Cruise of the Med.

Hi Friends, I will try again to get news to you of our holiday. I made an entry last night only for it to go AWOL between me and the “blog” Grrrrrrrr.


Anyway what I was saying was that Mary, Pam Henry and I had a wonderful cruise in the Med. The taxi arrived on time and we were soon loaded and on our way to Southampton to board the Royal Caribbean's “Independent of the seas.” Once all the formalities were over it was all systems go...At first I was rather shocked by the size of the ship and the number of people who were milling around. I knew that Pam and Henry would not be liking it at all....We made first for the Windjammer Cafe as I remembered from last year that that was the best thing to do first....again it was packed, however we were soon tucking into some food which all agreed was good...then it was down to our cabins. Mary and I were on deck 9 Pam and Henry deck 6. We had by then discovered where the main dining room was and when we were booked in to have dinner, so we agreed to meet up at 6pm. The dining room was lovely and our waiters just excellent...The food throughout the cruise was delicious and served so promptly never a wrong step was made. ... After dinner we just had a further stroll around the ship trying to familiarize ourselves. As I say it was so big it was a lot to take in.

Day 1 at sea started with breakfast at 8.30. Now there were around 5/6 places we could have eaten from the Windjammer cafeteria, to street cafe's, dining room restaurant self service, or dining room full service...we opted to be served each morning...it is so nice to “come to and relax” first thing, before the onslaught of the day LOL By now we had began to get used to the size of the ship and people had started to find their own “places” and were not all milling around on the main street. Deck 5 was where we could be found if we wanted a bit of shopping extra coffee, food,. ...on the ship one could have eaten from 6am till the early hours of next day if one liked. I have never seen to much food being eaten....after the first day we decided not to have lunch served as we had had such a big breakfast.  Mary and I could be found in one of our fav. Cafe's around 1ok. Having a croissant and cofee/tea, we were always helped by one of the lovely waiters who seemed to be waiting just for us to come along !! There was so much to do on board it was sometimes hard to decided where we should be !! Pam and I did three classes on jewelery making. I managed a lovely necklace, bracelet, and earrings for Beth, we tried our hand at scrapbooking, and napkin folding, but missed out on the towel folding as we were a bit late !!

If we had been energetic LOL we could have tried our hand at windsurfing !!, ice skating !!, wall climbing !!, even a game of golf or football or basketball...all on deck 13. of course there were the swimming pools I think about 4 large ones and a couple of childrens as well as various hot tubs. We spent lots of time just sitting people watching. If all that seems to be a bit hectic we could always find a quiet corner, Perhaps in the very large library where there were lovely deep leather chairs to snuggle down into, or there was always somewhere on deck that other people hadn't quite found...we were blessed with the most wonderful calm sunny hot weather. In the evening after dinner we tried out the various Theater's The Alhambra where there was a new show every night, The ice rink where there was spectacular ice shows...a few “bars” where you could always find some of the ships musicians playing for ballroom dancing, or classical or modern music, It was no wonder that we all found ourselves heading for bed quite early most nights !! I am glad to say that when we docked at all the ports we were able to go ashore which was a bonus as we had thought we might not be accessible for the chair. However the cruise company provded courtesy coaches every time to take us into the nearest town...usually just outside the port. I will stop now and next edition will tell about the various ports we visited and what we did there.

So for now. Goodnight, God Bless and Love One Another...