I was only on a small ship but gave the Warrington brag a wide berth. There was another passenger that made a bitchy remark about my disability being all in my mind (I did not refer to it at all, as I thought the stick was a sufficient give away) I snapped and said to this woman "you should try going to bed one night, waking up the next morning and see how you get on and then I said it might be an idea if she kept her mouth shut until she knew what she was talking about, she looked at me as if I'd slapped her and opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish, she was horrible to a lot of people not just me.
There were a lot of lovely people aboard the ship, worth spending time of day with, all sorts of ages and experiences. Somehow or other though, one or two talked about previous trips they had been on, but did not hold forth endlessly regardless of whether or not you wanted to listen. The thing is, it was a floating hotel and you are bound to take a liking to some fellow holidaymakers and dislike others, but there is never a need for bitchiness or being personal. Hell would freeze over first before I'd allow them to ruin a lovely holiday.
One of the trips we took was to Algeria, which is a beautiful country but the political situation is a bit volatile. Consequently two coaches went out flanked by three cars in the front, full of armed police or soldiers and another vehicle behind again full of armed police. We were going to a Roman ruin, part of which I couldn't manage to explore with the party so I waited with another lady by the sea (the dig was on the coast), with an armed soldier and a policeman. Their English was worse than my French but we managed to have a little conversation despite the language barrier. Afterwards we went round Algiers in the coach, a city that must have been beautiful in colonial times but sadly showed how the buildings had been effected in the recent turbulent past. A culture shock but a great experience.