Embarkation

Sunday 17^th November

Why am I back on a cruise only 24 days after the last one? Well, the deal was too good to refuse. The cruise was obviously not popular, or else people don’t want to cruise at this time of year, and the price came down to £500 for an inside cabin and £600 for a balcony cabin. Furthermore, there was no single supplement! I haven’t seen a deal like this since last December. I had to snap it up. I contacted all of my UK cruising friends to see who could come but the only one available at such short notice (2 weeks) was Vi.

Getting to the cruise ship on a Sunday was a bit of an adventure. It required a lot of planning. Fortunately I had decided not to drive myself. It turned out that the A34 (the direct route between my village and Southampton) was closed for the weekend for resurfacing. Furthermore, a large load would be proceeding along the M4 at 10mph, pulled by two tractors and pushed by one. The diversion was due to take cars 70 miles out of the direct route!

The train should have been straightforward: walk five minutes to my local station, catch a train to Oxford and then a one-hour trip to Southampton. However, being a Sunday there was scheduled maintenance on the tracks, which meant train to Reading, coach to Basingstoke, train to Southampton. I could not face carrying a heavy suitcase through all those changes. I found one train at 10:15 that took me the scenic route (two and a half hours, not stopping but passing through Havant, Fareham and Hamble) from Oxford to Southampton. It was worth getting up early and catching the Radley train at 9:30 in order to catch this.

I met two other cruisers at the station and we shared a taxi to the ship. We passed through check-in immediately but had the usual 30-minute delay going through security, as many people don’t think to take off belts or shoes when they see others being instructed to do so.

It was great to be back on board and to be welcomed joyfully (sometimes with a hug) by staff members who know me from previous cruises.