Bonnetts Abroad Past Trips

Canada

Drove to Jo's, picked up Jo and then drove to Cowes, Jo took the car back to hers.

We bought ferry tickets and waited for the ferry, the 12:05 RedJet.

Crossing the Solent was smooth and we arrived in Southampton, where it was spitting with rain. We had a bit of a wait for a taxi as quite a few people from the ferry were also going on cruises.

The taxi took us to the Mayflower terminal, a porter took our big cases and directed us to the departure terminal. In the terminal we were directed straight to a check–in desk, there was no wait at all and we were checked in very quickly and directed to security. The queue for security was moving very quickly and we were soon through and onto the ship.

We checked in at our muster station and then went to our room. It was still only 13:30, well before our allotted check in time.

We went up to the buffet to have lunch, a nice salad and then went back to our room where our bags were waiting for us, we unpacked and then rested awhile.

Met Mel in the lift and again in the corridor, who was on part of our Bollette cruise as her husband is Lt.Col Dick Taylor, who is the guest speaker on this cruise.

We had vouchers for a free glass of champagne at the sail away party at 17:00 in the Curzon Theatre. Once we'd drank the champagne, I headed outside to watch as we departed Southampton. We passed the Waverley moored by the quayside as we left.

Then it was time for dinner, it was a very long queue for the Medina dining room, but it moved very quickly and we were given a table for 2 by the window.

As we ate we watched as we passed Calshot, Cowes, the forts and Nab tower. Dinner was very nice, fillet of trout with avocado, followed by Lamb, and then cheese.

Went to the show at 20:00, we saw Susan on the other side of the theatre, but she didn't see us. Show was ok, Headliners troupe singing and dancing.

Then as we were quite tired we went back to the room to settle down.

Clocks go back one hour tonight to UTC.

A lazy start to the day, drank tea in the room, before heading down to the Medina for breakfast, but there was a very long queue, and people were waiting with bleepers for tables, so we changed our minds and went up to the buffet instead, where we ate outside by the pool.

I went to the Col Dick talk on the Battle of the Atlantic, and Debbie went to watercolour painting with the creative waves team. There Debbie met up with Susan. Debbie stayed on to do “coffee painting"

After the talk I was going to stay on for the port talk on St. John's, but I nipped out to get the crossword and when I got back, the theatre was full, so left. Bumped into Susan as I left, and chatted for a bit on the stairs,

I headed up to the crow's nest to wait for Debbie to finish her “Creative Waves”.

Had lunch in the buffet, smoked duck salad, and then headed back to the room for a rest.

Met up with Debbie for the 15:00 quiz in Champions, very crowded, we got 15 out of 20.

Went for a cup of tea in the buffet, also a nice little quiche. While we were having our tea, a large pod of dolphins appeared.

Debbie went to “Creative Waves”

At 17:00 The PA system announced “Smoke in the Engine Room, Alert”

17:05: Captain announced “Ship is now safe and we we will continue”!

Dinner in the Medina

Then the show, Soprano Joanna Forest, very good.

Clocks have gone back another hour, not UTC+1, 2 hours behind home.

Today was the first of the ukulele classes, with Ivy. I bought a ukulele and book as I hadn't brought one with me, an Octopus soprano in red, it started at 09:00.

There were 2 classes, back to back, beginners and improvers. Susan was already there when I arrived. The lessons were very different from on the last cruise, a lot more lively.

Had lunch in the Medina, lasagne and then went to the second of the talks on the Battle of the Atlantic.

Had afternoon tea at 15:00 in the Horizon. Captain announced that whales had been spotted on the starboard side, saw a spout but couldn't see the whale.

Debbie went to creative waves, watercolour painting.

It was a black tie night, with the Captain's reception in the Crow's Nest. We had to wait outside the Crow's Nest until 17:30, and then filtered in, shaking hands with the captain as we entered. We were given fizz, which was topped up several times. We then headed down for dinner in the Medina, Table for 2, amuse bouche, salmon cerviche, pea and ham soup, halibut and tart tatin, very nice. Then back to the room to relax.

Breakfast in the Horizon buffet, bacon sandwich. Then down to Masquerade for the ukulele lessons. Quite good, shown the Blues Ending, something to practice.

Took Uke back to the room and then went to duty free shop as we had vouchers to get duty free spirits for the room, so quite a saving on normal room service prices. Took there back to the room and then headed up to the Crow's nest to meet Debbie who had been doing watercolours.

It was just before 11:00, so went to Horizon for a cup of tea, and then down to Medina for lunch. Quite a big lunch, went back to room to rest and to practice the blues ending.

Had dinner in the buffet at 19:00, excellent selection of cheeses today. Officer of the watch reported whales, but we saw none.

Breakfast in the buffet, bacon sandwich and tomato juice, then went to ukulele lesson, while deb went back to the room to paint.

Susan wanted selfie taken, Jed took picture for us.

Dropped ukulele back in the room and then went to Col Dick talk on Canada, quite good,

Had burger for lunch, then went back to the room.

Deb went to a quilling lesson.

Had dinner in the buffet and then did the laundry.

We gained another half an hour in the night, now at UTC+2 and a half, three and a half hours behind home.

A slow start, we had breakfast in the Horizon. We were alongside in St. John's, but it was raining quite heavily, so picked up daily puzzles from deck 5 and went back to the room for an hour or so.

We went ashore at around 10:00, the rain had slackened off to a gentle drizzle.

A map on the quayside directed us to the tourist information, which was down water street, so we headed that way.

Opposite the tourist information was a quilt shop, so we went in there and looked around, Debbie bought some fabric.

The tourist information had free WiFi, so caught up on e–mails etc.

We then walked up to look at the cathedrals, first the Anglican cathedral.

And then the Roman Catholic Basilica

Afterwards we headed down towards the quay, and visited the war memorial.

and the quay side park.

The houses are all painted in different colours

We then walked back up water street to a minimart we'd spotted in the morning, to try and get some tonic water, but lots of people from the ship had had the same idea, and they'd sold out. So then tried the Dollarrama, and a petrol station, to no avail. So went back to the tourist information for some more WiFi.

We were back on the ship for a late afternoon tea.

Today we were on a trip. Had breakfast in the buffet, and as we had some time to spare, went down to deck 5 to get the daily puzzles.

We went out onto the quay side and were directed to out bus. The bus left at 09:00.

The local tour guide, Sarah, was very good, and kept a constant commentary as we passed through St. John's and up to Signal Hill. The weather was quite good, a little bit misty, but not too bad.

Back on the coach we had to wait a little, as some one had run into the back of the coach, and the driver had to give a statement to the police. But we were soon on our way, back through St. John's and continued on to Cape Spear.

Here we had 40 minutes to look around, we went up to the old lighthouse, 146 steps.

On the way back we drove through Petty harbour and then did a few loops around St John's as Sarah pointed out various sites of interest,

We were back at the ship by 12:30, Medina for lunch, and then out on deck to watch as we ship cast of at 14:00 and headed out through the narrow (90 Metre) harbour entrance.

It was a black tie night, with beef wellington on the menu.

Breakfast in the buffet, and then down to Masquerade for Ukulele lesson, shown Calypso strum (DUD UDU). Then headed up to the Crow's nest to meet Debbie, who had been doing watercolour.

Went for tea in the Horizon buffet and then had seafood salad for lunch. Then went back to room.

We met up for afternoon tea, Debbie went to ‘Creative Waves' to decorate her craft bag.

We had dinner in the buffer, Lasagne.

We were booked on a tour to the Beau Joli gardens, we went onto the quay to meet up as instructed, but once we got there we were told that our tour had been cancelled. We had little choice available to us, so chose to do the “Meeting or 2 Nations” tour.

We had to wait three quarters of an hour on the quayside, as the bus being used for this excursion was a school bus, so we had to wait until the school run was over. Fortunately it was a nice day.

Our first stop was a restored Hudson Bay Company trading post, with the guides there in period costumes. It was quite interesting, particularly in the trading post itself, where the system of bartering was explained, based on multiples of beaver skins.

The next stop was the Shaputuan Museum, where we were given a presentation oriented on the four seasons with respect to first nation peoples.

From the museum it was as a short drive to a viewpoint overlooking the estuary, with a short circular walk.

When we got back to the quay we went for a walk along the waterfront, adorned by metal sculptures.

There was also a small museum dedicated to a transatlantic row boat.

We had a late lunch in the buffer and a dinner in the Medina restaurant.

Ukulele lesson, introduced to finger picking.

Lunch in the buffet.

For a change we decided to have dinner in the glass house.

A flight of wine each, three tapas dishes between us for starters, lamb cutlets, meat balls and scallops. Three small sliders each, beef, lamp and chicken, and then a trio of deserts between us, all very nice and very filling.

The ship was still approaching Quebec at 08:00, it looked lovely. We had breakfast in the buffet.

We were in no hurry to get off as the ship was staying overnight, so we had no time constraints.

We walked along the pretty cobbled streets to the base of the funicular which would take us up the hill, but it only took cash, and we had no local currency.

Halloween is a big thing here, and there were pumpkins on display everywhere, as well as strange giant pink babies adorning some buildings

So we walked up the steps instead into Park d'la Armee, which was the site of the original parliament building.

From there we walked to the Roman Catholic cathedral.

Then to the library, itself an old church.

and then on towards the citadel and the plains of Abraham

From there , there was a promenade built into the cliff side, so we took that and walked along under the citadel walls, which eventually brought us out by Chateau Fortenac

We took the steps back down the hill and returned to the ship. We had been walking for about 5 hours, Debbie's fir bit reported over 22000 steps, more than 10 miles.

Today we were on a tour. The coach left at 08:30 and took us to the Montmorency falls, we didn't have any time to look at the falls as we had to get on a train.

It was a two and a quarter hour train journey along the shoreline of the St. Lawrence. The scenery was very beautiful and we saw eagles on a number occasions, as well as snow geese.

The train took us to Baie St. Paul's, a small artists city. We walked around a bit.

The tourist information office suggested that we should walk to the beach, about 25 minutes away. We started walking, but soon changed out minds and turned back.

We settled into a cafe for lunch. Poutine and a local IPA.

We met the tour gain at 14:00 and boarded the coach, which took us back to the waterfall, so we could take a few pictures, then it was back to the ship by 16:00.

The ship was due to depart at 17:00, but there wasn't a crane available to remove the gangplank, so we didn't cast off until 19:00, by which time it was dark.

I was in the 08:30 trip to Arvida and Bagotville defence museum, Debbie was on the 10:30 Walking tour.

I boarded bus number 4, tucked away at the end of the row of buses. There was a total of 21 of us on a 60 seater coach.

The guide was very good, and gave quite a good overview of the history of the region and of the Arvida area and aluminium plant.

When we got into Arvida (named for Arnold Vining–Davis), two local guides boarded the coach, and we drove around the model houses from the 1920's.

Then we were driven over the aluminium bridge with views of the hydro–electric dam that supplied electricity for the Aluminium plant.

We drove back to Arvida and disembarked the coach to go into the local library, where there were posters explaining the link to the air defence base.

We were given 15 minutes to look around the local area.

We then drove to Bagotville airbase, where a guide boarded the coach and took us around the non–secure part of the facilities there.

Then we were in the museum, the guide talked us through some of the exhibits.

we were then given 20 minutes to have a look around outside at the aircraft. All of which had flown from the base, except for the Mig–23 which had been donated by the Czech republic.

From there it was back to the ship.

The ukulele lesson was in the afternoon today, so went to Col Dick talk on the Cuban Missile Crises, which was quite good.

After the talk, went to the buffet for lunch.

Ukulele was at 14:15.

Tonight was a black tie night, with a peninsular club party before the meal. Had our quota of red wine and gin and tonics.

We went to the Medina, and were given a bleeper, so we went for a drink in Anderson's.

Our bleeper went off and we headed back to the Medina where we were allocated a large eight seater table to ourselves.

We got off the ship after breakfast, picked up some maps from the tourist information and headed out into town.

Visited the Basillica, and then went to look at some shops, where we were able to get some cough sweets fro Debbie and some tonic water for me.

We walked following the green line and ended up at the waterfront of Victoria Park.

We kept following the green line, past Beaconsfield house and the Irish immigration monument, wending our way back to the ship.

Again there were many halloween themed displays around the town

We had been out for about 4 hours and walked about 5 miles.

At 16:30, our scheduled departure time, the captain came on the PA and told us that the next stop at Isle D'Madelaine had been cancelled to the bad weather, and that we would be staying in Charlottetown for an extra day. We just had to shuffle up to another berth to allow another ship to dock in the morning,

Debbie went to napkin folding in the afternoon

So, an extra day in Charlottetown, we were in no hurry to get off.

We went off the ship into the tourist information, greeted by Anne of Green Gables herself, and then headed off along the waterfront.

We took a different route from yesterday, visiting the park commemorating the formation of Canada

Past various historic houses, Beasconsfield house, and then into Victoria Park

In the park, we continued following the waterfront, until we reached Brighton road. There we started heading back towards the city centre.

We called into a shop to get some fizzy drinks, and headed back to the ship.

Breakfast in the Lido

Ukulele from 09:00 to 10:30, and then back to the room.

Went to the Medina for lunch, Lasagne, and then back to the room

At 15;15, Ivy was giving a talk on comedy songs so I went to that.

Back to the room, then dinner in the Horizon buffet, quite a nice curry.

We'd prepaid P&O for the HopOn–HopOff bus, these are all 1960's vintage British double deckers.

We exchanged our P&O tour tickets for HoHo stickers and boarded the first bus of the day at 08:30, it was pink.

We rode the bus round the entire loop (almost) to get a feel for the city. The commentary was very good, pointing out local features of interest and explaining some of the history of Halifax and the big explosion of 1917.

We got off the bus at stop 10, close to where it starts, and headed down to the boardwalk along the waterfront.

They were filming an episode of “Canada Ultimate Challenge”, so we had to skirt around that.

We passed by the maritime museum, which has two ships in the water, a survey ship from before the great explosion and a World War 2 corvette.

We re–boarded a HoHo at stop 3, and rode it up to stop5, the Victorian Gardens, which had a lovely display of dahlias as well as lovely bedding, and display of succulents.

We spent guide a while in the gardens, but eventually emerged out of the bottom gate and headed down Spring Garden Road. We stopped for a coffee on the top floor of the library.

We continued down Spring Garden Road, past the statue of Winston Churchill, modelled on a photo taken as he walked up that very road in 1941.

After a short stop over in an art and craft shop we made it back to the boardwalk.

We made it back to the ship just as it started to rain.

It was a black tie night, so table for two in the Medina. Tiger prawns/Ham Hock, Turbot/Lamb, Strawberry Souffle.

It was announced that due to adverse weather in Sydney that we would not be able to stop there and that we would ve staying at sea, skirting south to avoid some severe Atlantic storms.

An unexpected day at sea as out Sydney stop had been cancelled. There was no rush to get up and get out, so didn't make it up to breakfast until 08:00. Devilled kidneys.

Debbie went to creative waves in the crow's nest at 09:00, I sat near by and read until 10:00, then we went for a cup of tea by the pool.

We had lunch in the Horizon buffet, and then I had ukulele from 14:00 to 15:30.

Afternoon tea, crab sandwiches and salmon sandwiches, very nice.

Another day at sea.

Ukulele was at 09:00, so went straight to that from breakfast.

Had lunch in the Medina, beefburger

Went to Col Dick talk on the Mercury Seven astronauts, which was ok, but 45 minutes wasn't really enough for the subject

Then we went up for afternoon tea, sat by the window on the port side. We saw many many flying fish fleeing from the path of the ship, lovely to see.

At around 18:30 I went outside, to the aft of deck 9 to see if I could see the comet, but inspite of it being a lovely sunset, and Venus was shining brightly, I couldn't make it out.

Late dinner in the buffet, and then back to the room.

Overslept, didn't wake up until 07:30, so skipped breakfast and went straight to ukulele.

It was the first of the combined ukulele sessions to rehearse for the concert on Tuesday.

Found Debbie, sitting on the back of deck 9, waiting for the washing to finish.

Had lunch by the pool, beefburger from the Lido.

Had another go at comet spotting, with more success this time.

Today was the last ukulele lesson, one hour concert rehearsal.

We had booked a wine tasting session in the glasshouse for 11:00, there where 12 of us in total. It was a very good presentation and talk with a nice selection of white and red wines.

In the evening round outside on the back of deck 9 to try comet spotting, could just make out the tale at first, but it was soon obscured by clouds.

Went to Curzon theatre for twelve o'clock sound check and brief rehearsal, too about three quarters of an hour.

Then back to room for a cup of tea.

Went to Curzon theatre at 13:45, we all sat in our designated places on the stage.

The concert went ok, seemed to go down quite well.

Afterwards the ukulele group gathered for afternoon tea in the buffet area. Found out that the John Kelly will be the ukulele teacher for the second half of the Amazon cruise, with Ivy doing the first half.

Saw some whale spouts from buffet window

It was a formal night so got changed and headed to the Medina restaurant. We were sat at table 72, a table that seemed to be at a very busy cross roads for waiters and serving staff.

After dinner, a brief look outside, but it was too cloudy to see anything, so went to the glasshouse and had a fliight of wine each.

Out last day on board, we over slept, and didn't go up to breakfast until gone 09:30.

Picked up the Sudoku and crossword and then sat outside on the back of deck 9 until our room had been cleaned.

Once back in the room, we emptied draws and wardrobes and packed our bags ready for tomorrow, didn't take too long.

In the afternoon, whilst we were having afternoon tea, we spotted three dolphins close to the ship.