It’s been quite a while since the last blog update – seven weeks! – and the reason’s been pretty simple: so, so busy at work. Stupidly busy. Big emergencies, lots of meetings, so many meetings, so very many pointless meetings.
But, as the clouds have lifted on those architectural infrastructure foul-ups (on which I’m not going to expound upon any further), so the clouds have also floated away from this country’s dismal and damp May, and June appears to be bringing us some sunshine to lift the spirits of beleaguered travel bloggers such as myself. I actually have some minor updates to share – though not many, as you might appreciate – but while the sun’s out I am getting around to much-needed garden DIY jobs so don’t expect the floodgates to open on posts any time soon.
A quick catch-up of the smattering of travel posts published since the last update then…
First is a look at Weald & Downland Open Air Museum from 2008. Some quintessentially British views of yesteryear.
Next up is a new post from an old cruise; a very old cruise in fact as it was our first one, and as I’ve been going back through the photos to clean some of them up and refresh older posts I’ve found a few here and there that were never published on this site before. This is a case in point with some pictures taken from inside the theatre of Diamond Princess back in 2008 while we were docked at Shanghai, and some acrobats came on board to entertain the passengers. See more (admittedly not particularly great) photos here: Diamond Princess At Shanghai: Port And Theatre Acrobatics
With a title like Newcastle City Architecture Highlights you won’t be too surprised what the post contains but that’s no reason not to click through and take a look at some of the varied styles for yourself. An actual reason would be that you’re lazy.
Eastney Seafront, Portsmouth is part of the beach near where we live. It’s not particularly attractive but there’s interest there for fans of the military or fans of Doctor Who.
Our visit to Naha City, Okinawa, Japan from our 2008 honeymoon cruise received some refreshed and new photos along with some changes to the write-up.
In 2013 we spent some time near Bristol which meant that on one of the days in that part of the country we paid a visit to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s passenger steamship, the SS Great Britain.
Some of the first so-called Seacation cruises have taken place from the UK recently. I’m not sure if others are sailing but MSC made a big deal about getting people on Virtuosa and a lot of people jumped at the chance. Well, I say a lot of people, but they were limited to a thousand per sailing (and that on a ship with six times that capacity) so not as many as everyone would have liked, but there were people understandably keen to get on ships; happily-retired groups who’ve missed their fix of cruising, plus you’ll always get that core of bloggers and vloggers who want to be the first aboard (or almost) for the PR kudos it delivers their brand, of course, but there were others for whom the vaccination requirements for lines starting up a little later (P&O, Princess, Virgin) didn’t apply to MSC and so it made sense for them to take what they could get if they were too young to have had jabs yet or had youngsters with them.
We’ve watched a lot of the videos and read the blogs and are pleased to see it’s all gone very well with lots of positive commentary coming back, but being brutally honest here, we’ve not been blown away by what we’ve seen from MSC, and some of the company’s decision-making feels weird. For instance, that everyone wasn’t bumped up to a balcony, at least, is odd. The ship is clearly large enough to do it given the low passenger numbers, and it feels that if you’re really going to do everything you can to ensure there’s no outbreak on board then a simple one is to get people in as highly-ventilated a position as possible for as much of the time as possible. It also could be seen as a future upsell gamble for the line. Some people might have always booked inside because they wouldn’t think balconies were for them but a chance to experience one might turn them into increased-value future customers (it sure as hell worked when Princess did that to us). The other disappointing aspect of the line is what seems to be some penny-pinching here and there; some of the prices for additional extras looked very high indeed. I know the lines are looking to claw back money, but on these cruises which are essentially loss-leading promotional ventures with built-in crew training why not make it more financially attractive for some people to take a punt on, for example, robot-served drinks and rave about them for the publicity? As I say: odd. And annoying. We want to like MSC and want to try them with as much an open mind as possible one day but these cruises of theirs just aren’t doing it. Horses for courses, naturally.
Another odd PR choice recently came from Princess who sent out personalised Ocean Medallions to people with a note thanking them for sticking by them. A nice reward for loyalty, you might think. I have seen grumblings about this online because the people getting them weren’t, in all cases, actual customers who’d kept their bookings or booked again during the wave of lockdowns, etc., but were instead just people who had some ability to spread a positive advertising message on social media through their connections with the cruise line industry (agents, magazine people, associate members of groups, and so on). We didn’t get medallions because we’ve kept ourselves unconnected from the marketing world of cruise line associations in order not to tarnish any objectivity and weren’t bothered by this at all as it was pretty clear what it was all about anyway, but I can see why some people who perhaps kept rolling over their cancelled bookings after many years of cruising with a line might feel a bit aggrieved at seeing someone on Twitter saying “Wow! Lovely medallion and note. Thanks, Princess, I might have to book with you one day!” Princess perhaps needed to rethink the wording on the note to make it a little clearer what they were really “rewarding” there.
With us having some cruises booked this year (see previous post: Seacation Cruises…) and with my camera reaching the grand old age of ten (and that’s old in camera years) I decided it was probably time to get an upgraded model. So, without any further preamble, my new camera:
I had to stick with Canon (which is no bad thing, of course) because I’ve made a substantial investment in glass over the years but my 5D Mark II body has now changed through the magic of a financial transaction to that of an R6. A ridiculous amount of programmable buttons and dials all over the back of it, and far more features than I’ve scratched the surface of just yet, but the sensor is such an improvement in low light, and the mechanical shutter noise is so much quieter, that I already love it to pieces. It has an electronic shutter if I want to go for silent shooting, but I like the feedback of noise when I’m taking shots. The video capabilities and the ability to connect to my phone and upload photos over its connection could be a major game-changer for how I use the camera while travelling and post about things while away. It might not, though.
I’ve now had my second vaccination and my wife gets hers in about ten days as of time of writing. That’s a weight off our shoulders. Looking ahead to our cruises coming up as from the end of July I think that only leaves parking to arrange because we’ve got the apps to show we’ve been vaccinated, we’ve got insurance and a covering email from the provider to confirm it’s good enough for all the cruise lines’ requirements, and we’ve even booked speciality dining and drinks packages where it’s been possible to do so.
That wraps up this post. Hopefully not too much of a gap before the next one but a lot of that might depend on how much time I end up creating a garden worth using from the wilderness that was there.