Travel and Embarkation days
Friday 23rd September 2022
We set off from home heading to Southampton with the car laden with luggage. We had thought that we would be travelling a little lighter this trip, we are not expecting hot weather or freezing cold so light layers Is the plan. We also have a laundry a few doors down from our cabin so planning on doing a wash load later in the trip. Well the packing plan didn’t work 😂
How much luggage?
The motorway was busy, however flowing, we made it to Southampton in a reasonable time with Paul at the wheel. We had already checked in on line at the Leonardo Grand Harbour hotel near the port, as we pulled up in to the car park we received a message to say the room was ready. I had booked the hotel using booking.com and received a free upgrade which I think is due to the loyalty level I have now attained with booking.com. Anyway that was a nice surprise as the room overlooked the port, the boat show, had a balcony and a gift of wine and chocolate. A fellow guest at check-in, noticing our luggage labels, commented that we were on the same cruise as her party of 3 and was amused that we had much more luggage than they did. 😂
Click on images below to enlarge and scroll.
A quick sorting out of paperwork for the cruise and the port parking then we went down to the bar for food and an adult beverage.
The following morning, Saturday 24th September, our plan was breakfast in the hotel (included) then pack the car back up and make our way to the port. Everything went to plan, we chatted on the phone to our friends Linda and Simon who had disembarked the ship that morning whilst we did the traditional British thing and queued in an orderly fashion to drop the car off. Once we had checked in the car and luggage we were through security checked in and straight on board.
We headed to the bar, service slow, hopefully that will improve through the weeks, and then off to our cabin. Paul took cabin photos before we moved in with our luggage. All the boring bits (safety stuff) completed in the afternoon before we headed out for sailaway. This is where it got emotional, a couple of red wines, nearly falling off a barstool then couldn’t stop crying when the ships horn was playing it’s customary “love boat” horn and the DJ was playing Green Green Grass of home, that so took me back to a time of my childhood. Made me think of mum at home (with the family), not seeing friends and family for nearly 4 weeks and how my dad, bless him, would have loved to have made this voyage if he was still around. Anyway I had to pull myself together as the ships videography team were filming sailaway and playing it on the big screen.
if you know you know………..🥲
The evening consisted of tea(dinner)in the main dining room, The comedy show, casino, Karaoke and then the piano bar. Loved the comedian John Joseph an American guy, we now know why many New Yorkers are called Tony. When the immigrants arrived at Ellis Island they were given stickers “To NY” 😂😂😂. The casino was fun, didn’t win, didn’t lose.
We’re off and running.