It is now time for us to head to Southampton for our Crown Princess British Isles cruise. I had arranged a bus to pick up 49 people at our hotel and drive us the 2 hours to the port. Everything with this went very smooth and we saved quite a bit of money sharing the ride with others.
Embarkation went fairly quick for Tim and I since we are Platinum members with Princess meaning we have completed more than 5 cruises and one of the perks is priority check-in. Upon completing this cruise Harry & Diann will obtain this level but they had a delay this time in boarding the ship. Seems the knife which goes with the kilt outfit threw up flags and just as Tim and I were entering the x-ray area we her them being paged and didn’t have a clue what it was about until they got on the ship later. They kept his knife and hopefully they will get it back once we return to Southampton after the cruise.
Our luggage arrived quickly and we were unpacked before the life boat drill and sailaway. One of our cruise critic friends got a huge surprise when they checked in for the ship—they had been upgraded from a mini to a full suite! We went up there for sailaway then time for dinner after which Tim goes to the casino for a little bit and I turn in early.
Monday: Today we were to call on St Peter’s Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands which is a tender port. We had already decided to sleep in without an alarm and go ashore whenever we woke up since this is one of the few ports we didn’t have a tour lined up for. Seems we have found rough seas and had 60 knots an hour winds overnight with a list of the ship which I slept through but it briefly woke Tim up. We got up to a lot of white caps and soon learn we will be heading to our next port since the water is too rough to tender here. I have mixed feeling—I hate we are missing Guernsey as I have read it is a beautiful, historic port but a sea day will be welcome to just rest which we did.
This afternoon we had a meet and greet for the 170+ members of our message board group and it was well attended. We had already meet several of the members but it was good to meet a lot more we had been chatting with during the 18 months we had been planning this cruise and whom we will be sharing private tours with.
Formal night tonight and Harry was quite handsome in his kilt. He got a lot of nice compliments.
I'm surprised that I'm the first to comment on how good the pictures from formal night look. The four of you look fancy schmancy.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems with tender ports is rough seas and cancellations of tours. You should be getting some kind of credit since you've paid for stopping there.
Have you gotten together with Joyce and Tom yet?
That's the dirt I can't wait to hear about.