Watson Travel

01/01/2025

01/01/2025

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy & prosperous New Year! 🎆🎉

24/12/2024

Merry Christmas, everyone!

19/12/2024

Spanish Flavours - late November 2024
Marella Discovery 2

Malaga - at sea - Palma, Majorca - Barcelona - Valencia - Cartagena - Gibraltar - Malaga

The weather was lovely for late November. No complaints at all! Only one port of call we hadn't visited before, which was Valencia.

Excursions were always available for every port of call, but we either walked in or jumped on the shuttle service where needed.

17/12/2024

Next Cruise Coming Up - Spanish Flavours!

🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸

16/12/2024

Walking around Split and spotted this water feature 🙂

16/12/2024

Cruised with Marella to Croatia, Slovenia & Montenegro late October. All new ports of calls for us. The weather was very nice too. 😊

Although there were excursions available to book, we decided to just walk in to each of the places seen as we have never been to them before.

Itinerary:
Dubrovnik, Croatia - at sea - Koper, Slovenia - Rijeka, Croatia - Ancona, Italy - Split, Croatia - Kotor, Montenegro - Dubrovnik, Croatia

Not your usual beach destinations, but well worth visiting.

11/10/2024

Coming up!

A cruise to Croatia, Italy, Slovenia & Montenegro.

14/09/2024

Stavenger - our final port of call.

We docked right into the town opposite another cruise ship.

The weather was gorgeous here in Stavenger with plenty of places to walk around. We came across a lovely lake, church, tower and a colourful "bar street". Stavanger is a lot more commercialised than Flam and Olden with its Starbucks and McDonalds along with plenty of restaurants and bars.

From Stavanger, you could go on an excursion to pulpit rock, but we just walked around and enjoyed the weather.

Yet another fabulous sunset!

14/09/2024

Olden - our third port of call.

Waking up to that view was a amazing.

We were able to walk into Olden from the ship although there was a hop on hop off bus and a trolly train available. The bus would take you near to where the glacier is.

We just walked in and had a look around Olden. It's a very quiet, sleepy town with only a couple of shops and cafes.

The water had shades of greens with a mirror glass effect which provided some awe inspiring scenery.

After we left Olden, we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset.

08/09/2024

Flam - our second port of call.

It was a bit wet when we arrived but luckily I never got wet whilst I was out and about.

Flam is very pretty, very green and lots of water falls. There are a few takeaway shacks, cafes and shops as well as a trolly train, and the Flam railway if you wish to go further afield. Floating saunas and kayakes can also be hired here. You can also go out on a boat trip. I also noticed electric vehicles for hire too.

07/09/2024

Bergen - a very wet day!

After a sea day which was over calm waters we arrived at Bergen. My first view of the morning was wet and drearery, but I intended to have a look around even if it was just for a couple of hours.

Rain jacket and umbrella 🌂 to the ready I ventured out! ....

Have you ever tried to take photos at the same time as holding an umbrella up? It's not easy!

The pavements were flooded with giant puddles so there was quite a bit of hopping around to avoid getting wet feet!

Across the road from the port was a fortification of some sort so I went to investigate and came across the Rosenkrantz Tower which dated back to 1270. It was part of a Royal Castle.

Continuing my walk I then came across quirky wooden buildings housings shops and cafes. Leaning stair cases and guinnels revealing craft shops and cafes at the rear.

I snuck in to a couple of shops to get some respite from the weather and unfortunately due to the weather I then decided to head back to the ship.

Some passengers booked excursions to go up to the top on the funicular. Unfortunately the low cloud coverage impacted on the views but there was an enchanted forest and wood carvings waiting for them.

Hopefully next time I visit, the weather will be better to go further or enjoy the funicular ride.

06/09/2024

Norwegian Fjords Ambassador Cruise on Ambience. Our 2nd cruise with Ambassador but our first time on Ambience and our first time to the Norwegian Fjords.

We embarked Ambience at London Tilbury. No issues at all with the embarkation process. Parking at the port was booked at time of booking the cruise. Our cases arrived very quickly too!

Disembarkation went smoothly too. We placed our cases out the night before by 11pm (you could opt to take your own cases off the ship) and the cabin had to be vacated by 7.30am. Breakfast was open for everyone. Our Disembarkation slot was 10.10am but we were heading off at 9.45am.
If you wanted to purchase any drinks while you waited to disembark then cash was requested.

Ambience is slightly bigger but older than Ambition.

Lovely public venues on board.
Food was good.
Mostly good entertainment provided and daily activities if you wished to take part.
Friendly crew and staff
The Baked Alaska parade.
Two gala nights on a 7 night cruise. We had 2 sea days. More activities were scheduled on the sea days.
Adult only cruise line

Not so good was the sea water pool which wasn't heated. Hot tubs are at the aft of the ship on a lower deck.

The main dining room, Borough Market and the Alfresco grill were included in the fare. There were a couple of speciality restaurants on board such as an Indian, but we didn't try them.

Our cabin (9128) included tea & coffee, a hair dryer, safe (very small, too small really), fridge , plenty of storage, shampoo, shower gel & hand wash.
One USB port, one UK Socket and one US socket is all that we had accesss to and it was located over the dressing table. In our cabin we also had a bistro table, 2 chairs and a picture window. The layout of our cabin gave the impression of more space. The beds were placed up against the side wall with the seating under the window. Other ocean view cabins place the beds under the window. The bathroom was compact with a shower and curtain.

The cabin steward freshened up our cabin once a day.
A bottle of water was provided in the cabin at £1.85. However, there are complimentary water stations along with tea and coffee provided 24hrs a day in the Buffet (Borough Market) restaurant area. You can also purchase an unlimited bottle refilling service - £9.95 if you provide your own bottle or £17.95 to purchase their bottle with the unlimited refills.

Just like on Ambition, there is no late night buffet but they do go round all the bars and lounges with late night snacks.

Breakfast, lunch and evening meal in the main restaurant is all table service (on Ambition, there was a buffet service set up in the main dining room for starters and desserts during lunchtime and again a buffet style service at breakfast which was a little disappointing especially when the starters and desserts seemed to be repetitive).
On Ambience, the buffet (Borough Market) is not self service.

We had a lovely cruise onboard Ambassador Ambience and although the ship is a bit tired looking due to its age we wouldn't have a problem cruising with Ambassador again.

The scenery was rather spectacular! It was so quiet and the air just felt very clean. I will be sharing photos of our ports of calls in separate posts but the itinerary was as follows:

London Tilbury - sea day - Bergen - Flam - Olden - Stavanger - sea day - Tilbury

If you head to the Fjords make sure you take layers as it can be chilly in the summer months. Also, take an umbrella / rain mac.

26/08/2024

Coming up - Norwegian Fjords cruise with Ambassador cruise line. 🙂

18/06/2024

Marmaris from our balcony and ship promenade deck

18/06/2024

Rhodes Town, Rhodes, Greece 🇬🇷

15/06/2024

Bodrum, Turkiye 🇹🇷

13/06/2024

Cruising with Marella on Discovery

Itinerary :
Marmaris, Turkiye - at sea - Limmasol, Cyprus - Alanya, Turkiye - Rhodes Town, Rhodes - Bodrum, Turkiye - Heraklion, Crete - Marmaris, Turkiye

An all inclusive cruise with flights to Dalaman, Turkiye and transfers to the ship included.

Discovery is a family ship.
Good entertainment
Friendly crew and staff
Good food
Turn down service with chocolates

Here are some pictures of one of the ports, Alanya, 🇹🇷

A few separate posts showing more ports of call will be posted.

Also can be found on Instagram.