{"id":2553,"date":"2019-10-28T20:44:24","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T20:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2553"},"modified":"2019-10-28T20:44:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T20:44:24","slug":"09-our-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=2553","title":{"rendered":"09. OUR SHIP"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s about time we had a look at our ship.\u00a0 The Robert Burns is sister to Thomas Hardy!\u00a0 Bet you didn’t know that!<\/p>\n

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Two identical boats.\u00a0 Both 135 metres long and 11.4 metres in beam.\u00a0 Both licenced to carry 176 passengers.\u00a0 On this trip we are about 70 short of a full picnic.<\/p>\n

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It looks beautiful at sunset.\u00a0 And not bad after dark…<\/p>\n

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We get some great views from our window.<\/p>\n

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And we get lots of sunsets!<\/p>\n

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And someone else does the driving!<\/p>\n

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With occasional locks to navigate…<\/p>\n

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For which the deck control units are used to manoeuvre.\u00a0 We have three propulsion units all of which can be swivelled through 360 degrees to give total control.\u00a0 The props pull water in from below and force it out in the desired direction over a bell shaped unit.\u00a0 This means that when we go aground (which we did once) the props aren’t the lowest thing.<\/p>\n

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And talking of bell-shaped things…\u00a0 Every ship has one…<\/p>\n

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Made in 2018!\u00a0 I like a new boat!\u00a0 The reception area is very smart…<\/p>\n

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.. is manned and womanned by two very friendly faces…<\/p>\n

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They are like the hotel’s reception staff.\u00a0 Beyond the foyer, the door on the upper level leads into the lounge…<\/p>\n

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… while the entrance to the dining room can just be seen on the deck below.<\/p>\n

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Here we get to suffer buffet style breakfasts and three course lunches<\/p>\n

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AND, of course, five course dinners!\u00a0 The farewell dinner was the most formal we got.\u00a0 Bow ties for everyone!<\/p>\n

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It’s all very “sufficient” on the calories front – perhaps a better word would be “excessive” rather than “sufficient”!\u00a0 \u00a0The dessert table was always well stocked with fruit (and, obviously with more desirable cakes and puddings!)<\/p>\n

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How the head chef and his team produce all this stuff from what is clearly a very compact kitchen area is a miracle!<\/p>\n

Oh, and if that’s not enough, there are pastries and juice available in the atrium from before I was ever conscious.\u00a0 As Rob would say – “before the crack of sparrow-fart”.\u00a0 In his defence, he is a Kiwi.\u00a0 (Just don’t mention the rugby!)<\/p>\n

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In between we are faced with other comestible snacks.\u00a0 Like the icecream emporium in the lounge one day…<\/p>\n

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… and on one of only two days when we were not on board for lunch we were all given a packed lunch just to make sure we didn’t get hungry!<\/p>\n

Finally, on the subject of food, there was a small bistro-style dining room at the stern of the ship where Patrick, the singing waiter, and his team served lunches and dinners on reservation.\u00a0 Sadly, my video of Patrick singing a farewell song on the last night didn’t record.\u00a0 But in my uninformed opinion he has got a fabulous voice and a potential next career on the stage.<\/p>\n

OK.\u00a0 So where we we billeted?\u00a0 Cabin 307.\u00a0 Deck 3 port side.\u00a0 Good choice.\u00a0 No engine noise.\u00a0 No rocking motion.\u00a0 No party noise (but then again there were no parties.\u00a0 Well, none to which we were invited!).\u00a0 And most conveniently no swamping waves through open windows when we got to the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

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The very first thing we did on arrival was request 50 extra coat hangers.\u00a0 I think we settled for 25.\u00a0 \u00a0I ended up with three!!!<\/p>\n

Our bathroom… with some strange person taking a remote selfie!<\/p>\n

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Now the whole programme was held together by the unflappable Andras, (pronounced “Andrash”) the Cruise Manager, and his assistant, George. Any awkward questions.\u00a0 Ask “Ciao for Now” Andras!\u00a0 Here he is with his hound in his home port of Budapest.\u00a0 I guess that’s a “guide’s dog”!<\/p>\n

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All that ramains is for the captain to say goodbye to his passengers – and on a scale of 1 to 10 how happy does he look to see us all go?<\/p>\n

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As far as we are concerned, we have had a fabulous cruise.\u00a0 Not always scenic, but certainly educational and quite eye-opening.<\/p>\n

Well that’s enough of that – but we still have some REALLY old skeletons to check out back on the river so there’s more to follow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s about time we had a look at our ship.\u00a0 The Robert Burns is sister to Thomas Hardy!\u00a0 Bet you didn’t know that! Two identical boats.\u00a0 Both 135 metres long and 11.4 metres in beam.\u00a0 Both licenced to carry 176… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danube-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2553"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2587,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2553\/revisions\/2587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}