Day 4 – Thursday 30th May 2024- Corfu- Greek Island Cruise and other places.

Before starting the new day I think it’s important to give you a quick glimpse of our theatre experience yesterday evening. We seated ourselves in the theatre about 50 minutes prior to the start of the show. We had a choice of seats but as the time got closer to its start the theatre got really full. The show was called Storm… well!!! Wow! Wow! Wow! Cirque de Soleil you better watch out…. This was one of the best Cruise Ship Theatre shows we have ever seen

So…. Moving on to Day 4 ……

The day started with our ship pulling into Corfu dock next to The Queen Victoria, a Cunard Ship.

Similar to yesterday we went to the buffet for breakfast….. I think tomorrow we will try the restaurant because the buffet really is a case of”fight the good fight with all thy might”!!! Getting a table is hard enough but getting some food without being pushed, shoved, trodden on is nearing impossible….. so with that early morning ordeal over with we headed for the excursion desk. We had received our tickets for todays excursion under our door last night… they had been duplicated so we needed to check that we hadn’t been charged twice… The lady at the desk said we wouldn’t have been, but when I pointed out there were 4 different ticket numbers she looked into it and realised yes we had been charged twice so she said we would get a refund for two of them…. I’ll be chasing that up…

Then on to the theatre to wait for the start of our excursion….. As we have visited the sights of Corfu before we had selected a scenic coastal cruise so we could see the island from the water and there were chances of seeing dolphins and turtles. 9.35am our tour was called and with what seems to be the normal amount of pushing and shoving by some very loud Italians we headed out to the coach……. we have never cruised with so many Italians and I am certain they are not all rude, loud and very pushy but those that have been around us on this cruise have certainly shown themselves in very poor light when it comes to good manners and common decency towards other people. ….. Rant over !!!!!

The coach took us along the quayside, around the dock to the other side, from where we walked to a smallish boat, which seated about 35 on the lower deck and 15 on the top deck. We headed for the top deck…… I was quite proud of the way I shinned up the stepladder…. Not bad for a little round ball on legs!!!!!! We found virtually the last 2 seats…ummmm no 2 laddies arrived and squeezed in…..and then a very pushy young man arrived with sour faced girlfriend in tow and decided where they were going to sit, regardless of the fact that someone else was already say there!!!! Another example of total disregard for other people….. but as a firm believer of Karma remember this couple for later on….. This time the top deck really was totally full and we set sail. Our tour was supposed to be in English and the lady commentating started well in English… We sailed past the old and new fort and the monastery on the top of the hill.

Our Captain then retraced our steps and we sailed up the coast in the opposite direction… we were just beginning to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the peace and tranquility when soundenly our eardrums got a bashing and modern music blasted out of the speakers… surely not !!!! But yes the peacefulness was definitely broken… what’s more the music only stopped when the guide wanted to speak and she was suddenly saying very little in English and a lot in Italian…….. not funny when you’ve booked and paid for a English narrated tour…. Grrrr!!!

She did point out an area where King Charles likes to visit and an area where British holiday makers visit…. Before rattling on for a long time in Italian with lots of ‘Angles’ being said and hoots of laughter from the Italians…. Now! we could tell our nationality was being laughed at but not what was being said.. we were defiantly feeling very uncomfortable and humiliated…. Not nice….. we tried hard to concentrate on the scenery.

On we cruised, the couple opposite us, who had been pushed out of their preferred seats by the couple who I now refer to as the 2 Italian Ignoramuses, leant forward and said the narrator had just said in Italian to turn your mobile phone on to flight mode because we were close to Albania and we could pick up roaming charges as it is outside the EU. I thanked the couple very much as without their help we wouldn’t have known what was said. It turns out that they are from Germany and had expected the commentator to speak in English, their English was perfect and we were very grateful to find out that we were not the only non Italians on the top deck.
We continued along the coast for a little longer before the narrator announced we were coming to an area where people could swim. Well! At least that stopped the surly faced Italian Ignoramose from vaping for a few minutes because in front of everyone she had to put her “Ipsy bitsy” bikini on… … unfortunately she managed it too quickly and the vaping started again… thankfully the boat pulled up on to a pebble strip of beach and everyone from the top deck excluding ourselves and The German couple went down for a swim. Peace at last … no more “jabber, jabber hoot hoot”…..

A member of the crew came and moved the seat opposite us and behind it was a drum barrel bar-b-cue, on which he proceeded to cook spiced sausages and kababs … amazing…

We got chatting to the kind couple from Germany. Lillian and Jonas had got on the cruise in Bari. They were both Drs and had done some of their training in a part of Germany we liked, we had visited it on a cruise -Warnemunde. A very interesting couple… who like us had expected a quiet scenic cruise with wonderful scenery and wildlife views in a peaceful surround…. They had also expected the commentary to be in English not Italian and they were not amused by the Italian Ignoramus couple who had literally pushed them off their chosen seat… The guide came up to see if we were ok and I tried hard to explain that we were not happy with her obvious comments about the English which had sent the Italians on board the boat roaring and hooting with laughter. But she either pretended not to understand or her English really wasn’t up to being a guide for this type of trip…. She did manage perfectly easily to explain a lot of the recent history to Jonas. We were actually beginning to enjoy this totally missold cruise… so we thank Lillian and Jonas for coming to our rescue and having nice conversation with us .. they made our excursion enjoyable…

The swimming hour passed too quickly and everyone soon arrived back on board. Lillian and Jonas choose to sit next to us and a few of the original people didn’t reappear and a couple of new people took their seats. The ship was pulling away from its mooring when suddenly on the beach the Italian Ignoramus duo appear running out of the bushes shouting and waving for the boat to stop….. Lillian and I looked at each other and said “Karma”. The 4 of us had a good laugh … the couple were really waving and shouting… the boat took a few minutes to stop and manoeuvre back into the shore…. They were a bit sheepish when they came back up to collect their shoes.
Both John and Jonas went and collected two plates of food each. Jonas kindly helped John by taking the food to let John climb the ladder.
It was quiet and peaceful while everyone ate …then the loud music began again and everyone apart from the 4 of us started dancing… this excursion should have been sold as a party coastal cruise because that is what it was… We were fairly pleased to return to our ship to escape the loud noisy crowd we had unwittingly been on an excursion with. We do however sincerely thank Lilian and Jonas for their company and we hope to catch up with them on another occassion.

Back on The Opera we headed for the bar and had a couple of Magic Island Mock- tails and a game of canasta before returning to our cabin for a siesta.

Once again we arrived at the restaurant in good time and were seated in Salem’s serving area in a wake view window. The meal was very nice, tonight had a Mediterranean theme and we both enjoyed the seafood. Moogessen, who waiters in Saleem’s area presented me with a tissue white rose .. a. Nice touch..