Whitey Grandad

I can't imagine ABK in any sort of race.

Stats? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Thanks for the suggestion but not for me. Toffs is all the same. I know my place. 🫣

You Really Got Me The Kinks

Thanks, I'll have a look. I'm cramming in all the travel that I can these days whilst i can still get the insurance and a big problem is that I want a solo balcony cabin which is not too expensive.

Which P&O is that?

£150 per stateroom on P&O for 14 days or more. I'm on a Princess cruise to Galveston in October and I get $250. Nowadays you have to apply through an app called Stockperks. https://www.carnivalcorp.com/investors/shareholder-information/shareholder-benefit/ Somehow I've ended up buying a lot of future cruise credits on NCL and I looked at buying their shares but they only give you $100 for cruise up to 14 days so it wasn't worth it. To ge honest you wouldn’t want to spend that long on NCL anyway.

It brings a new meaning to "Play the ball and not the man".

Just the thought of it brings tears to your eyes.

The NHS is good at emergencies but rubbish at routine.

Ostensibly they've made the change so that they can hold weddings on board. I suspect there's a lot more to it than that.

Good point. Although to qualify for the on board credit that you get for holding these shares you need to have at least 100 of them so that is what you would need to spend. This perk is available on all Carnival Cruise brands.

I first met the young girl who was to become my wife and lifelong companion at a disco called the North20 in Barnet High Street although we didn't call them discos then. It was a Valentine's evening on 12th February 1966 and we were both still just sixteen years old. For the last dance of the evening they would always play "The Carnival is Over" by The Seekers. She always dreaded hearing this song because it meant that the evening was over and if you hadn't pulled by then you were going to go home alone. For the two of us, fifty-seven years later, the carnival is truly over. By all means get tickets for the fair on the Common but you won't see much of the wider world that's waiting out there for you.

I've done the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Kirkenes and back twice but it's a voyage and not really a cruise. You only get a couple of hours in the bigger ports but not necessarily at the best of times. NCL do a couple but they are mainly aimed at the Americans with 9 or 10 nighters. P&O still do some. Arcadia in August this year and Aurora in December. We went up to North Cape on Princess in 2022 the year before I lost my dear wife but the emphasis now is on shorter ones. The Norwegians are getting fussy over environmental issues. Geiranger Fjord will soon only accept zero emission ships. The problem is that the big lines are moving towards ever larger ships and many ports can't handle them.

We did that. I drove my dear wife up to the middle of Sweden so that she could buy a large Dalahäst (red painted wooden horse) in Mora in Dalarna. Ferries go from Hirtshals in Northern Denmark to Larvik and Kristiansand but the Bergen route is probably better for western Norway. Or you could go the long way round over the Øresund Bridge. We drove outbound via Harwich - Esbjerg just before that route closed and back via Øresund and Hook of Holland.