Day 24 2nd February 2011

Last night we received a letter from P and O advising us that the next port, Punta Arenas would require the use of tenders and that the landing stage in the town was unsuitable for disabled passengers. In one way it is admirable that the company warned us but in another why wait until the night before when they could have told us when we booked the cruise nearly two years ago. In that way we could have made an informed choice about whether we were content not to visit some of the places. Chris has now missed out on two stops. There are many unhappy people on the ship basically asking why they were not told in advance as part of the information provided by the company. Ships visit these ports many times and surely they know if they are difficult to access or not. I suspect a lot of complaints especially if it happens again.

We have spent the day doing useful tasks like getting washing done and generally having a quiet one. People who did go ashore give us different impressions of the town. Some say it is small and there is little to see while others say it is an elegant small place. We will never know from personal experience. In general we are happy with P and O but some times their communications are poor and as in this case a bit late.

We now have several days at sea passing near to two large glaciers on the way up the Pacific coast of South America.