This cruise is a 14 night Western Mediterranean Adventure aboard Cunard’s newest ship Queen Anne. This will be our first cruise on Queen Anne, and completes the set of cruising on all of Cunard’s ships. The cruise leaves Southampton today heading for Cadiz, Cartagenia, Valencia, Malaga, Gibraltar and finally Lisbon before heading home for Sunday !st December.
There has been much comment about the amount of hanging space available, so Jane has been getting stressed about how much she can pack, which dresses get left behind and don’t even get me started on how many pairs of shoes is too many for a 14 night cruise. Two days of packing, unpacking, repacking and closing the suitcases for the final time and the amount of luggage looks pretty much the same as all our previous cruises. The pooch was dispatched to the sitter’s Friday and we set off early yesterday from Beckenham, heading down the Jane’s Dad’s place in the New Forest. The drive down was very good, two and a half hours, and we arrived in good time for brunch and a final shop to get bits and pieces we’d forgotten to pack.
We had a 12:30 embarkation time, and left New Milton at 11′:15 to allow for the Sunday shoppers in Southampton. We arrived at Ocean Terminal at about 12:15 and dropped our car with CPS, our bags at drop off #4 and were in Ocean Terminal at 12:30, There were queues outside which I assume were for people that had arrived earlier than their assigned boarding times, but as a Grills and Priority passenger we were ushered straight through and the registration was completed tout suite, then it all fell apart a bit – After booking in we were ushered into a holding area to wait for security. The boarding process is supposed to be Queens Grill, Princess Grill and then Club and then Diamond and Platinum loyalty, but this seemed to have been thrown out the window and it was a free for all with us boarding with Britannia passengers. It wasn’t a problem other than we were delayed by about 30 minutes boarding, then once past security there was quite a queue on the air bridge which was very slow in boarding as well. I’m not sure of the reason for the slowness because by the time we arrived at the front it was a quick process to get our boarding cards scanned and be directed to our muster station to get checked in.
We headed to the rear of the ship to use the ‘C’ Elevators as I had heard that the mid-ship ones are very slow on embarkation day, this was a a good move as we were in our stateroom in no time. Our first proper disappointment for Queen Anne is the size and spaciousness of the Princess Grilll cabin. If I didn’t know better I would have though I was in a standard Britannia cabin. It’s not tiny, but it doesn’t reflect the extra cost of travelling in PG. The wardrobe space as expected is inadequate for anything more than a 2 week cruise, I don’t know how the World Cruise passangers are going to fare in January. There is some good news though Jane’s Air Wrap works as expected, so a hair disaster has been averted.
We went up to the PG dining room for lunch and discover our table, we are on a table for six, which is good, we had requested a table for eight but six will be OK. After that it was back to the room where I unpacked, then I was sent out to allow Jane to unpack. I headed up to the Grills Lounge to sort out an appointment for the future cruise booking office as you now need an appointment rather than just rocking up and waiting. It took a while as there’s an unending queue of the elderly trying to connect their Ipads to the WiFi – Appointment books and added a booking for Fizz in the Bright Lights I headed back to the room to grab Jane and head off out for a look around the ship before heading up to the Commodore Club for Commodore O’Clock – It took a while to get served, there was a dearth of waiters at 5pm and Jane ended up heading to the bar to order. Doom Bar for me and the ubiquitous Cosmo for herself. She wasn’t happy as the menu doesn’t have the usual range of cocktails, and how is she supposed to decide what to have if she can’t browse the menu to see what tickles her fancy.
After that it was back to the room for a shower & get ready for dinner while watching England trounce The Republic of Ireland. We’d pre-booked Jane’s favourite meal from the A La Carte menu, rack of lamb, so dinner was something to look forward to. Crab, Crayfish and Caviar starter also from the A La Carte Menus and the aforementioned lamb prepared tableside. And off to bed.