Cruise Customer Review - August 2021

"One of the best things about actually being on holiday is that you have, at last, left behind all the things you worried about before you went. Bad enough in ordinary times but throw in covid and then where are you?

My wife and I decided to dip a toe (not literally, of course) into a post-covid cruise and settled for a 7-nighter around the British Isles. That was one worry taken care of; if the woif the worst came to the wort we would never be more than a short helicopter ride from the security of the NHS. (I did wonder if our travel insurance would have covered such an expense but luckily the situation didn't arise.) Then, getting to Southampton; the cruise lines, most inconsideratley, won't let you start and finish in Belfast. We could have flown but didn't fancy the whole airport/aeroplane experience so we amd eourselves a little extra holiday and drove through England to call with some old friends on the way. No hassle, and the free carpark was right beside the ship.

I forgot to mention the PCR test. We had it done at Randox in Crumlin and it was an absolute doddle, nothing as intrusive as some people had led us to believe. The only worry was that the result wouldn't come through in time before we were due to embark. As it happened, we received the (negative, thank goodness!) result overnight and in good time.

On a positive side of covid, baording the ship was much less stressful than usual. To keep mingling to a minimum, passengers were divided into 30-minute time slots and the whole check-in progress was much quicker than ever before. Similarly with the safety drill, which was given to us in a small group of four immediately on emabrking. In the cabin, among all the usual paraphernalia, we were each supplied with a good quality and comfortable cruise line-branded face mask. The rules were to wear it when moving around and inside spaces; not hard to follow but easy to forget; quite a few scampers back along the corridor having just closed the cabin door. There was a four-person limits in the lifts, with floor markings showing where to stand. Hand sanitisiers were ubiquitous, at the entrance to all facilities and on every deck of every stairwell. The theatre was set out socially-distanced to be half full, as indeed was the limit on overall passneger numbers.

Eating and drinking were of course different from normal; no serving yourself at the buffet. It felt a bit odd to be handed and apple or banana on a plate and, perhaps more importantly, it was difficult to control portion sizes. The serving staff are generous by nature, even to the extent of poring too much milk on your cornflakes. At dinner, there was a small paper bag provided to store your mask, presumably a cross-contamination measure, but everything else about the meals and the service was much as usual.

There was none of the usual handing over of the sea pass for swiping through the till when being served in the cafes or bars. Again, a cross-contamination prevention measure. It made a lot of extra work for the staff, who had to take a note every order and then laboriously type in every transaction at the end of their shift. I felt very sorry for them all. And another thing; every member of staff has a covid test every week and not one of them is allowed to set foot on shore for the duration of their contract, in this case, seven months. What a life!

We had one case of coronavirus on board. The captain was very open about itand announced it, once that afternoon and again on the following morning, along with the fact that the ship had a very strict protocol. The infected passenger was confined to their cabin and all their close contacts were tested and had been found negative (I don't know what would have happened if someone else had been found positive.) It was all open and above board, didn't feed the rumour mill and there was no worry or panic.

All in all, we were glad we'd stuck our heads above the parapet (no toe in the water metaphor, this time!) and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was a lot better than we thought it might have been and - put it this way - while on board we booked another cruise for next year.

Thanks for all your help

Kevin"