earlier blog: Zip World Velocity North Wales

Our first Cruise

Having been to a presentation by Cruise & Maritime Voyages, it became clear that maybe we should try one cruise after all, and their ship Marco Polo was an obvious choice – smaller, less impersonal than the huge ships designed for ocean travel, and best of all, new sailings from Cardiff and Newport in South Wales. With just a little pressure from me, husband Leslie agreed we should try our first cruise (as we must be the only people in our age group never to have tried one). So, we booked for the France, Spain and Portugal 10-day trip from Cardiff.

As we usually only take hand-luggage, we were a bit phased by the need for a suitcase each. Of course, it didn’t take long to fill them up, especially with all the outfits for lounging about/ visiting local towns on day trips/ informal (that is, jacket and tie for the men and a nice little dress for the ladies)/ grand formal wear for two evenings over the 10-day cruise.

The Marco Polo is a smaller cruise ship, with lots of smaller bar areas as well as a comfy lounge bar, library, show lounge and both a buffet restaurant and more formal restaurant where tables are allocated based on your stated preference when booking. We were right to go for a table with 6 people rather than just the two of us, or maybe four people, as we had a great set of people to chat with over dinner. We were also happy choosing the early sitting at 6.00pm rather than 8.00pm, leaving plenty of time for the show and a visit to the bar.

There are a couple of hot tubs on the top sun deck and three other sun areas aft (at the rear) of the boat plus an outdoor pool, albeit tiny and very cold! Our cabin was comfortable with plenty of cupboard space and a decent-sized shower room.

Staff were lovely, all of them friendly and helpful, and food was excellent. Our waiter in the restaurant, Baptist, was very funny, helpful with choices and very efficient as was our wine waitress who soon knew what drinks we preferred with the meal. There was also a wide range of foods to choose from in the buffet restaurant, with plenty of choice if you are vegetarian. The only complaint we heard was a woman at breakfast who complained that the dinner plates were not big enough – “how are you supposed to get all the baked beans on top?” - then piled up food on two (yes, two) plates and left part of it anyway. I am sure the waiting staff must despair sometimes.

What did we like about our first cruise?

-          Our cabin, our room steward who serviced the room 3 times a day

-          The food, staff and the main lounge bar

-          You can choose a drinks package within the first 24 hours of the trip - £17 per person per day with almost all the drinks (included branded ones) including cocktails and wine with the meal as part of the package. This is absolutely worth-while as you know exactly what your drinks bill will be at the end, although it does encourage you to drink more than you would if you were paying separately for each drink, I suspect, especially as many people worked their way through a substantial list of cocktails….

-          It is a no-cash system with everything extra charged to your account, basically the professional photographs and any odd bits bought from the shop. It is all in sterling and your credit card is charge very late on last night

-          Before the trip, you are told that tips can be paid through your on-board account at £5 each per day. An excellent idea as you don’t have to think about it during the voyage, and all staff are included not just those front-of-house

What didn’t we like?

-          Getting to Cardiff docks! A nightmare if you are using a taxi from the city centre as half of the drivers didn’t know how to get to this part of the docks – it has been a long time since boats went from there apparently. This should improve now as more ships are due to sail from here.

-          When you got to the marquee to go through to board, vehicles were held up in single file for ages, many with taxi meters still running, and were not allowed to go through to the big carpark area. In the end, we got out and walked through with our own cases

-          Extra security checks (which is fine) meant long queues, but once through scanning, it was easy on the ship and our cases were already outside our cabin.

-          Leaving the ship was just as bad! We docked at 3.00am so we booked a taxi in advance to collect us at 5.15am for our train at 6.40am. Taxi firms kept saying they couldn’t find us (even though you can see the ship from 20 miles away!), everyone was phoning them dozens of times, and we finally got one at 6.20am.

-          Finally, we hated the Bay of Biscay, very rough rocking and rolling for last one and a half days.

So, we are still not convinced cruising is for us! Maybe a bigger ship so possibly less extreme rolling? Maybe a river cruise would be better as no significant tidal swell plus the chance to leave the ship every day? Who knows.

But for those who love cruising, or want to try it out for the first time, Cruise & Maritime gives you the opportunity to enjoy a smaller, friendlier ship experience on the Marco Polo, leaving from regional ports of Newport and Cardiff.