Smithy's Cruise Blog

Before breakfast I decided to go ashore and check out the shuttle arrangements. There were a number of buses lining up marked ‘Shuttle’ and I saw one with a wheelchair sign on it. So all looked fine.

After eating we all went ashore. Queues were beginning to form and as we joined the shuttle queue, a blue bus departed with a lady in her wheelchair sitting in the middle of the bus by the central door.

The trip into Gothenburg was to take 30/35 minutes each way. A few buses came, filled and left, but none took people in wheelchairs. We eventually established that the only shuttle bus that took a wheelchair was the blue one we had seen earlier. That meant that only one wheelchair dependant person could be taken into the city every 60/70 minutes. And the same would occur on our return.

We waited an hour and the blue bus came back. The ramp was opened up and we squeezed Jane in her wheelchair into the small space available for one wheelchair.

Gothenburg is lovely but sadly just about every footpath and surface was cobblestone. A rough ride for Jane. But we found the beautiful cathedral

and we also found an amazing foodhall/market. It was a warm, sunny day and it was lunchtime. All the seating around the eating establishments appeared to be filled with young business men (everyone looks young to me these days) and young blonde women (every young Swedish woman is blonde – why is that?)

We had excellent coffees and people watched.

I’m not sure that I have mentioned Kim so far. We couldn’t come on cruises any more without her. It is 7 years since we were lucky enough to find her and Kim has been on every cruise with us since then. The arrangement that we have established over the years works really well for us all. And Kim’s nursing skills and expertise are regularly needed.

Jane felt tired and had a headache as a result of being shaken up by the cobbles so we set off through the amazing foodhall we were sitting alongside and made our way to the boarding area for the shuttle buses.

Guess what. The organiser revealed that the blue bus had just left. No additional wheelchair buses had been taken on through the day. No effort had been made by Cunard to find wheelchair adapted taxis or vans. We had no choice but to wait for the blue bus to come back, standing in the sun with no cover. An hour waiting.

The only excitement was that during the wait I saw that Allan Stewart was wandering along towards us. He is a Scottish comedian who has been a regular on Cunard ships for decades. The problem for us is that his act has never changed. The same jokes, the same dance steps – everything the same for as long as we can remember. As he approached I held out my hand to greet him. ‘Ah Mr Stewart, good to see you again. They tell me you have a new act’. He grinned. ‘No, Cunard won’t let me change it’ he joked in reply. And he hasn’t changed it.

While we were waiting a young man driving a mobility wheelchair arrived in the queue. I explained the problem – that we expected to be waiting about 30 more minutes and that he would probably then have to wait a further hour.

When we eventually boarded, he followed Jane up the ramp and tried to force his way in. There was no room and he had to reverse off.

When we got back to the ship I went straight to the tour office. After a short time it was my turn and the man behind the counter looked familiar. I told him I wanted to see the Tour Manager. He said he could deal with it and that the Tour Manager was not available. I asked the man his name. He said it was Richard which confirmed to me that he was the man at the centre of the fiasco in Dubrovnik last year. The Tour Manager must have heard that someone was making waves and appeared and listened to my complaint.

The main line of the defence for supplying only one wheelchair space in only one shuttle bus was that there had been a tram derailment and that Cunard’s local bus supplier had to supply buses to help out the tram company. A novel defence but Google reveals that in fact it was not a tram derailment but a train derailment and that it occurred that morning 300 kms away in a place called Trelleborg in the south. No doubt many other bus suppliers nearer Trelleborg could have supplied any buses that the train company needed. I asked why Cunard and it’s supplier had made no effort to hire adapted vans that could accommodate a number or wheelchairs at a time.

The Tour Manager was a nice man and he apologised profusely. He understood why I was upset. Cunard provides a number of adapted cabins for wheelchair users and it knows that they want to get into the ports rather than sitting on the ship. It has to make a much bigger effort, as it always did in the past.

You all know that I am a Cunard man. I am saddened that Cunard is not looking after its elderly clientele. We have a large number of ports ahead of us and the test will begin in Helsinki on Saturday.

After a day at sea reminding ourselves about the taste of good food (Jane has to suffer recipes created by me – with the assistance of Waitrose, M&S and Cook – when we are not at sea) and also reminding ourselves of our favourite venues on the ship we arrived this morning (Thursday 11 May) in Gothenburg.

We thought we had been here before, but when we studied the map of the city we realised we had not.

On our last cruise there was a major problem in Dubrovnik when no adapted shuttle buses were provided. It is recorded earlier in the blog. I was livid and my displeasure was made very clear at the time. I thought that Cunard would have learned from that. I was wrong!

When it is too far to walk from the ship to the city, Cunard supply shuttle buses to get everyone there. And for those who are totally dependant on wheelchairs they supply either buses with ramps/lifts or vehicles adapted to take a number of wheelchairs at time.

That is what they used to do and what they should still do.

After an early start we were ready for Janes driver, Jane Strother and Area cars superstar Gary.

Gary always moans about the amount of kit that we take with us, moans that he only keeps the large taxi/van to accommodate us and that it costs him money to do so. But he is great value. He is a great Le Mans fan and in the short drive to the Ocean terminal, Southampton, he told me of the difficulties in getting tickets for this years race which celebrates its 100 year birthday.

But I suspect that he will get to Le Mans with his Dutch friends who he befriended some 20 years ago at the race meeting.

If, like me, you like getting aboard your ship early, beware. Cunard have moved their timings. When we arrived at the terminal, we were told that baggage collections wouldn’t start until 11.30am and that checking in would start then or later. We managed to creep into the checking in hall before it opened (to get a coffee!) but there was still too much hanging around. I like to get onto the ship and start the unpacking process and have some lunch.

We did get aboard in time for lunch and what a pleasure it was to have something prepared by somebody else. But more of that later.

Dining on QV has changed. Now, the main dining room on Deck 2 is set aside for ‘Anytime dining’ where you can wander in between set hours and are taken to an empty table. Different waiters every night and different companions. We prefer the old system where you sit at the same table for the whole voyage and have the same people sitting with you. That of course can be good if you like the others, but not so good if you don’t!

The old system operates on the upper floor of the main dining room now and that is where we have been allotted an excellent table for 8.

Sam, my blog coach, tells me I should ignore Jetpack and get back to WordPress so I will get him to publish this as I have been struggling.

We are warming up for our voyage to the Baltic. We are sailing on Queen Victoria and leaving Southampton on Tuesday next 9 May 2023.

You may have read about Queen Mary 2. She arrived in Southampton some 10 days ago. She was struggling at the end of her World Voyage with engine problems. But that same day she was due to depart for New York – a Transatlantic with massive numbers intending to sail west to New York and a week later a similar number intending sail on her back to Southampton.

 

These ships are under pressure to perform almost without a pause Queen Mary 2 finishes a 4 month voyage and that evening is expected to sail away on her next scheduled voyage to New York. It’s relentless until the time set aside for a refit. And it doesn’t always work out, but in this case, although the 2 transatlantics had to be cancelled, the engineering work was completed quickly.

 

Amazingly, to fill the gap, Cunard managed to put together a 5 day Coronation voyage from Southampton to Liverpool and back on QM2. The prices were exceptionally good value. The marketing was rapid and within 24 hours of the cruise being put together the QM2 was sold out. She left on Tuesday and no doubt the passengers will have watched the Coronation on big screens around the ship.

But back to Queen Victoria. Jane and I have almost certainly spent more time on QV than any other ship. We were invited to the naming of the ship on 7 December 2007.

She was named by Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, who will be Queen Camilla by the time this is published. Two days after the naming ceremony Jane and I were aboard the new ship for her Maiden voyage to Northern Europe

Thank you for finding your way to my blog. If you have subscribed (it’s free) it means that in future, if I write a piece, whether on a cruise or not, you will be notified.

After 26 months of cancelled cruises, in January we managed to find the last wheelchair friendly cabin on Queen Elizabeth for a cruise to the Med. The detail is on the blog if you click on January 2022.

Kim was with us to look after Jane. She has been coming with us for 6 years now and without Kim, cruising would be impossible. We were so lucky to find her.

In February I received an invitation to speak on Zoom to the Southern Californian Chapter of the Steamship Historical Society of America. I had written the history of my fathers career at sea, which was published on the blog (July 2021) but I chose the broader topic of “Famous Cunard CaptaIns, their ships and their Royal connections”. A friend Cark coached me on Zoom and the presentation delivered in May seemed to go well.

In June we were due to sail away on Queen Victoria, but in the weeks beforehand, I was aware of pains in my left leg. My GP’s were unable to come up with a prognosis, so I found a consultant rheumatologist, and she told me I needed a whole hip replacement! It meant cancelling the June cruise and getting the operation done quickly so that I had time to recover before a cruise booked for September. All these cruises arose as a result of Covid cancellations and moving the money forward!

It was then a matter of finding one of the recommended hip surgeons who could operate by mid July to give me 6 weeks recovery time. Jeremy Latham, who I had known for 20 years, found a gap for me on the 18 July. Kim came to look after Jane for the 3 nights I was in the Nuffield. The morning and evening carers continued throughout. A live in carer was here for 3 weeks. She was very good at cleaning the kitchen floor.

The operation went really well and I was quickly up and moving (not running!). Physio by Marie (she was also my physio when I had a new knee 6 years ago) in the Nuffield pool helped enormously.

On Sunday 4 September we set off on Queen Victoria. The usual trio of Jane Kim and me. A voyage to the Eastern Med taking in Dubrovnik and Trieste and many other ports. More details are on the blog (September 2022)

After our return Jane was lined up for an operation on 25 October. 18 months earlier she had been added to the URGENT list for bladder stones to be zapped (lasered). After 4 hours of waiting, form filling, hoisting and 2 nurses undressing her and getting her gowned up, the surgeon turned up and said the operation had been cancelled as there was an emergency. No suggestion of Jane being dealt with after the emergency or in a different theatre. Inevitably the Smith emails are still asking why Jane was chosen to be axed! The NHS avoid difficult questions.

Mike, Gretchen and Archie are off to NZ for Christmas with Gretchen’s Mum, MaryJane and Bruce. Louise, Red, Ethan and Charlie are coming here to celebrate with us and Louise has invited all the Holts and Atkinson’s here on the 27th. 22 at the last count. It will be great to see them all.

Thank you to Jane’s friends who take her out in the adapted Peugeot to garden centres and Hilliers gardens and to all of you for accepting an electronic card. As you know the savings go to the MS Society and I have been instructed to double the Christmas contribution this year!

Have a peaceful Christmas and a great New Year. Love Richard and Janexx

I am having a problem with the blog which won’t publish my Christmas good wishes but I can assure you that it will be sorted before the 25th!

After an early start we were ready for Janes driver, Jane Strother and Area cars superstar Gary.

Gary always moans about the amount of kit that we take with us, moans that he only keeps the large taxi/van to accommodate us and that it costs him money to do so. But he is great value. He is a great Le Mans fan and in the short drive to the Ocean terminal, Southampton, he told me of the difficulties in getting tickets for this years race which celebrates its 100 year birthday.

But I suspect that he will get to Le Mans with his Dutch friends who he befriended some 20 years ago at the race meeting.

If, like me, you like getting aboard your ship early, beware. Cunard have moved their timings. When we arrived at the terminal, we were told that baggage collections wouldn’t start until 11.30am and that checking in would start then or later. We managed to creep into the checking in hall before it opened (to get a coffee!) but there was still too much hanging around. I like to get onto the ship and start the unpacking process and have some lunch.

We did get aboard in time for lunch and what a pleasure it was to have something prepared by somebody else. But more of that later.

Dining on QV has changed. Now, the main dining room on Deck 2 is set aside for ‘Anytime dining’ where you can wander in between set hours and are taken to an empty table. Different waiters every night and different companions. We prefer the old system where you sit at the same table for the whole voyage and have the same people sitting with you. That of course can be good if you like the others, but not so good if you don’t!

The old system operates on the upper floor of the main dining room now and that is where we have been allotted an excellent table for 8.

Sam, my blog coach, tells me I should ignore Jetpack and get back to WordPress so I will get him to publish this as I have been struggling.

I’m not a great gambler. I don’t mean that I’m not good at it – just that I rarely gamble. But for some reason, back in February 2019, I decided that I wanted to place a bet.

I probably hadn’t been into a betting shop for 20+ years and back then it would have been to risk a few pounds on a horse in the Grand National.

In February 2019 I entered the Corals betting shop alongside Waitrose in Chandlers Ford. It was packed with punters watching a variety of race meetings on screens around the walls.

I asked the Corals man behind the counter if I could place a bet on the next Prime Minister. He looked blankly at me. He clearly hadn’t heard of a horse with that name nor did he understand what I meant. I explained to him that I wanted to place a bet on someone I thought would be the next Prime Minister. He asked who I wanted to place the bet on. Rishi Sunak I said. “Never heard of him” he said. He rang Head Office who told him that they were not taking such bets at the moment.

That surprised me. I went home, found the Corals website and sure enough there was a Political category and an invitation to bet on the next PM. The odds on Rishi were, I thought, mean, bearing in mind that he was a virtual unknown and had only had a junior government position for a short time.

Nevertheless I placed the bet on line. Not a large sum.

But why did I place a bet on the outsider Rishi Sunak?

We first came across the Sunak family when our son Mike was at Oakmount School in Southampton. It was my old prep school. Mike and Sanjay Sunak were in the same class and Sanjay’s older brother Rishi was also at the school. He was 2 years older. In 1989 Oakmount closed and many of the pupils including the Sunaks and our Mike moved to Stroud School, another prep school based in Romsey.

You will have read the story of the family and of Rishi’s career. I remember a number of things about the family and their values. Mike and Sanjay were friends and I recall one particular day when I went to the Sunak home to collect Mike. Rishi was there and one of his young uncles (a young man in his twenties) was also there. Rishi was about 12 at the time and he and his uncle, with copies of the Times, were about to spend a couple of hours going through that days newspaper, discussing the stories and the articles in it.

That was the culture. Education and more education. Music, religion and education.

Many of the stories of the family talk about their wealth particularly when Winchester College is mentioned. The family were not wealthy. Rishi was head boy at Stroud and gained a place at Winchester College but, as I understand it, missed out on a scholarship. So massive fees. And Sanjay went there 2 years later. In the early days there I believe some fees were saved by the boys not boarding, but that meant the parents collecting them from the College late at night and returning them early next morning.

Rishi’s dad Yash was a partner in a GP practice in Southampton. He worked every hour there was and in addition he was doctor to the local store of a major national chain. Rishi’s mum also worked tirelessly as a pharmacist, in later years in her own pharmacy. I know nothing about their finances but I can only assume that after educating 3 children privately there was little money for anything else. I had not mentioned that the 2 boys had a younger sister Rakhi who was a pupil at St Swithuns in Winchester.

So back to the bet. This summer things were looking good except that the 1922 Committee came up with a ridiculously drawn out procedure to select the next PM. As we all know, the Tory Parliamentary party voted for Rishi. There were then a series of televised hustings where, in my view, Rishi came came out well in front but the process then enabled the Tory party members to vote. From the reports I received many decided it was a choice between a blonde English lady and an Indian man; many didn’t bother with the hustings. And those same people who were clearly wrong in voting for the blonde English lady were upset this week that they were not given the opportunity to vote under the new rules devised by the 1922 Committee. Had the bar been lower and had the members been able to get involved in the process this week and vote, no doubt the new PM would be a dark haired English lady.

The bet was of course lost, but that didn’t matter. I was 7 weeks out with my prediction, but I am sure that our new Prime Minister is the right man for the job. He has some major hurdles to jump but I have great faith in him.

I congratulate the Sunak family. Their work ethic is a great example to us all. They have all contributed to Rishi’s success and they should all be very proud.

51 years after completing her 3 year course at the Bedford College of Physical Education Jane has been awarded her BA.

The degree was conferred at a ceremony at the University of Bedfordshire on the 10th September 2022. Unfortunately we were unable to attend as we were at sea.

The reason for the 51 year delay was that, at the time, the College did not have degree awarding powers, although it did gain those powers a few years later.

Today’s sunrise was magnificent.

And despite us approaching the Bay, the sea has remained friendly, crisp and fairly even

We just have one more day before Southampton, but tonight we are dining in the Verandah restaurant, courtesy of Cunard following the fiasco in Dubrovnik.

Last night in the theatre we were entertained by New Amen Corner, said to be the hottest band on the 60’s circuit. Their lead singer Glen Leon has a fantastic voice and led the band through a classic series of hits of the last 60 years. They will appear again on the last night of the cruise.