So today was our last day at sea sailing over night from Montenegro back to Greece to leave our floating hotel for one on terra firma.
The whole cruise operation is a slick one and with a ratio of two guests to every crew member it is hard not find someone no matter where you are on board. Thomson style themselves as the friendliest cruise and we can attest to that with every crew member keen to offer a smile and a cheery hello. This makes for a happy ship but if you are going from one end to the other that’s an awful lot of hellos!
We got chatting to the two stewards that were working in our section of the ship – one from Egypt and the other from the Ukraine. They work for a stretch of between seven and nine months and then get to go home before the “company” (Tui in this case) call them up again in what can be as little as after two weeks at home. They can get to leave the ship and visit the places it docks but in a number of cases they need a visa. It must be tough and I’m impressed they continue to smile.
The biggest smiles, however, are held by the members of the entertainment team and in particular the ten that make up the troupe that put on the show each evening. This usually consists of 45 minutes of song and dance numbers – one evening it was Broadway hits, another it was The Beatles and the final night “Africa”. It is surprisingly good fun, if a little camp, with the quality probably better than you should expect given that it is included in the price.
So at 9am we were off the boat and onto a coach to take as to the airport where we picked up a hire car and drove over to the hotel. We were here two years ago and we were pleased to see that it was just as we remembered it – complete with the abundance of wasps. Tomorrow we start phase two of the holiday!