It was a busy day in Southampton on Sunday as in addition to the 5 cruise ships that were leaving it was also the Southampton Boat Show. Everywhere was crowded and we sat on the coach awaiting our turn to join the queue to board the ship. The procedure took a little longer than normal as with that many ships in port, resources were stretched. However as we will be on the ship for 31 nights an extra half hour or so before boarding made no difference at all.
The Captain announced that we were all aboard and ready to go but had to await our turn before we could leave. The other ships passed us one by one; firstly the Disney Dream on a trip around the UK.
Followed by the Norwegian Prima which was travelling to Iceland via the fjords in Norway.
The third ship in the convoy was Cunard Queen Mary 2 which was off on a trans-Atlantic crossing to New York.
The fourth ship was P&O’s Arvia which appeared to be backing out from behind us……..
…but no we were the next to leave on our journey to Canada and the USA and we joined the line of cruise ships sailing down the Solent to the sound of “The Love Boat” theme being played on the ship’s fog horns.
The weather on the first day at sea has been wonderful, bright sunshine with many people enjoying topping up their vitamin D on the open decks. There is no better place on a ship than at the stern watching the wake disappear into the distance especially when the weather is so favourable.
One of the major advantages of being on a long cruise outside of school holidays is there are NO children on board. Normally this wouldn’t bother us at all but on this cruise they have opened up the teen club so we can all be kids again, and we duly obliged with games of air hockey, table football……
……and Skee Ball.
We also managed a game or two of table tennis.
We now have four more sea days before our first port of call in Corner Brook in Canada, I’ll post if anything interesting happens.