Whether the weather!

As you know, if you have read my blog before, my favourite form of travel is cruising. I love nothing more than a trip by boat, waking up in a new place every day. I recently went on a cruise for a week that would take us to France and Spain. So, a nice, relaxing trip, visiting some lovely cities in the fresh, October air. Oh, I was so wrong! The weather was appalling from day 1. Leaving Southampton, the waves were high, and the sea was very choppy and day 1 at sea was pretty unpleasant. Still, we are hardy sea travellers by now so I thought just grin and bear it, it will get better. 

Unfortunately, it just got worse. Day 4 was cut short, so we were only at the lovely city of Gijon for half a day as the port we planned to visit, Santander, we were unable to stop at due to the bad weather. We were informed that the captain was taking us to Vigo, a port further down the coast which had better weather. OK we thought, a bit strange to be going further down the coast, but who are we to judge the captain’s decisions. This must be better, surely. We were then told that we would be experiencing a few hours of turbulent sea conditions but after that, “plain sailing’. Oh no, we quickly experienced what the captain quite casually told us were Force 12 gales and this went on overnight until we docked in Vigo the next morning. Force 12! I thought it only went up to 10! But no, if you look at the Beaufort Scale there is indeed a force 12. Just under Hurricane level!

The rest of the journey home was not quite as volatile but still quite unpleasant and so our holiday ended after a stop in Cherbourg where it rained all day. 

So, this got me thinking about travel in general. How much unpleasantness do we have to put up with in order to have a “nice” holiday? Is it worth enduring Force 12 gales just to go on a cruise? Similarly, if we travel by plane, do we just grin and bear it when the turbulence hits or if we are on a train and the ubiquitous delays happen? Is a holiday really worth all the travel to get there, basically? 

It has certainly put some things into question for me, and the joys of a “staycation” seem very appealing to me at the moment!

What are your thoughts?