Not the best day!

our final stop today was Vigo, Spain. The day started well with sunny skies and warm...ish. It was also the most attractive location, particularly compared to the rather ugly Canary Island ports. With only a 4 hour gap between arrival and departure, we went ashore as soon as we arrived at 11. After visiting a gift shop we headed up the steep lanes towards a park at the top of the hill. With wheelchair accessible paths getting scarce tracy and the boys climbed to the top while I continued on the road hoping it might get me to the summit from another direction. After about quarter of a mile, I noticed the tell tale signs of the dreaded puncture in one of the main drive wheels. This was seriously bad news, particularly as I was by myself in spain. I managed to turn the chair round and nurse it back to a point not too far from where I had arranged to meet tracy half an hour later, I just hoped they would spot me. My off road chair is a brilliant bit of kit especially with fully inflated tyres and it has improved my independence immensely. Although it is called the All Terrain wheelchair, this really only refers to where it is capable of going and in this respect it is truly unbeatable. However you can't really prevent pneumatic tyres from getting punctures so ironically by the nature of the terrain one is capable of travelling on, a puncture is actually more likely than on a less capable chair. Nevertheless, we now had the challenge of getting 200kg of wheelchair and steve the mile or so back to the ship. although I always travel equipped with spare wheel, tubes, pump and tools I drew the line at carrying a bulky jack. We were faced with having to reinflate the tyre, go as far as I could, before repeating the process. So tracy, with the help of two kind fellow passengers who had come to our assistance started the first of probably 10 tiring stages. We reached the boat an hour and a half later where we were finally given some help and got the wheel changed.


With little time to recover, Tracy took the boys to the ice skating session they had been promised where..... Jake fell and smacked his head! So not the best day. With Jake ordered by the doctor to have a quiet evening, we were grateful for the Rasa agreeing to child mind while we had a quiet meal and go to watch an Elton John tribute performer, who was very good. We continued to finish the day on a better note as the boys joined us for the Rock Britannia street parade.

Pleasantly Surprised

the entertainment on board has been first rate and considerably more varied than you get might expect. There has been one Jane McDonaldesque experience; a celebrity vocal coach, Zoe someone or other, Tracy knew her from some of the talent show programmes, but she did actually have an incredible voice. Other shows would not have been out of place in the West End with impressive sets, amazing choreography and very professional performances and production. Two of the shows are ice shows of which we have seen one so far. Again despite a fairly small rink, the skaters from the US and Russia put on a great show. Last night we watched a hypnotist show which we thought was good, but then we would... wouldn't we!

Canary islands

Ok, I have skipped a few days as I haven't had a chance to write much and even now I only have 20 minutes before we go to the second ice show of the cruise. Day 6, 7 and 8 were spent at Tennerife, Grand Canaria and Lanzerote respectively. The weather has been rather disappointing; cool, windy and cloudy with only occasional appearances from the sun. We have just been hoping that the Snow has returned in the UK! It isn't a major problem; the boys have still managed spells, albeit brief in the pool and the only island of the three we went ashore, Grand Canaria, we visited a surprisingly impressive science museum. With all the islands, you really need to book the excursions to see anything worthwhile and neither us or the boys were bothered enough to endure the hassle of arranging them! So the last few days have been comprised of climbing wall, getting pizza, football, basketball, getting pizza, getting wet, getting coke, watching shows, going ice skating, getting pizza and coke, watching the latest Harry Potter (if you haven't seen it, don't bother; too long, very dull ) and getting pizza. Have just watched another very impressive ice show and looking forward to the final theatre show later.

Day 5

we are already on day 5 of the cruise and it is all good so far. Our first stop 2 days ago was Madeira where we got off for a couple of hours. We only got a chance to walk round the town of Funchal at the port but it is a very attractive town with terracotta roofed buildings lining the hillside leading up from the port. We avoided the early morning scramble to get off, opting for a post lunch visit. It was the warmest day we have had and by the time we had walked the 20 minutes into the town, the boys were making it quite clear that another afternoon in the ship's water play area would have been a much better idea! Despite this, we managed an hour there before returning. It was nice to have a change of scene for a bit, but as we were already aware, by virtue of quarter million tonne ships needing lots of water to stay afloat, mooring is confined to large docks which are not usually the most picturesque part of a country. Although on some cruises they moor offshore and use tenders to shuttle people ashore, it wouldn't have worked for us.

Yesterday once more!

Around the pool, music is piped through the pa system throughout the day. Considering the average passenger age is probably over 70 (the fact that there are plenty of children and people of our generation will lead the more mathematically minded of you to the fact that there is a large contingent considerably older ) the music is not at all bad. Jim Reeves, Vera Lynn, perry Coma and Andy Williams haven't had a look in once. Instead we have a selection of music that falls into the "guilty pleasure " category on many an ipod playlist. ELO, early Queen, Early Elton John, Carpenters, Bee Gees, Joni Mitchel, David Bowie and even some early Aerosmith! So basically the best contemporary music 1973 to 1975 had to offer. Appying the same 35 year gap, it would be like us going on a cruise in our eighties and being treated to golden oldies from Muse, Kaiser Chiefs, Lady Ga Ga and the Killers which would be great. However, I just don't see the current average octogenarian having a clue who Queen, ELO or Aerosmith are. The point I am trying to make is,( apart from the older passengers being pissed off with the music ) that current bands have a much wider audience age group and that our generation maybe has an interest in current music until an older age than previous generations.

How to keep amused

I thought while I am waiting in this lift I would explain the pros and cons of lift travel in a wheelchair. Ok, the pro is singular but essential to avoid a very dull 10 days travelling the length of the second deck cabin corridor, I'm sure I could come up with some ideas to pass the time. Maybe, corridor roulette; a full speed run down the length of the corridor without hitting any passenger not paying attention as they emerged from their cabin. I would imagine that by day 2 I would have renamed it corridor skittles, with a score assigned to types of passenger. The cons are more numerous. Lift travel when it is busy is easier, despite the hassle of waiting for one with enough room for my chariot. There are other people to push buttons and so the only challenge is getting someone to understand the floor number I am trying to say before we go hurtling past it. "what floor would you like? ", "Alivath", "ok, seventh", "alivath", "i'm sorry, three was it? " "no, alivath", normally and thankfully another passenger will pipe up with "I think he wants eleventh ". I daren't say thank you for fear they will think I said fourteenth, so I just nod and smile. Job done!

when its not so busy I have 2 options. The first and rather dull one is to wait in lobby for another lift bound passenger, hope they are going in my direction and embark on above procedure.

the other, more exciting option is to operate the call button with my nose and wait for lift. If it arrives occupied, thats the end of the game; refer to option one. however, if it is empty, I get in and wait for door to shut; lift lottery has started! Inside the lift, none of the buttons are accessible, including the door open button. So I just have to wait until somebody calls it. The first element of this game is the waiting time, best so far 5 seconds, worst until now 3 minutes. The other element is the floor the where doors open next. Best result is someone on my intended destination deck calling it, bingo I have arrived. Next best is it being called from a floor between me and destination, but only if they continue in the same direction. I won't bore you with all the permutations as I'm sure you can already see what a hoot this game is. By the way the first half of this was written during the what has now been the worst time to date, 8 minutes!

Daniel's independence of the seas

The first 2 days have been spent at sea en route to Madeira. It has given us a chance to look round all of the ship's facilities which include an ice rink, 1500 seat theatre, 8 restaurants,, a shopping arcade, at least 10 pools and hot tubs. Kids clubs run all day until 2am! although I think we will struggle to convince the boys to attend that often. It may not be a problem as it has already turned out that the self contained and secure environment of the ship has brought out a level of independence in the boys we have not seen before. Daniel in particular has been taking himself off on little sorties in the knowledge that he can find us again easily. He normally checks back in every half hour with an update of the previous 30 minutes activities which generally comprise of visits to the pizzaria in the shopping prominade (or "downtown" as it is rather sweetly called by Daniel, referring to the kids shopping Mecca in Disney) or to the bar to top up his never ending drink of coke! Jake and Luke have enjoyed the freedom, but have not relished it to the same degree as Daniel.