Well on the latest online menus they clearly show the A C or D logos against each drink, but I didn't notice this on the Iona and its definitely NOT on the main dining room menus. I will make a note to check this out when we go on Arvia later in the year. Thanks for watching.

yes, i'm sure i saw them

then again, that might have been on the ventura - they have video roulette for sure, im not sure about the auto roulette wheel. MSC Virtuosa definitely has, though I know that wasnt your question :)

All good tips that I will be incorporating into our next videos - thanks!

Unfortunately (you may not have spotted it in the video) Sue was ill and didn't get to see it, I was up there all on my lonesome. Now, I concede Sue doesn't get a speaking role very often but it's not for the want of trying, but she's quite camera shy and she takes some coaxing. But you know what, thanks for saying that, I've been telling her she should join in more, and i'm hoping on the next couple of videos, she's going to take a more upfront role. So I will pass on your comment to her. Please keep your suggestions coming, I'm taking everything on board and I hope we can improve what we do from what our viewers feed back to us. We've said before, we love to get your comments, and chatting to people who watch our videos is half the fun of making them! Take care and hopefully we will be back soon!

That's kind of you to say so - Funnily enough, I deliberately didn't want to spoil the christmas ambience BUT I did also look at a previous video (kzbin.info/www/bejne/emnFqYWAortpjNk) that we made a couple of years ago and thought exactly that, we need to go back and do a more detailed historical tour - so keep an eye out for this year. And I know JUST the expert to take with me! Thanks for watching.

Thank you - we hope to return and do one in a bit more detail, there's a couple of venues on there we didn't get to visit.

It really is and I'm not sure I captured the full beauty of it - its a place I had heard of but not ever researched, so it was a very pleasant surprise to find myself in among the old buildings and canals. It had me yearning to get my watercolours out - it's been a long time since I took them on a cruise with me. Maybe next time. But it does just go to prove that it's worth taking some of these cruises with unknown destinations, because there really are some hidden gems out there - thanks for watching.

Enjoy your stay and thanks for watching

There's some norwegian videos on Iona here if you are interested kzbin.info/aero/PLvMjYehQy9KUcln34veN82GVKdK3eGSXK

Hi Sandra - I'm predominantly using my DJI Osmo Pocket in this video, which I really like as its easy to handle and drop in my pocket in between shots - I also use my Pixel 6 (just upgraded to Pixel 8a with a better camera, but i havent had chance to use that yet). I also have a couple of 4K action cameras that are useful for extra wide shots, time lapse and fastening to Sue's wheelchair. I'm going to try using these more in our next videos as we walk around. Im hoping one day to upgrade to the osmo pocket 3, with its bigger screen. Ive considered getting a son y ZV but Im not sure i could manage the size - with the pocket, I can actually push sues wheelchair and hold the camera in my hand at the same time. What do you think to the picture quality?

thanks for watching

@ thanks for the response Rob. The picture quality is pretty good that’s why I wanted to know which camera it is. I’m very much a beginner when it comes to taking videos. I recently started a catering and tablescaping business, so I need to take a lot of videos and pictures. Would you say that the DJI Osmo Pockets would a be good buy in my situation?

@@sandrasherwood8521 Thats a difficult call - im finding lately I have been using my phone for a lot of my videos, but for vlogging stuff where you are wanting to talk to camera, the pocket is good - you can flip the camera round, see yourself on the screen, its got a decent built in mic and best of all its light and i dont get tired arms trying to hold it up in the air. To be honest ive not tried anything like the Sony ZV-E10, which seems to be the camera of choice for a lot of people. I started off using my Nikon 3200 but its way to cumbersome to do handheld talk to camera vlogs. My daughet saw the pocket on some videos she watched and encoraged me to get one for our trip to disney a couple of years ago. It worked for me, and I always have it close by, it doesnt take any room up and has a decent amount of battery too. I suggest maybe you have a look at some youtube reviews on it - if i was buying one now, it would probably be the pocket 3 due to the bigger flip screen. But they aren't cheap, and I've only just upgraded my PC so a new camera is on the distant horizon... but then again, Santa is coming soon isn't he?

Hi Simon, thanks for watching and thanks for your kind comments - the taxi price was each way, but it was a seven seater and there were four adults and two children. It might be worth emailing the taxi firm for prices direct from the ship, for a normal car. The train was about £40 return according to the rail europe website, but when we arrived there was a 40 min wait for the next train, so we opted for the taxi - plus the convenience of being dropped dead centre. We didnt get charged for the bus between zebrugge and blankenberge. As it was, we had no problem getting wheelchair friendly coaches in both directions. Thing to note - the buses from the ship go direct to Blankenberge, where on the way back, they stop at the cruise terminal for security then you have to board yet another bus to get to the ship - its not far, but we had to sit and wait for the return bus to fill up. The taxi driver did offer to drives us directly to the cruise terminal but we opted for the Blankenberge bus station where we had been dropped off. As it was, I think the drive to the terminal would have been shorter. Enjoy the cruise, we really like Iona, and the entertainment was exceptional - we found this to be the case when we went on her around the Fjords, so we know it wasnt a fluke.

Absolutely agree, and that beef in black bean sauce was totally yummy, went back and had a second bowl! Didnt try anything of the american diner off the end but it all looked good.

thanks for watching

Hi! Firstly thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Funnily enough we went on our first MSC cruise last year (it's on the channel) and we also remarked on how excellent the shows were - so we were quite pleased to be able to compare the headliners team and honestly, they measured up nicely - a good group of singers and dancers, good voices, good harmonies, and some very good show ideas - they did one based on a Glastonbury style festival, with tents and an extremely funny dance routine featuring portaloos! And then another one all about an airport and the passengers and on the plane (yes they got a plane on the stage, with cockpit and seats, before transforming into the baggage reclaim area with a great dance routine upon a set of moving conveyor belts complete with luggage! We were mesmerized. You'll probably find footage of that on youtube somewhere, because people don't ask permission and just film it despite the warnings. I thought I would go through proper channels and left a good review on the "initial thoughts" survey that gets sent out, and asked Emma, the Entertainments manager, if she could release maybe a still photo or two just instead of my shot of an empty stage, or better still 10 seconds of video. I'm sure it wouldn't have been the end of the world for P & O, but I got turned down - which is a shame because me just telling you what it looked like isn't quite the same as showing it to you. Maybe I won't bother asking next time. That's interesting to hear you comments about Queen Anne, I have been hanging my nose over that particular ship, and having watched a couple of videos on it, I think it would be a bit of a change for us - Sue has already suggested we need to spread our horizons and try another cruise line, maybe Cunards should be our next adventure. Thanks again for watching, we appreciate it.

That's certainly true. And yet, there was a time when you wouldn't ask for anything and they would come round and ask if you needed anything extra, or offer something extra. My point is, our expectations based on previous experiences with P & O were much higher, and we felt the standard of food in terms not just of provision but basic presentation had fallen a long way off what we were expecting. Having to continually ask for something you would have expected to be the norm isn't the solution, in my opinion.

Thanks. Not bad considering the number of conversions it's been through!

Hi and thanks for watching and we appreciate your comments. The problem is the video starts from a point where we have already had some really disappointing meals for the whole week and there wasn't much to be positive about. Having said that, I feel the review is at least based on a whole week's meals and not our first reaction. That first video was indeed a knee jerk reaction to a really disappointing celebration meal and I felt afterwards it couldn't be representative at that point, so it was important to me that we went back and did a final review after we had experienced the whole cruise. Unfortunately it didn't improve much during the week. We've also cruised on Ventura before, and on many P and O cruises in general, and we've always been very happy with the food served. Dinner in the main restaurants was something we always looked forward too as it was always a big part of our experience on board. To the point where we convinced one of our friends to join us. She was underwhelmed and I was bitterly disappointed for her. We've just been on IONA and although some of the niceties have disappeared over the years no doubt due to budget cuts, the food on the whole was vastly superior and back where we expect it to be. Hopefully our Ventura cruise was a minor blip - it was the infamous one struck by norovirus, maybe all the kitchen staff where ill - but we stand by our comments and I'm sorry that came over as negative, but it wasn't based on some unfair preconception. I'm very hopeful that your next cruise on Ventura is everything you hope for, and hopefully they've ironed out these issues. I hope you can watch our Iona food video coming next week and see a more positive side to our reviews! (Oops spoiler alert!) Regards Rob and Sue.

Yeah, and that's a first for me. But thankfully the food on the Iona was more like what we expect - I'll be showing that in the next few days. Thanks for watching.

What did you do in Rotterdam?

@robandsue took a slow walk into town on the Sunday, Monday took the train to central rotterdam as wife wanted to do shopping lol

We probably needed to research the city more, see what was on offer.

. @robandsue definitely Normally I go into Amsterdam, but on a Sunday loads of stuff ar shut delft is good to do

Yeah, we should have looked into it a bit more. How did you find the cruise generally? Did it come up to expectations?

Impressive

@robandsue thank you 👍

Glad you liked it

Thanks for watching

thanks for watching

@@jbclement1956 veg looks frozen.

Yeah, I remember that. And the IMAX too, it was huge.

Well it didn't work the first time we tried it, we got moved due to them being cot seats. But since then we haven't had any issues. But we check regularly now to make sure our seats don't get changed prior to the flight. Thanks for watching.

We've just booked seats to Washington DC with British Airways, and yet again we got denied seat allocations due to the front row being cot seats - We completely understand that, but then get naturally annoyed when no children occupy the seats and they get given out at random when we do actually have good medical reasons for preferring not the additional leg room, but the lack of a seat in front that can make Sue's access and egress so difficult for her.

@@robandsue I really enjoy the content and it’s down to earth not like many online who get free flights and their reviews show that! I also liked in this video how clever you are being to beat their algorithm to seat you together. I agree it’s annoying especially if you are willing to pay a touch extra for them! My understanding is you need gold status to be able to book them as it’s one of the perks of that card unless bumped by cot or disabled users. That card of course also gives other perks like often blocked middle seats and more frequent upgrades on over sold flights. We should not have to find work arounds tho airlines are squashing more and more people in and it’s a shame that BA Europe is no better than the LCC nowadays. See if you can push as an access need?

@@robandsue it seems the front row get unlocked for non gold customers somewhere between 72-24hrs pre flight so do keep clicking and moving yourself a around!

Hi! thanks for that tip - maybe that's why we've had success in the past because we've persevered. Will definitely try again next year - stay in touch and I will let you know how we get on!

Interesting. I have never tried method feeders, I will give it a go. I did get a couple on PVA bags. Glad you are enjoying it, and I hope you get a few more . Which cabin are you in?

Oh ignore that. Kingfisher 🤔🤐🤦‍♀️

Yes it was very nice.the soup was delicious, we since tried making it ourselves but didn't quite get it right. Shame there were a few add ons to the experience price, like the cover charge. In my mind, you buy an experience up front, there shouldn't be hidden costs. We will read the small.print next time before buying.

I have spent many a happy lunchtime in Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, and many places around that area while working overseas, and became a bit of a goulash fanatic. I've had the BEST goulash ever in a little place called Olomouc in Czechia, a more than acceptable serving in Budapest, served in a huge hollowed out bread roll, and the worse ever was in a back street pub in Slovakia which was closing and I think they literally had the liquor from the soup left as there was no meat or veg, and it just looked like (and tasted like) hot beetroot water. But NEVER have I had anything as greasy and oily and tasteless as that, not withstanding that there was more down the outside of the bowl than inside - if I had been in a sharper frame of mind I would have asked to see the restaurant manager, but who wants to cause a fuss when you're looking forward to a quiet dinner with the family? But I'm sure someone is going to say "what was wrong with that? Stop complaining". Yeah right. I've been in greasy spoons that serve better, and present it better. And to be fair, calling it a 'school meal' is grossly unfair to school kitchens all across the land... Thanks for watching!!!!

We went on Ventura in August for our third time, food definitely much much worse, both in mdr and buffet. Very dissappointed

Well, we have a cruise on Iona coming up, we will see if this is a general fall in standards or its just the Ventura that seems to be suffering...

thanks for that - yeah, we are seeing life from a different (lower down) angle now too. I'm hoping that our experience was partially due to the extra pressures the ship was under, and it will be fine for you - we had some friends go on the ship the week after and they said they felt it was up to their normal expectations. Just bad luck or timing for us i suppose. We are on Iona soon, let's see how that works out.

How interesting. My friend has never mentioned this, i will have to paste this over to him and see what he says. He's lived there all his life I believe.

@@robandsue Trauma began 1935 as Germany (Hitler Time: 1933 - 1945) put all Organizations from Germans outside from Germany under Control and Command from Berlin. Then Germans in Czechoslowakia to create an own ID. Leader of the movement was "Nazi's". During WW II it come from side of German Occupation Regime with thpusands of died Czech people. That is reason why it come to Explosion from Germans in Czechoslovakia. The old Nazi-Leader get Leader in Organizations of German Displaced People in West - Germany. Those Leader was Racists. 80 % of people in Lanov and Dolni Lanov have German Roots. Most of them speak German only in family circles. It is as by Germans in North America.

Awesome. Not been this year, so a bit envious of you 😁

@@robandsue more than sure it’s going so be a pb setting trip we did woodlands in thirsk in April that is a brilliant venue spoilt for choice with the lakes there, and wonderful log cabins a stones throw from the on-site fishery sports bar

We were on the foundry lake, the fish I think are smaller but plentiful. Had some really good fishing, lots of carp. I hear the fish in the other lakes are much bigger but i would be scared to try!

thanks for the tip - i will definitely look it up. Weve been too busy to get a weekend in this year, but definitely wouldnt mind a new venue next year. Hope you get you PB - let us know and send us a photo.

@@robandsue I saw that but I’m with you smaller fish feed better so I’m good there with less chance blanking

yeah, i admit i was a bit perplexed where it had gone :)

It's a touch out of date but we will be revising this before the end of the year with the latest prices.

Our pleasure!

Oh yes - Sue couldn't easily walk down the gangway which is why we opted for the chair. You will see on some of the other videos the process for getting off and back on - their gangway staff are very helpful. The only places where we wouldn't be able to get off with some cruise lines would be those where they have anchored out of the town and are using tenders. P & O for instance have a rule that says you must be able to step over a 9" gap and up or down a 9" step - that would be beyond Sue, so we couldn't do it. How do we combat that? Avoid cruises with tendered ports, or miss the occasional port. It does make some cruises less attractive where there are a lot of tender destinations, e.g. Caribbean. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned because we will be focusing more on accessibility in future videos.

@@robandsue thank you x

No problem - stayed tuned for more cruise videos comig soon.

Hi. I'm glad you got the good weather. We've been twice in summer and it's been glorious. You should try it early on when it's snowing but take your arctic gear! The fjords feel completely different when everywhere is glistening with snow. Thanks for watching. X

@@robandsue off on the Ventura November this year Madeira canaries and la Coruna, just a bit concerned how the sea is going to be. Arrgh

Fingers crossed it will be ok, true it's a bit later in the year when seas can be heavier, but take something before you cross and try not to focus on it. Plenty to be distracted by, and before you know it, you'll be in the sunny canaries.

Hi - thanks for that. We like to be as honest as we can in all our videos. Not everyone always agrees with our verdict, but that's life I'm afraid. Thanks for watching.

Yes, i was definitely disappointed. We are going back on Iona later this year, we will see if it improves on there.

Yes, we do too, its not that far - but the curbs are mainly cobbled until you get out the port - it's a bone shaker for Sue in her wheelchair but it's too dodgy to walk in the road.

Yes that was our first time and it was very pleasant. Thanks for watching

Well, if you are referring to the bug, it's not actually airborne unless they are throwing up on you - i would be more worried about them rubbing up on me - one woman bumped into me one day and said sorry while stroking my hand - i couldn't wait to get to a sanitising station! I did get p#@@ed off one night when a couple got in, and the lady actually held on to Sue's handgrips to steady herself for 10 floors! I was like "Get your filthy mitts off of our wheelchair!" - But even so, who does that, really? I wouldn't walk in and hold on to someone's pushchair, or even worse, lean against someone's walking frame! I tell you, some people just either don't give a #### or they just are totally oblivious to everyone else around them. Yes, the lack of working lifts obviously had an impact - the queues would have been a lot less if all the lifts had been in action. But if they all had been going, it wouldn't stop people squeezing in... Thanks for watching!

Hi! Thanks for your kind words and I hope we can continue to share our future travels with everyone. In answer to your question, we didn't try it and to be honest, I don't know who we needed to approach to use the hoist - it was always wrapped up. I should let Sue answer this, but she doesn't swim and wouldn't really trust me much to take her into a normal pool with steps, so I think it was never an issue. It WAS nice though to see the facility there. As for the wheelchair lift, we did spot it halfway through the first week - it is slightly hidden away isnt it? It looked to be a normal wheelchair lift like you might find in a dept. store, but to be honest we always accessed deck 16 via the starboard doors near the salon. I have to say, even for an older ship, we were quite pleased at the easy access to most areas, even all the way up to deck 19. There were a couple of steps inside (I think possibly where the watertight doors came out) that did snag the wheelchair wheels occasionally, but overall, it's a very accessible ship.

That is probably a very accurate summation of the situation. We used to work on an average £100 / day and if a cruise was a lot more than that, we passed. So it was welcome at first to see cruise deals more in the £80-£90 / day region, and you will always find occasional good deals for certain cruises throughout the season, but initially it was exactly that - the same cruise at a cheaper price. My own personal view is that industry suffered under covid, and is now desperately trying to retrieve their former footfall and profit levels by means of these extremely attractive prices along with not so subtle cost cutting. The ship doesn't/ can't physically change, but the level of service, the number of ports visited, and the quality and quantity of food / drinks / entertainment are obvious areas to implement savings. Last year we went on our first MSC cruise because it was cheaper to cruise with them than go self catering in a log cabin in the UK or go on an all inclusive holiday in a 3 star hotel in Spain. And in my mind, while standards have slipped since our original cruise days, the cruise still offered a better experience than some of the package deals that we've paid similar prices for. Someone commented recently that cruises were now "Butlins on sea". I'm not sure that is accurate (no offence Butlins), and I have also had comments on this video that some of the more expensive lines are equally poor -now THAT would REALLY wind me up if I had paid double for the cruise and wasn't seeing a serious uplift in quality. Maybe that's what we have to do next - try a more expensive but cruise (there's plenty of them around) and see if there's a tangible improvement. I'd better get saving! Thanks for your input.

@@robandsue what a comprehensive response … I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts on the penny pinching that’s happening now . There are so many ways that the INDUSTRY try to remove the money from your pocket into their bottom line . That is to be expected I think . Being aware of the value you are getting with the initial price of your cruise against the service once on board your chosen ship is key to how you feel about your cruise experience. We found Azamara to be a great experience initially in 2019 …then again last year …however we have read of dissatisfaction amongst their frequent cruisers relating to service / food standards …we still thought it was a superb cruising experience…I would recommend them .. Happy cruising 🛳️ L

Well, we do like their cruises, but the price is a bit beyond us at the moment - but who knows, thanks for the recommendation.

Walked. It docks right in town.

Five minutes walk from the ship into the town, no shuttle or taxis etc required.

Hi. We did our first MSC cruise on here, we had seen some horror story videos on KZbin so to be honest my expectations weren't high but we were pleasantly surprised. We considered the meals to be more basic than we had been used to on P & O and the presentation was a bit more "just throw it on the plate" but after this trip on Ventura I can say there was nothing to choose between them and their buffet variety was much better although I dislike the layout, similar to on IONA, but then I'm not a buffet fan. In typical European style, personal space is reduced and we found the tables in the MDR to be a bit tight together. But the waiters were very friendly and helpful and we are still not sure if you got free wine with dinner, we certainly never paid for any but got Rose with our meal every night. Which ships have you been on? Do you have a favourite?