We awoke this morning as the ship was arriving into the Spanish town of Vigo. We had booked an excursion, so had to eat a quick, early breakfast before leaving our home from home for the first time.

Spain looks very different to England. Vigo appears to be a built up town, with lots of high rising flats. Surrounding Vigo, however, is beautiful landscape, which includes churches, tree dense hills and rustic Spanish villas.

Our excursion, a bus tour of Vigo, took us around the town, where we saw some of the major buildings and attractions. As Vigo is a fishing port, there was many dockyards and fish factories. We also drove past the football stadium of La Liga side, Celta Vigo.

The coach stopped at a church outside of the town, where we could take in the views, which included three surrounding islands. A foggy morning meant we couldn’t see quite as far as we would on a clear day.

A trip to a 19th century estate followed, and we were shown around the beautiful gardens.

We were then driven to a luxury five star hotel for drinks. Our tour guide reliably informed us that both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona stay in the hotel when playing Celts Vigo. Just think – I could have drank my coffee from the same cup as Lionel Messi.

We were about to leave the hotel and drive back to the ship, when we were told the coach was broken and would have to be changed. As we were leaving the old house, we had heard a huge bang, so knew something wasn’t right with the vehicle!

A replacement coach was sent, but while we waited, it gave us chance to look out across the beach and coastline. An excitable dog was running around. The dog then turned aggressive, attacking a cyclist and biting two sets of joggers. This resulted in a very angry, bitten man, who appeared to not let the dog or its female owner leave, until he had finished a telephone call – one would hope to the local police, as the woman clearly had no control over her dangerous animal.

The replacement coach arrived, and we boarded, safe and sound, away from the dog. We were then driven back to our ship, before we would enjoy a late lunch and chance to sunbathe from our private balcony.

[Photos from the day]

The first full day of the honeymoon has been spent at sea. We got up relatively early, so we could head for the breakfast buffet. Madness. It was like the people there hadn’t eaten for weeks and The Red Cross had made a food delivery. We eventually found somewhere to sit, before finding something to eat ourselves. I must commend the chefs on-board – the P&O all you can eat breakfast is certainly better than the Harvester one. I could actually tell my sausage and bacon had come from a pig.

In the afternoon we had a couples massage. It was a very tranquil and relaxing experience, until it came to the end of the “treatment”, as our massaur called it. She wanted us to sign up for loads more massages across the course of our honeymoon.We were pressured into booking a second, but I put my foot down when they suggested a third. We’re going to cancel the second one anyway.

We caught a stowaway this morning. No, not a person – a frickin’ pigeon. He was sitting bold as brass on the deck. I suppose it saves flying across the Atlantic to hotter countries, like those stupid swifts.

This evening, we met the captain. His name is Simon Terry. I didn’t ask him if he had a brother called John, but was very tempted. I didn’t mention the stowaway pigeon – I’m not a grass.

We finished the evening with a cocktail. We both had Cosmopolitans. Until today, I thought Cosmopolitan was a nudy book read by Rik May all in Bottom. I liked it very much.

[Photos from the day]

I write this from the bed of our cabin. I have no idea what time it’s supposed to be. The time on the Kindle says it’s almost 11pm, but as we are probably closer to France right now, I don’t know what time zone we are in.

It has been a busy day. Claire’s parents kindly drove us from Bath to the port in Southampton, where we embarked on our cruise. The ship terminal was madness.people were everywhere.

We eventually got aboard. There were two check in desks on the ship. It should normally take a few seconds to get through. Typically we got stuck behind someone whose check in card had broken, so had to wait ages!

When we did get to our cabin, I was more than impressed. Such luxury! They even gave us complimentary champagne and chocolates. The luxury was short lived, as we were ordered downstairs to carry out a safety drill and be shown how to wear our life jackets, should anything unfortunate happen. I can’t complain. I don’t remember such a demonstration happening in the movie ‘Titanic’, and we all know what happened there.

The whole thing was a bit of a farce. There were more people than chairs, and there was a delay in starting, thanks to some travellers getting on-board late. How difficult is it to get to your holiday on time? If I was the captain, I’d have left without them!

We were eventually shown all the health and safety mumbo jumbo, so returned to our cabin, before finding something to eat and strolling around the ship. The sea is rather rough tonight – it must be because we’re in the English Channel.

I should really get to sleep now. I’m tired – almost certainly because due to my long day and nothing to do we with the two glasses of free bubbly I’ve drank.

[Photos from the day]