We’ve finally arrived back in Southampton, breakfast was early and due to close at 08:00, so I had set my alarm for the first time since leaving and after one last shower we headed up to the PG restaurant for one last time.
We’d been to see the Grills concierege regarding our late departure time and he’d assured us that once the announcement came that the luggage had been off-loaded then we could depart the ship, but when we got down to the gangplank, he was there controlling the departures and insisted that we couldn’t depart until our colour was announced. Now I don’t want to come over all entitled, but as a Grills passenger and as a Diamond loyalty tier member there are certain perks associated with having shelled out all that money, and one of those was always priority disembarkation.
So we went back to our cabin to wait for the announcement that we could disembark. While we were waiting there were plenty of announcements about congestion on deck three and not blocking the gangway so by the time we were told we could get off there were huge queues to depart and it was very slow going. When we got down to the luggage hall, there were no trollies available and we had to queue for returns by one of the doors, these were coming back in dribs and drabs. Eventually I blagged a couple and loaded all of the cases aboard ready to head off to get a cab. I’d booked an Uber to take us back to to Jane’s Dad’s in the New Forest, this started with 10 minutes to arrival and stayed there for about 15 mins until it started to climb to 15 mins and then my booking disappeared. I can only assume the Uber driver had given up trying to get to the QE II terminal. Luckily I’d had the peace of mind to join the queue for the ranked cabs, but this queue was moving very slowly. Anyway after another hour’s wait our turn fo a cab arrived and luckily, given the amount of luggage we had, it was a people carrier. It was a fixed fare of £63 to New Milton and I’d have happily paid double that to get home.
Before long, a nice cup of tea and an M&S shop, we were on our way and had an uneventful drive home.