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Queen Victoria Cruise Voyage V913: Mediterranean Medley II - 17th-30th August 2009 Day 9: 25th August - Alghero, Sardinia |
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This is the record of a 13 night cruise taken on
board Cunard's Queen Victoria from Southampton on 17th August 2009. This page covers
Tuesday 25th August in Alghero, Sardinia.
Following the chaos of the first tender operation at Monte Carlo, where an inadequately sized lounge was used as a waiting area, the assembly area was moved to the much larger theatre. This did not stop the crew from fouling up even more than their first attempt. It was as if the whole tender team was new on board and had been given no instructions. Compounding this was the possibility they they all worked for the entertainment and gym teams, and that forming a conga line was probably the limit of their organisational abilities. Tender tickets were to be available from 8.30am, although the Captain's message failed to mention this and people assembled earlier once he announced that we had arrived. Although the tender staff were on hand, and had the tickets, they refused to issue them until the appointed time, making people wait in theatre. As more people arrived, they waited by the table, so that quite a scrum when the people in the theatre realised that they were now behind in the queue. Quit why the staff could not issue tickets as soon as the Captain made his announcement, so that everyone could wait in the theatre until their number was called, is known only to the organisers. Instead the tender team just got very cross, and rude, with the arriving passengers. There was no sign of any use of initiative - Nelson would not have been amused. Eventually, passengers for the first tender were called. A staff member led people out from the front of the theatre along a narrow corridor. Of course the majority of the group were held up by the slowest passenger, and on a Cunard cruise this can be very slow indeed. The slow passenger lost sight of the leader, who had stormed off in her fit of pique with just handful of passengers, and led the large group (of which we were at the back) down the wrong staircase. Turned back by a crew member, we had 85 people on a stairwell, with those at the bottom trying to go back up, and those at the top still trying to get down. Chaos again, followed by more rudeness from the tender crew, suggesting that the slow passenger should have kept up, whilst repeating that 'they knew what they were doing'. Of all the cruise ships that I have been on, only the Splendour of the Seas at Villefranche was more chaotic, in this case because she only had one available tender pontoon and independent passengers had to wait hours until all the tours had departed. Once finally ashore, I made my way to the railway station in Alghero. Sardinia has a standard gauge main line running down the island from Olbia to Cagliari. this line is run by the Italian State Railways (FS - Trenitalia). There are also three separate metre gauge systems all run by Ferrovie della Sardinia (FdS) which link to the main line. Alghero has a branch Sassari, from where there are other branches to Sorso and Nulvi. The line continues from Nulvi across the north of Sardinia to Palau on the coast, but this is classed as a Trenino Verde which receives minimal maintenance, and is used by summer tourist trains only, typically in one day a week. This runs on Wednesdays only (we were there on a Tuesday) from Sassari to Tempio (about half way to Palau), with a connection from Alghero at 8.07am. This trip gives a lengthy five hours in Tempio, not returning passengers to Alghero until 19.18 - quite a long day. According to the web timetables, I could catch the 9.47am to Sassari, and then the 11.00am into the mountains at Nulvi. Unfortunately the trains between Alghero and Olmedo had been 'bustituted', with train between Olmedo and Sassari. Trains left Sassari at the published times, but returned from Olmedo almost immediately. The 9.47am bus departure from Alghero was therefore put back to 10.04, giving a very tight connection onto the 11.00am from Sassari to Nulvi. In the event, we were delayed by a crew changes just outside Sassari and the 11.00am surprisingly departed exactly on time as I ran towards it. I did get some photos however. Having missed the onwards connection I immediately returned to Alghero. On our way to our regular evening pre-dinner visit to the Commodore Club, we encountered two grill passengers in Stairway A who had bravely ventured out to mix with the great unwashed. They were in a state of some distress, since they could not find their way back to their enclave (they were in the wrong stairwell) and indeed did not seem to know how to call a lift. Presumably grill passengers have white-gloved-flunkies to press the up and down lift buttons in their own area. |
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