QM2 was arriving last into Southampton this morning, apparently the sea crossing from New York had been a bit lumpy so she’d been diverted south to avoid the worst of it. We had already been informed by text by Cunard and advised to arrive one hour later than planned to allow for this. We had travelled down last night to stay with my Father in Law, in the New Forest. So with the dog packed off to the sitter and the car filled with far more clothes than is really necessary, we set off. The holiday has begun.
After a light breakfast we headed off, our original boarding time was pushed back an hour because of the rough weather encountered on the crossing from New York so instead of setting off at 10:00 we left at 11:00 for a 12:30 boarding, fully expecting Friday lunchtime traffic to be horrendous. As it turned out there was nothing and the expected hour journey turned out to be only 35 minutes so we were very early. Dropping the car off with CPS used up a bit of the spare time as did trying to drop the luggage through a gaggle of Asian tourists who were just alighting from their coach and taking up the whole of the footpath blocking access to the bag drop #2. There was a large queue of people being held at the entrance to the Mayflower cruise terminal, luckily our priority boarding meant we could bypass these and go straight through to check-in.
We only had one glitch in the check-in process, my printer had defaulted to double sided printing when I printed off my boarding passes, so I just printed off a second copy, which I thought would be OK but it turns out the boarding passes can be only printed single sided and would have to be reprinted there and then. Not a big deal but we now had two easily lose-able small passes rather than the nice big A4 ones.
Once past check-in we had a bit of a wait for the ship to become ready, 40 minute was promised over the PA, but they called the carded Queens Grill passengers (Q1 and Q2 staterooms) as they get a personal escort and before long we we called. After a quick security check we were through and on board the ship. The luggage hadn’t arrived at the stateroom before us so we quickly unpacked the hand luggage, messed up the safe locking requiring a visit and a reset, and headed down to our Muster station to get our cards scanned. After that it was time to find our table for lunch. We had requested a table for eight which Osman, the Maitre’d, provided for us. We’re usually the only ones at lunch, people have often had a long journey so give lunch a miss, but we had 4 table mates for lunch and very pleasant they seemed too. The afternoon was spent unpacking, visiting the concierge desk to book a Future Cruise Bookings slot, as we need to see if we can change next year’s Caribbean cruise and checking that Jane’s Gala Night hairdo is booked in at the Spa as it’s not showing up on My Voyage. It was booked for 4 pm and we have a 10:40 cruise booking appointment so all is good. After that it was time for the Commodore Club where we’d arranged to meet up with friends who had been witnesses at our February wedding. Jane is still not happy with the bar menus, no selection and you are at the mercy of the waiters when trying to find a cocktail to drink. The signature QEII is no longer available and this cannot be because they don’t have the ingredients
After that it was back to the room to head out for dinner where we met the final 2 table mates, we now have a full complement of guests and we seem to be a good mix, we were very nearly the last to leave the dining room which is always a sign of a good table.