests and some ducklings,

Victoria market, whale bone pier (not real whale bone)

and past the stunning Moses Mabhida stadium with its graceful arch – the Arch of Triumph

Then finally to Cape Town and our ungainly entrance to the port (we collided with a cargo ship when high winds took the ship away from the tugs)!!

We were glad to get off – 25 nights is way too long for us, but it got us to where we wanted to be, we visited places we have not seen before and made some new friends along the way.

June 11, 2023March 1, 2024

Cruise to Alaska

The Celebrity Hubbard Glacier cruise – we sailed from Vancouver,

Sailing under Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge

past Vancouver Island and up to Icy Strait Point (the only privately owned cruise port in Alaska, owned by Tlingit nation),

Historic salmon cannery, Icy Strait Point

then up to Hubbard Glacier in the Bay of Disenchantment (aka the Galloping Glacier, it’s tidal and still growing. It’s 76 miles long and has a 400ft terminal face) – our captain and the pilot got us SOOO close it was amazing, and we had beautiful sunshine too, making the ice look quite blue. We saw a few episodes of calving at the terminal face, but no huge ones – by the time you hear the crack, it’s too late – the ice has already calved. We also spotted harbour seals and 1 pup there.

Hubbard Glacier – aka The Galloping Glacier.

Then, working our way back down, we stopped at Juneau (Doyouknow!). It’s the capital of Alaska, only accessible by sea or air, built on gold mining with downtown buildings very reminiscent of that era,

Great fish tacos here in Juneau, locally caught fish.

then on through the spectacular inner passage to Ketchikan (Catchmeifyoucan!). Built on the salmon industry with some interesting history. If you visit during salmon season, you’ll see salmon laying eggs in the creek gravel, possibly moving up the specially built salmon ladder and maybeceven a bear in the creek after their favourite food – salmon! We did a lovely self guided walk of historic downtown and Newtown areas and met some colourful locals!

Creek Street, Ketchikan – the old red light district

The Rock, with lots of characters from Ketchikan’s history.

Then, on through the passage back to Vancouver. The scenery was spectacular, and we spotted several whales and dolphins from the ship, we also saw bald headed eagles in Icy Strait. The budget didn’t allow us to take any shore excursions (ship based ones are expensive but you could do cheaper ones from the ports) but as we discovered you don’t need to spend a fortune to see the wildlife – it was just all around us. We had a resident whale watcher Michaela on board (working for the Orca charity) who was very informative about whales and also glaciers.

Recommendations – check out the itinerary and cruise ship as many go to the same places (each port can get very busy if lots of ships are in on the same day). Pick your excursions carefully. Take binoculars!

October 1, 2022March 1, 2024

Ruby wedding anniversary cruise to Iceland

Well, as we decided that 40 years together was a milestone worth celebrating, we treated ourselves to our first overseas trip since the pandemic!

We joined the Celebrity Silhouette at Southampton for a 12 day cruise, stopping at Guernsey, Cobh and Dunmore East (Ireland), Akureyri and Reykjavik (Iceland) and Greenock before returning to Southampton. That was the plan but sadly we were unable to visit Guernsey (a tendering port) due to bad weather so we ended up in Portland instead – ironic really as we first met in Weymouth many years ago!!

We took the opportunity to visit Nothe Fort whilst there as we’d not done that before – well worth a visit, it’s been well restored with interesting exhibits ranging from Victorian times through to the Cold War.

2012 Olympic Statue, Queen Victoria Reighton clock, Nothe Fort, One of the Nothe Fort guns, old Fort on the walls leaving Portland.

Our next stop was our first in Ireland, Cobh (pronounced Cove) which is the port for Cork (you can get a train to Cork from here). We explored this lovely colourful town (including the famous deck of cards – a street of houses that the locals say if the bottom one goes the rest will tumble like a pack of cards!), visited the Titanic memorial garden (the last sighting of the Titanic as she left Cobh in 1912), the glorious St Colman’s Cathedral (had to leave due to a funeral) and learnt about the history at the very informative Cobh Heritage Centre (potato famine, emigration, sinking of the Lusitania, last journey of the Titanic and the plight of the convicts on Spike Island before being transported to Australia). Oh and of course we had to have a Guinness at Kelly’s bar.
We had an interesting meal experience at Le Petit Chef on board which is an animated meal! And finally we were entertained by the fabulous Celtic Nights and Irish dancers.

Our second port of call in Ireland was Dunmore East – the port for Waterford. We got the tender into the harbour, had a chat with the local RNLI coxswain, was met by a guide from the local information office and picked up some tips. You can get a bus into Waterford (famous for the Waterford Crystal) but feeling the need to walk off all the great food we’ve been eating we decided to walk the Dunmore East Coast path to Portally Cove and back. We met a few locals on the way, all wanting to chat and one asked if we’d just got off the ferry (not sure Captain Jorge would appreciate his ship being called a ferry)!!!!! Then we wandered back into town for locally caught fish and chips and of course found a pub for another Irish Guinness before returning.

After a rather grey and wet day at sea, passing St Kilda along the way, we arrived in the port of Akureyri, Iceland’s second largest city in Northern Iceland bathed in glorious sunshine and blue skies. We could see steam rising from waterfalls in the distance (signs of the geothermal heat of this amazing island). We took an excursion from the ship around the city (all the red traffic lights are heart shaped – to cheer people up after the financial crash a few years ago), visited the botanical gardens and were surprised to see many of the plants we grow at home, then went up over the mountains to vist the stunning Gadofoss Falls.
We were lucky enough to spot 2 whales as we were leaving the fjord to continue our trip to Reykjavik.

Steaming waterfalls, Gadofoss Falls Eryngium, Leaving the fjord.

The night we sailed around Iceland to Reykjavik was clear and cold but if we’d stayed up till about 2am we’d have seen the Northern Lights – we were sound asleep by then but had seen a slight hint of them earlier in the evening! We spent 24 hours in Reykjavik over two days which allowed us to explore on the Hop On Hop Off bus on our own the first afternoon. We had a pint in the Hard Rock Cafe and bought the obligatory keyring before heading off to visit the stunning Hallsgrimskirkja cathedral. The next day was an early start (but caught a stunning sunrise) to do the Golden Circle tour, taking in the Geyser area, Gullfoss Falls and the National Park where the American and European tectonic plates are pulling apart (so Iceland is growing). It has formed a huge wall and canyon that was used in the Game of Thrones as the North Wall.

We enjoyed our small taste of Iceland very much and Celebrity had invited Orly Orlyson to be the guest speaker – he gave 3 very different entertaining talks on board about his homeland – ranging from how astronauts were trained in Iceland to how his home town nearly won an Oscar!

View from our balcony, Hallsgrimskirkja cathedral, Geyser, Gullfoss, Techtonic plates canyon, National Park lake.

Our final stop before returning to Southampton was Greenock, Scotland. You can visit Glasgow by train from here but once again we opted to explore the port ourselves. We did the town trail and learnt about the history of ship building, sugar refining and James Watt. We also visited the largest cemetery in Scotland.

Our thanks go to all the amazing staff of Celebrity Silhouette for making our trip so amazing and to Andy Sharples of Cruise Holidays for trying to keep it all a big secret from me!!