They are teasing us with the Caribbean. And I need little tickling.
Eleven nights self-catering (just buy a bottle of rum and pineapple juice) at the 3*+ Divi Southwards Beach Resort. Flights from Dublin, From €1599pps.
The twin challenges in Travel just now are facing down the Coronavirus and sustainability.
Who would bet against it being those clever South Africans at finding an antidote to the disease?
Particularly as they already have a handle on climate change with their magic plant, the spekboom, the answer to flight shame, flygskam, This plant can save the world.
Which is why I’m flagging up Cassidy Travel’s www.cassidytravel.ie six-night Cape Town escape from €819pps including flights from Dublin.
Explore the Winelands, the Garden Route and take in a Big Five Safari Tour.
You’ll be staying at the 4* The Hyde Hotel in the cosmopolitan Sea Point area.
It’s the Swap Shop (ask your Dad) question which cruise captains are invariably most often asked: ‘Where is your favourite port!’ And invariably the answer is Santorini.
The Greek island with its classic azure blue domed rooftops does stand out on the sea (I’m told). Hint!
Cassidy Travel agree. They are running a seven-night cruise Greek Odyssey from €817pps including flights from Dublin.
Old relics in Athens
Aboard the Norwegian Spirit you’ll leave from Athens (Piraeus) en route to Rhodes, Kusadasi in Turkey, Patmos, Mykanos, the sights of Agostoli, Corfu.
Most holidaymakers leave Majorca by air but for the best experience come in by ship.
Our friends at TUI www.tuiholidays.ie have Majorca from three Irish airports.
Save €300 by using the code MAY300.
Cork to Majorca: 2 May on Marella Discovery – Highlights of the Mediterranean, inside cabin, AI, seven nights from €939pps.
Dublin to Majorca: 19 May, Marella Dream: – Spanish Delights, inside cabin, AI, seven nights, from €979pps.
Shannon to Majorca: 16 May, Marella Discovery – Cosmopolitan Classics, inside cabin, AI, seven nights from €1149pps.
A prince and Princess
Real leadership
And because I’ve seen first hand how hard and how genuinely caring Princess Cruises ate about their guests.
Here picked up from the old Twittersphere a tribute from a First Officer to his captain.
They are few and far between and I’m still looking… a good boss.
Captain Arma was last to leave #DiamondPrincess. He is a hero in our eyes.
You want to know where they’re sailing?…
How about up to €450pp flight discount on select America-based sailings departing in 2020 and 2021. The deal runs from today – April 30, 2020.
The flight discount is available on over 120 voyages, ranging in length from seven – 28 days.
The sailings cover destinations across northern and central America including, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Panama Canal and South America.
Several sailings on the 3,660-guest Sky Princess, feature as part of the offer, as well as the 3,660-guest Enchanted Princess, which will be christened in Southampton at the end of June this year.
Voyages include: · A 7-night Mexican Riviera cruise onboard Royal Princess, departing October 10, 2020. Sailing roundtrip from Los Angeles, ports of call are Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. Prices from €1495pp
But the bottle of Croatian wine given to me by my friends at Croatia Tours www.croatia.ie for Christmas is testament to the fact that I can’t.
This is more like it
So that’s another trip I have to make… it’s one that I was on and off the bus for.
Maybe he’s really doing me a favour.
Chairman de la board
Which counter to move?
Long before gamers there were board gamers, of which I am one.
But I confess that I’d never heard of the ones Francophiles will be playing at Soiree Jeux at the French Library Dublin on Thursday (free from 6.30pm).
Now this is all French to me but mes amis at Alliance Francaise Dublin www.webmaster@alliance-francaise.ie are tempting me with Carcassone, Star Realms, Les adventuriers du rail and many others.
Now I’ve had my own adventuriers du rail on my post-school trip down to the French Riviera.
We slept on the platform in Paris St Lazare station.
Yes, of course we hit the naughty area
And were awoken by the gendarmes kicking our sleeping bags and brandishing their guns.
It would not be the last time that the gendarmes had cause to pull their guns on us.
After we (or let’s say I) stopped the traffic in Frejus.
While my adventuriers du rail were not finished there.
With me missing la traine because I was off trying to buy du biere.
The last I saw of my old pal Adam was 37 years ago.
When he was waving out the window of the train at me.
French Riviera watersports
Although I just missed out on the class reunion last month. I’d have had words to say.
I expect there will be board games in the restored chateau that Brittany Ferries http://www.brttanyferries.co.uk is pitching.
That’ll actually be a Mimosa
As part of its 20% off 2020 holidays in France.
You’ll be staying in Le Domaine de la Baie, not far from the centre of Audierne.
Book now and you can stay for just €177pp.
There are sand beaches, a surf and sailing school and a picturesque fishing harbour and marina.
Which to me means seafood. And Brittany too is well known for its cidre. Tres bien.
What’s the difference between Walt Disney and Bing Crosby? Bing sings but Walt Disney.
That’s just one of the jokes you’ll hopefully not hear on this Disney cruise.
Forgive me for trotting out a Dad Joke but it’s just that Daddy’s Little Girl gave me a box of them for my birthday… and some of them aren’t even mine.
So what better match-up than my favourite holiday hosts and my favourite form of travel… a Disney cruise?
Cassidy Travel http://www.cassidytravel.ie is offering a seven-night cruise on Disney Fantasy from €7661 for a family of four of the Western Caribbean.
Visiting Mexico, Grand Cayman and Jamaica from Cape Canaveral.
There will be daily shows and activities, dress-up themed nights, fireworks display and kids’ clubs.
There is even a private island, Castaway Cay, with water sports and sandy beaches.
And, of course, you’ll be sharing the ship with these guys…
Corphew
That water looks so still you could walk on it… the Aegean Sea that is.
So I tried, in Corfu, and ended up swallowing half of it, adding water skiing to a list of water sport calamities.
Which can only grow next week out in Tobago.
But I won’t have the Scary One to burp me like a new-born baby or like Jerry does to Tom.
Corfu is best admired from aboard a cruise ship with a stop-off.
Now Macy’s is many people’s shopping dream and indeed for many women fashion is a key part of their New York trip…
Heck in this, the last rock in the Atlantic before Ireland which we like to call Ireland, weekend shopping breaks across to the Big Apple are a must-do.
For those who can afford it…
And for those who can’t.
I wouldn’t put my own Dear Old Mum in that category though very fashionable she is, even at 91.
Which reminds me of the last time we were in New York together, for my cousin’s wedding… here’s our extended clan above.
We had been assigned a very specific task by my brother to get chinos.
And having lived in North America he knew the exact American sizes.
When I asked my cousin where the nearest mall to him on Long Island was he said the black mall was nearer than the white mall.
I was aghast but he wasn’t being racist it’s just the way it is.
And another thing: the shoppers were super-super-sized.
Probably because they were tanking into the fast food.
It’s an economic thing where the poorer you are the more fast food you eat.
Refelections of Corfu. Photo by Alexander Mils on Pexels.com
I was spoken for, but that didn’t stop the keyboard singer at the bar who was glancing our way on our honeymoon in Corfu.
The besotted newly titled Mrs M drew my attention to the singer’s attentions.
With the ouzo filling my bladder I then had cause to pass the crooner by on the way to the rest room .
Where I noticed they were still smiling at me on my way back.
At which point I needed to inform my new wife: ‘Sorry, he’s not looking at you, it’s me he likes!’
Again, I’m only telling you this as a lead-in to an offer. TUI http://www.tui.com has seven nights S/C at the 2* Ekati 2, Kavos from €399pps, departing Dublin on September 13.
Which corresponds with our 25th wedding anniversary.
I love Malta
Bay of plenty: Valletta. Photo by ines bahr on Pexels.com
You’d think that there was an imaginary hand of fate at play… or that the Scary One has been phoning around my Travel buddies.
Malta was where on a hot, hot day, I bent down in exhaustion and she screamed YES.
We were particularly taken by Malta’s smaller sister island of Gozo.
Now I’m going to fly a kite here and suggest that the Scary One would like to return. And fly a kite…
The second edition of the Gozo International Kite and Wind Festival will take place there form October 18-20.
Concorde Travel http://www.concordetravel.ie has seven nights B&B at the 4* Seashells Resort, Qawra for €599, depart Dublin on October 14.
Or you can depart Cork on October 17 and stay at the 4* all-inclusive Seabank Resort & Spa, Mellieha for €769.
And they’re off
The Prancing Horse. Photo by Zachary DeBottis on Pexels.com
It was from my Dear Old Dad that I inherited the love of sport. That said neither of us got motor racing.
Apart from commonly repeated allusion I never heard him show any interest in the sport, and I use that term loosely.
The one reference point he had was in his common jibe at my Mum’s driving: ‘Stirling Moss,’ he would shriek and laugh uproariously.
He always enjoyed his own jokes, though my sainted Mum never did see the funny side.
As Formula 1 returns after its midseason break and Lewis Hamilton has a procession to his 72nd title it’s as well to flag up a motor racing holiday thrill.
Some things were never meant to be finished… take The Scary One (please). She is always finding things that still need to be done to the house.
Word reaches me that Antoni Gaudi’s magnus opus, the Sagrada Família, first begun in 1882 but only a quarter completed by the time of his death in 1926, has hit another snag.
And just when they looked like getting over the line after Barcelona’s city authority granted La Sagrada Familia’s first building permit. I’m not even asking under what terms they built what’s already up.
Seventy per cent is done (so they had chipped away at it at some point since the Great Man died).
Eight of its proposed 18 spires have been completed and the plan is to have it all finished by 2026, the centenary of Gaudi’s death.
But I guess nobody counted on the 3,000 residents living in the nearby apartments and their objections.
Watching the cranes above the psychedelic spires while draining a jug of sangria recently I couldn’t help wondering whether Antoni had been on something.
And whether they shouldn’t just tear it down and start all over again.
I hope you’re having a good one. I won’t wish you Joyeux Quatorze Juillet, or Bonne Bastille, as the French don’t really do that in the way the Americans wish you Happy Fourth of July.
If you want to find out more French nuances then pop by the French Corner in Dublin where Alliance Francaise Dublin and the French Library with the French Embassy will be putting on free workshops and games and face painting for l’enfants.
From 11-5pm today. City Spectacular, Merrion Square, Dublin.
Cherry amour: The Cherry Blossom in Japan. Photo by Bagus Pangestu
My old friend Wendy Wu is tempting us with discounts on her 2019 and 2020 Asian tours.
She’s giving us an Early Bird saving of €200pp if booked before August 5.
So you love the Cherry Blossoms and the Autumn Leaves. As a sample of the many Asian offers, how about Discover Japan, 13 days from €7,090pp. Twin share.
Wall, what is it good for? A gable end with King Billy
As I revealed in one of my random Did You Knows yesterday, the Battle of the Boyne was on July 1 and when converted to the Gregorian Calendar became the 12th of July when it should have been the 11th of July.
Of course we were more interested in commemorating another royal victory this week on the 11th.
The final piece of the Game of Thrones tapestry has been woven in at the Ulster Museum in Belfast to mark the end of the saga.
Before it gets taken to Bayeux where it will be exhibited from September to December.
The Ulster Museum is one of the best cultural and historical museums on this island. And it’s free. Visit it. http://www.nmni.com.
I’m heading up to Royal Portrush on Sunday for the final day of The Open Golf Championship.
Queen lives here: Windsor Castle. Photo by Kris Schulze
Back in the day when I first started this scribbling lark, I found myself in the Royal County of Berkshire… where I found myself a wife.
Then where Legoland now is was Windsor Safari Park. Nothing to read into that, just saying.
Berkshire, to the west of London is a great location in its own right for its royal history and quaint villages and is also ideally situated for the Big Smoke.
And that makes it great for families. Cassidy Travel knows it and has put together a great Legoland and football package to keep everyone happy.
If Mum doesn’t fancy the footie, and these days it’s more likely it would be Dad, the shopping in London is unparalleled.
Stay in the 3* Travelodge Windsor Central and choose between Arsenal v Burnley or Chelsea v Leicester City. Package from €379pps based on four sharing. Includes a day pass to Windsor Legoland Resort.
All they wore for the whole fortnight we were in Bulgaria was their football tops and trackie bottoms.
I think they had a few changes of the same outfits. It was the wrong team they supported but they were sweet girls and their grandparents were nice too.
Bulgaria is still remarkably good value as evidenced by a Sunway survey in conjunction with the UK Post Office.
They compared the cost of holiday essentials including a bottle of beer, a coffee and a three-course meal for two with a bottle of wine in 20 European beach holiday resorts.
Sunny Beach on Bulgaria’s Black Sea comes in at €44.44 for nine items. The most expensiveis Sorrento at €159.40.
Sunway offers seven nights B&B at the 3* Hotel Kudadasi for €399. Visit http://www.sunway.ie. for this and other great holiday offfers.
And Holiday Snaps is just about to get snappier with an extra day of the snappiest snaps in Snaptown, Snapetonia.
