Alex Telling

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Alex Telling | Travel Specialist

Phone Alex: 01225 945883

Email Alex: [email protected]

Visit Alex: 8-9 New Bond Street Place, Bath, BA1 1BH

All about Alex

Having studied Travel and Tourism at school, college and then university I always had a passion for travel and the travel industry. After some time in other career paths, which included living and travelling around USA, I turned to what I knew would excite me most, travel. For three years I worked for P&O Cruises as an Entertainment Host, achieving my goal of travelling and working with people which I love to do. In that time, I have been fortunate enough to travel around the world and have visited some incredible places.

One of my all-time favourite places to visit is Bruges. I am a massive fan of Gothic/Medieval architecture and Bruges provides a stunning back drop for this fandom. I have been fortunate to have visited Bruges a few times now, and it is always just as beautiful every time. I enjoy most just walking through the narrow historic streets socking in the wonderful atmosphere the city offers and stopping by a local café to enjoy some traditional Belgium chocolate and beer. Following those narrow street led me to several fantastic locations, Markt Square and Burg Square. In Markt Square I was welcomed by beautiful Gothic styled buildings, the best of them was The Provinciaal Hof, all in the shadow of the amazing Belfrey. If you want an unparalleled view of the city, you can climb the 366 steps of the tower of the Belfrey. I have also been there during the Christmas holiday season and got to experience the excellent Christmas Market held there every year, if city breaks are your choice of holiday this is a must!

Similar city locations to Bruges that I have enjoyed visiting have been Tallinn, Stockholm and Copenhagen, all providing stunning architecture and attractions to enjoy.

With my time working on the cruise ships I have had the chance to experience all different types of places – winter in the Canaries, summer in Norway, five months in the Caribbean and a 100-day journey around the world. While working with P&O Cruises I had the opportunity of working on four of their ships, Arcadia, Aurora, Britannia and Iona, all having their own bit of charm. Though I could fill this section with all the brilliant adventures I had in Norway or the Caribbean I will provide a short highlight of one of the most unbelievable journeys of my life, the 2025 World Cruise onboard Arcadia.

Once I found out that I was going to be going on this journey, I couldn’t imagine the incredible places and sights I was going to be seeing. On this journey we covered 33,925 nautical miles traveling across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean (plus several seas) and visiting 16 different countries spread across 5 continents. I really got to travel to some places I never believed I would be able to visit in my lifetime, such as Australia/New Zealand, Malaysia, Tonga and South Africa. Though I got to experience so many wonderful things, the highlights would have to be transiting the Panama Canal, hiking around a volcano in Hawaii, visiting James Cook’s landing place in Tonga, Australia Zoo and hiking in the Outback, visiting the Orangutans in Malaysia, hiking to the most south-western point of the African Continent and going up Table Mountain while in Cape Town and quad biking through the Nambian Desert.

However for me the top highlight and one of the visitations I was most looking forward to before setting sail was visiting Pearl Harbor while in Hawaii. Intrigued by military history this was one place I always wanted to visit but never thought I would get to go to. The day started early, arriving at Pearl Harbor at around 8:30am. From there we planned out what we wanted to visit and in which order, heading out first to Ford Island. Here our first stop was the USS Missouri or ‘Mighty Mo’. They provide tours of the ship but we decided to go around ourselves, starting on the deck before heading down below. There you can stand where the formal surrender was signed bring towards a close of the second world war, what a moment of history to stand in and I really felt the weight of the occasion. From there you can explore what it was like to live and work on such a vessel, an interesting insight especially as at the time I was living and work on a ship. After The USS Missouri we headed around to the airfield of Ford Island, at which it has an aviation museum including the old control tower. The most surreal part of this was looking into the hangers and still seeing the bullet holes in the walls from the attack.

From there we returned to the mainland and onto what can only be described as the most harrowing part of the whole experience. We journeyed out by small boat to the USS Arizona Memorial. The wreckage still there from the attack, a very fitting memorial has been placed above it, so you can see the sunken ship and the names of all the people lost onboard that day. Though the place was full of people, there was a respectful silence, which was an experience of its own. After this we spent the rest of the time we had there explore the other exhibits and just taking in all the history that is there. Also once we finished at Pearl Harbor we had the chance to wander around Honolulu a little bit and found a fantastic city worth visiting again.