Had an early morning start - alarm went off at 2.30 am ready for a pick up by the mini bus to take us to Manchester airport for the 7 am flight to Valletta. Raining quite heavily but the driver dropped us off right outside the departure doors of terminal 2 and we were met by hundreds of people queuing at various gates - I naively thought there wouldn’t be many people there as it was so early - how wrong can you be!
Check in took a while - not many staff but some passengers just took ages. The weight restriction of 1 case under 23 kgs caused a lot of packing and unpacking at my son’s last night but at the check in we were all okay - just
We then went to the food hall and Matthew “volunteered” to fetch the food and drinks. Four of us had a bacon roll, one had a croissant and the other yoghurt and fruit plus we all had a hot drink - £60 +. Worth the wait as we only had a cuppa before leaving for the airport.
The plane was slightly delayed - but not a problem - we had a tail wind apparently which made up time. All meals have to be ordered - we didn’t bother except for a cup of tea/coffee which was a silly price too but then isn’t everything these days.
We landed in Malta to glorious sunshine and this is where a fly cruise to the Mediterranean differs from the Caribbean - we had to get our bags off the carousel and take them out to a van which took them to the ship. Matthew jokingly said standards are slipping but it’s just a different way of doing things.
I must admit after travelling on Iona in June we thought Azura looked a bit “tired” but then it is an old ship now with far less to offer but a more manageable size to get around. Our cabins weren’t ready until 1.30 pm so we went up to the Horizon and things went downhill - it was so crowded principally because of the passengers waiting to disembark - we split up because a table for 6 was impossible and had lunch. An announcement that our cabins were ready came over the tannoy so we went down to find them.
We have balcony cabins on C deck mid forward - I’m sharing with my 16 year old granddaughter and next door are Matthew’s in-laws. Matthew’s cabin is on the same deck but opposite side to us - unfortunately when they decided to upgrade to a balcony they couldn’t get one next to us but they are very close.
Cases came quickly and we unpacked, met the steward and are now relaxing before dinner. It’s very hot - we had an email yesterday to say they are monitoring the situation and Captain Turnbull is going to keep us updated which should be amusing!
Sea day tomorrow hopefully the sea breezes will cool us down.
