On Royale Emblem - April/may 2017

[YnysMon]

Yes, we certainly chilled and enjoyed ourselves.  It helps that we all got on very well together. 

[YnysMon]

Saturday 6^th May

We had planned to leave Womack Water around 7am to allow sufficient time to get back to Horning.  Seren had woken shortly after 6.  I got up at 6.30 and started packing.  Once we were clear of the mooring Graham took the helm, taking it very gently until we were past all the moorings and out on the Thurne.  In the meantime the rest of us got a light breakfast ready and packed all our stuff so that when we got to Ferry Marina just after 8.30 we were ready to disembark. 

Once we’d put everything in our cars we went into Horning to have breakfast at the Staithe and Willow.  Even Seren had breakfast as the lady waiting on us brought her a cut-up sausage as a special treat (that’s service!).  The waitress was very attentive, offering top-ups to those having coffee and more hot water for those of us having tea.  I always enjoy the full-breakfast at the Staithe and Willow, perfectly cooked eggs, really meaty sausages and lovely tasting bacon.  The three meat-eaters in our party all had the cooked breakfast whilst Barbara had a toasted teacake with coffee and Chris had toast and coffee. 

After breakfast we travelled the first leg of the journey home, stopping off at Wymondham, just off the A11, so that Chris could go on the Mid Norfolk Railway to Dereham and back.  Whilst he was doing that the rest of us walked up the lane to Wymondham Abbey to have a look around the church and the craft fair that was being held in the church and the churchyard. 

We were pleasantly surprised that they allowed us to take Seren into the Abbey, provided she was on a lead.  She was very well behaved.

 

The Abbey was well worth visiting with a coffee shop attached and some interesting books on the history of Norfolk in its shop. 

Afterward we walked along Market Street and stopped off for tea/coffee and cake before meeting Chris back at the Wymondham Abbey Station to continue our journey back to MK.  Even with a stop-off at Waitrose to pick up something for the evening meal we managed to get back in time to visit my Mum in hospital for 5pm.  Chris and Barbara were intending to visit with Sandra and I but just as we were setting off from our house something went BANG under Chris’ car.  He and Barbara stayed back to try to get hold of the RAC whilst Sandra and I went to the hospital.  My Mum was so glad to see us. 

Next day Chris, Barbara and Sandra were picked up with the car by a RAC pick-up truck to take them back to North Wales.  What an end to a lovely week!

[YnysMon]

Royale Emblem Boat Review

Royale Emblem is a centre-cockpit style boat accommodating up to seven people in three cabins, all with en-suite.  We chose the boat as it had three en suites and a large lounge area, so more suitable for a party of adults than some other boats.  We were also looking for a boat that had a decent sized fridge.

The forward cabin is fairly spacious with a double bed and a single bed.  Its en-suite has a good sized basin (quite old style being blue colour), pump-out loo and a small bath with moulded seat and shower over, which was great - much better than the wet room type of en-suite as the floor doesn't get wet.  Just behind this cabin are the steps up to the helm.  

There is a very good visability from the helm for reversing and viewing the surrounding countryside.  One thing about the helm is that the position of the throttle lever (or whatever-you-call-it) means that it would be difficult to go much over the 6mph speed limit due to the position of the lever.  Guess that’s a good thing.  We periodically checked our speed with GPS and found that the rev guide for mph was definitely on the safe side, even going with the tide and a following wind.  There is a padded seat accommodating up to three people in the cockpit area. 

The middle cabin can be made up either as two singles or a double and has a small wet-room type en suite.  It has restricted height over the bed, as the cockpit moulding overhangs it, and the only window in the room overlooks the cockpit.  The rear cabin has another double bed and has a small ensuite. 

The kitchen area is along the starboard side of the boat, well equipped with a full-sized under-counter fridge, gas cooker with four hobs, grill and oven and with plenty of pots, pans, crockery and utensils.  There is plenty of kitchen cupboard space and additional tall cupboard opposite the kitchen area in between the doors to the mid and rear cabins.

The boat has a very generously-sized lounge area at the rear with seating on both sides.  We kept the main table in place the whole week, though it can be put away.  It has two cylindrical legs which fix into depressions in the floor and we found it quite sturdy.  It was plenty big enough for five of us to sit around it.  There is also a second smaller round table that can be fixed in place near the other sofa which we didn’t use as our dog’s crate took up the space on that side of the lounge.  Access to the boat is through the rear door.  There is a small outside seating area at the rear of the boat and a hatch to the space where gas cylinders are stored. 

The boat has a nanni engine which is located under the bed of the rear cabin.  It also has bow-thrusters.  The engine sounded fairly quiet from the helm, noisier in the lounge but not unbearably so.  The water pump is also located behind the wall of the rear cabin, and it was very noisy in the cabin when water was used. 

The boat comes with a shore power connection and has a couple of solar panels.  Although we had bought cards for the electric posts we didn’t use any of them as each time we used shore power (at Norwich and Loddon) there was credit left on the post.  We seemed to use very little of the credit off the posts, despite using the heating, TV and other sockets for charging.  Other evenings when not on shore power we found that we were able to use the heating in the evening without having to run the engine.  We mostly tried to charge phones/cameras etc. whilst travelling and didn’t have the TV on very much, apart from the morning.  We did use the TV with DVD player a couple of evenings whilst also using the heating, again without any issues. 

 The boat being quite long (just over 42’) we found stern mooring in windy conditions or across the tide tricky, tough our inexperience in stern-mooring didn't help.  The air-draft is marked as being 6’10” with the canopy down.  We’re not sure what the air-draft is with the canopy up, but we were able to get through all the Norwich and Great Yarmouth bridges at low’ish water with the canopy up.  We were also able to get under Wroxham Bridge with the canopy down. 

Overall we thought the boat was very comfortable, the only minus points being the restricted height in the middle cabin and not being able to see outside the boat from that cabin's window, also the noise of the water pump in the rear cabin. 

All the staff at Ferry Marina are very friendly and helpful.  The handover was good on the whole, with all the essential points being covered, but the youngish lad doing the handover was obviously much less experienced than the chap that did our handover last year, but he might have been fairly new to the job so that’s to be expected  There were a few features of the boat that we queried that he seemed unsure about and had to go and ask about. 

[YnysMon]

Café/Pub Ranking for the week

(from our combined scores)

I thought you might like to see how we ranked the places we ate at this week.  I've also shown our individual scores, as it's clear that our opinion of each place varied quite a lot, depending on how we each liked what we chose off the menu, the service and ambience. 

Helen wishes the post to be edited to say that the highest score is 1 and 7 is the lowest. 

1. The Swan

2. The White Horse, Neatished

3. The Ferry Inn, Stokesby

4. The Staithe and Willow, Horning (for breakfast)

5. The Rushcutter’s Arms, Thorpe Green

6. Wroxham Hotel

7. The Dog, Ludham

8. 	Helen	Graham	Sandra	Chris	Barbara	Score
   Wroxham Hotel, Hoveton	5	6	7	6	6	30
   Rushcutter’s Arms, Thorpe Green	3	5	4	6	7	25
   The Swan, Loddon	1	1	1	1	6	10
   The Ferry Inn, Stokesby	7	2	2	3	6	20
   The White Horse, Neatished	2	4	5	2	1	14
   The Dog Inn, Ludham Bridge	6	7	6	6	6	31
   The Staithe and Willow, Horning	3	3	3	6	6	21

[YnysMon]

Oh well...my scores table went a bit wonky in the last post.

[Broads01]

Ah Le Boat at Wroxham, that brings back memories. 

I think boatyard telling everyone to start the engine for using the heating doesn't help things. In my experience yes you may need to start it to bring up the voltage but more often than not I've successfully heated without disturbing anyone. 

[vanessan]

What a superb write-up, you clearly have the gift of making a story both interesting and enjoyable. At times I almost felt I was on board with you! The scores table makes interesting reading too, particularly the White Horse at Neatishead which very often gets rave reviews. A somewhat mixed bag from your group. As a vegetarian, Barbara seems to have enjoyed her food most of all, I often get the impression that vegetarians are difficult to impress when eating out but that was evidently not the case for her. (That's assuming I have read the table correctly and not misunderstood where it may have gone wonky!)

Thank you for taking the time to do this write-up and review, I am sure many others will find the information useful.

 

[YnysMon]

Thanks so much for the lovely feedback - much appreciated.

Perhaps I should have said that the 1= highest rated and 7 =lowest. 

Actually I Barbara was a bit lukewarm with her reviews, as she only score one establishment high (1 - The White Horse) and one low (7).  Everything else rated the same, so I was in a bit of a quandary how to score them.  I ended up giving them all a 6.  Personally I love The White Horse, and maybe I'd 'talked it up' a bit too much to my companions.  We had pretty good food all week, so the standard was pretty high.

I think the interesting thing about reviews is how many aspects can influence the scoring, and what suits one person might be absolutely hated by someone else.  It may be that a particular dish didn't quite meet expectations, or that the service was considered great/ok/iffy.  Most reviews are individual opinions after all, so I thought it would be good to show how our collective opinions varied. Good thing there's plenty of variety out there! 

Helen

[ranworthbreeze]

52 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

Thanks so much for the lovely feedback - much appreciated.

Perhaps I should have said that the 1= highest rated and 7 =lowest. 

Actually I Barbara was a bit lukewarm with her reviews, as she only score one establishment high (1 - The White Horse) and one low (7).  Everything else rated the same, so I was in a bit of a quandary how to score them.  I ended up giving them all a 6.  Personally I love The White Horse, and maybe I'd 'talked it up' a bit too much to my companions.  We had pretty good food all week, so the standard was pretty high.

I think the interesting thing about reviews is how many aspects can influence the scoring, and what suits one person might be absolutely hated by someone else.  It may be that a particular dish didn't quite meet expectations, or that the service was considered great/ok/iffy.  Most reviews are individual opinions after all, so I thought it would be good to show how our collective opinions varied. Good thing there's plenty of variety out there! 

Helen

Hi Helen,

Your scoring puts a different slant on your table.

Regards

Alan

[YnysMon]

I know...I should have provided a key or something. Back to the drawing board. Can it be edited in retrospect? The main point is that it was a strong field!

[ranworthbreeze]

Just now, YnysMon said:

I know...I should have provided a key or something. Back to the drawing board. Can it be edited in retrospect? The main point is that it was a strong field!

Hi Helen,

As requested I have edited your post.

Regards

Alan

[YnysMon]

Thanks very much Alan. I wouldn't want to give people the wrong impression about some of our favourite pubs!

Helen

[Timbo]

Just one question Helen...you weren't counting the votes in the US election by any chance? 

[vanessan]

Now that really put a different slant on things! It rather takes it all back to what is probably 'the norm'! Never mind, at least it was a talking point for a short while. 

[YnysMon]

I don't suppose anyone on the forum will believe that I'm normally okay with data...just left my brain out of gear today!

I don't think Trump getting in was due to miscounting but that wierd electoral college system they've got over there.  Didn't Hillary win the 'popular' vote? 

Helen

 

[YnysMon]

Oh no...ignore my last post. The last thing I want to do is to start a 'politics' thread! 

[YnysMon]

Perhaps I should add that there have been mitigating circumstances today which have been more than a bit distracting. Our Social Worker phoned late yesterday afternoon to tell us that the respite care home that we'd booked Mum into for our July trip on a Hunter's yard boat couldn't do the same dates now Mum needs nursing care. 

So...We check what dates are available for respite care, check with my boss what other dates I can take, check with Hunter's yard on boat availability and send my son into work on his day off to talk to his manager.  I'm relieved to say that we've got it all sorted and are now booked on Wood Violet for 26th June to 3rd July...though of course it all depends on how my Mum gets on in the meantime. She's very frail and not eating much.