The MS Marco Polo

Day 7: Gibraltar and Tangiers. Oh dear, Gibraltar next! In the quayside terminal building it announces its presence in sculptural form as a large, mud-coloured, bare and inhospitable rock. Which, I thought, is pretty much what it is. With rain teeming down four unfortunate tours headed for the sights (rock, monkeys) all hidden in masses of low cloud. Time to wander around this time capsule of old Britain unhassled and unaided. I was expecting to hate everything, but once one leaves the central drag of fish n’ chip shops and discount stores, there were indeed some pleasant sights to be seen. A Catholic Church opposite an Anglican Chapel, doing good Sunday business along with the odd police car looking for all the world as if it had just completed its morning M25 duties. All this together with spacious squares, decent sized trees and lush vegetation, alongside red pillar-boxes and helmeted bobbies – plus the cheapest Camel Lights in Europe!

Still locked into day eight, we set sail at lunchtime amid squalls, scudding clouds and rain-lashed decks towards the topknot of North Africa – exotic Tangiers. With barely four hours to “do” the whole place it smacks rather of “If it’s Thursday it must be Belgium”. As we pull into dock I see a series of hastily erected stalls all lined up on the quayside flogging the usual dodgy mixture of handbags, cheap leather belts, kaftans and assorted colourful riff-raff. Astonishingly, many passengers choose to make do with this as their only taste of Tangiers, but I decided, thank God, to invest this time in a coach tour of the city and environs, with a highlight walking through the medina and Kasbah. Here are some of this extraordinary city’s oldest parts, a rabbit warren of narrow passageways, some a mere eighteen inches wide. No wonder Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Betty Hutton all chose Tangiers as a welcoming haven in their stormy lives. Now this mantle has passed to Marrakech, home to Hollywood stars and starlets, nestling conveniently at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. However to my mind Tangiers is by far the more attractive place, resting on cool hills and surrounded by lush green forests. A magnetic, magic place indeed, and all packed into four hurried hours, before it is back to the boat.

Day 8: Portimao, Portugal. Now we come, so to speak, to the fag end of the cruise. Having “done” Gibraltar and Tangiers in barely a day, we turn tail and race up the coast to Portimao where we have a so-called “anchorage point” waiting for us where tendered craft will ferry us to the shore. In fact our designated mooring point seems to be marked by a single buoy bobbing some mile or so offshore and with a swell rapidly rising from four to eight feet within minutes of our arrival. A creaking of pulleys announces that one of our emergency lifeboats is being awkwardly cranked into the sea and with heavy hearts we, hanging over the ship’s rails, realise that it is to be in our own escape craft that any expedition to the distant shore will be achieved. After about an hour of shouting, pulling on ropes and general water-based cabaret antics, it is perfectly clear to all that our elderly and infirm passengers would tumble one after the other into the ocean if they were to attempt any manoeuvre from gangplank to lifeboat. Then comes the inevitable announcement that we are to amuse ourselves for the rest of the day and that all excursions are hereby cancelled. A general scrummage for the sun-loungers soon ended in a patchwork quilt of broiling British flesh necessitating a retreat to the inner lounge and the comfort of a draft Becks (£2.80).

Day 9: At Sea. The nine remaining singles assembled, courtesy of Passenger Liaison Services, for an early lunch together and presumably a “catch up”. Wine was there waiting on the table, which was generally and tacitly acknowledged to be a nice gesture from the management until it became clear that it had to be paid for (£20 per bottle for the red, £25 for the white). So we retreated to our heavily chlorinated water and I suggested that we took the round table “temperature” of our feelings about the voyage thus far. On a scale of 1-10 the votes ranged from 1 to 7 with a mean average of exactly 4.1. Specific complaints roughly in order of length and strength of comments were as follows:

1. Poor food, frequently served luke-warm or even cold.
2. Hurried and overpriced on-shore tours.
3. Drastically bad inter-cabin sound insulation.
4. Overcrowding of onboard facilities, especially during days at sea.
5. Cessation of free hot drinks by 8.30pm.
6. Surly and unhelpful staff attitudes.
7. Overpriced bar items.
8. Constant circulation of photographers leading to overselling of prints being the subject of a revolving display in public areas.
9. No attempt to relay via the ship’s GPS systems world news on any kind of regular basis.
10. Age and condition of vessel.