A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 16 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Fun for me to start seeing some of Southampton, as we're just a bit more than a month from our trip!
I love that little pier train! Can't believe how long the pier is. Most really long ones on the East Coast have been damaged by hurricanes, and rebuilt with a shorter version.
Crazy that the shopping center charged to park, but I guess because they are so close to the port, it became a good thing to do. I suspect there would be people who would park there for the length of their cruise. It seems a bit like the fact that DTD or DS (having trouble with that transition) doesn't run busses to the parks anymore.
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Beautiful pictures, I can almost smell the ocean air! And that park was so pretty, a perfect place to enjoy a quiet lunch before the chaos of a cruise terminal.
I absolutely loved that place, it was so wonderful to sit there and enjoy our lunch.
Fun for me to start seeing some of Southampton, as we're just a bit more than a month from our trip!
It's not a bad place - the shopping is certainly neat. You probably saw a little bit of it last year as well, as we stopped off there for a night after our visits to Cardiff and Bath.
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I love that little pier train! Can't believe how long the pier is. Most really long ones on the East Coast have been damaged by hurricanes, and rebuilt with a shorter version.
Oh trust me, it's the same here. We have very left here.
Crazy that the shopping center charged to park, but I guess because they are so close to the port, it became a good thing to do. I suspect there would be people who would park there for the length of their cruise.
I suspect that's the reason too. If everyone else was charging for parking and they weren't, of course everyone would make a beeline for that car park.
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How cool to be able to catch the train back from the ferry, especially since that is a very long pay. Sounds like you're just about ready to begin the voyage.
Great pictures of the otters. I used to see them on the river by my parents cottage when I was a child. They were so cute sliding down the riverbank in the water. they looked like they were having so much fun.
The pictures of Southampton are so pretty. It's a good thing you got to ride the train back. That pier looks really long.
Liz
How cool to be able to catch the train back from the ferry, especially since that is a very long pay. Sounds like you're just about ready to begin the voyage.
I was really pleased when I saw that, as I didn't fancy the walk back.
Great pictures of the otters. I used to see them on the river by my parents cottage when I was a child. They were so cute sliding down the riverbank in the water. they looked like they were having so much fun.
They do, don't they? They're one of the animals I always think of as being fun, as you always seem to see them playing.
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The pictures of Southampton are so pretty. It's a good thing you got to ride the train back. That pier looks really long.
Sunday 5 June – part seven: this is not good for my chronic fatigue!
We drove over to the short stay car park at the cruise terminal, where we managed to go past the company we’d booked with, and a guy came running after us. He was very thorough, and took lots of photos of the car, and carefully examined it, which was good to see. Feeling we were leaving it in safe hands, we headed off with the hand luggage to the terminal. I got one photo on the way over…
I have to say from here on in for a while photos are non-existent, and I kind of regret that now, but I think that reflects how I was feeling. There seemed to be a lot of people sitting outside, but we decided to head straight into the terminal. When we did, there was no signage at all, and although a woman sort of gestured vaguely “over there”, I didn’t know where she was sending us. That would continue to be a problem throughout boarding…
We finally found our way, and headed for security, where we had about a 20 minute wait. It didn’t help that I think the security staff had a shift change, and we ended up with about 20 people heading into line just before us, all in wheelchairs. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a disability, so I am very understanding, but people in wheelchairs are in wheelchairs, and therefore they don’t have to stand. The people using walkers, I completely got, they probably need to spend less time on their feet.
If you’re getting the impression we were amongst the youngest to be boarding this ship, you’d be spot on. We saw some couples who were maybe in their early 50s, but I doubt anyone was much younger than that. As for kids, we saw none throughout boarding, and the whole first day, I saw two teenagers, two younger kids, and one toddler, and that was it. Works for me!
Anyway, finally we were up to security, and I don’t think the woman on it could believe how quickly Mark and I were through. It’s just like airport security, we’ve done it many times before, and we had no problem with it, unlike the elderly couple in front of us, who literally had to coaxed and reminded the whole way through what to do.
Then we were into the check-in area, which seemed to have two massive lines. One seemed to be for return cruisers, concierge etc., and the other seemed to be general, but they were both as busy as each other. There was no-one to tell you where to go, but eventually I spotted someone and asked, and they pointed vaguely (are you getting a theme here?) towards the concierge and repeat cruisers line. Ok, works for us.
I think they were just so overwhelmed with people, they really didn’t care where people went, so long as they just got them on board. I reckon we waited another 10 or 15 minutes to check in. When we got there, I explained that we needed to change our credit card details, as our existing card on the reservation was the one that had been cloned. That was done easily enough, then we had our photos taken for boarding and disembarking, which was fine. We had to fill out our public health questionnaire, which I suspect they were taking even more seriously than usual. As we’d waited, we’d heard an announcement that no crew member would be shaking hands, as they didn’t want to spread any germs, which was fair enough.
That completed, we could finally head for the ship, although I personally felt this was a bit of a let-down in terms of excitement building. Going up an escalator made me feel like I was at a supermarket!
We had a long way to go to get on to the ship, and it was quite warm in here. I saw a couple of people, generally with walkers, sitting down to catch their breath, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of them would actually make it through the cruise in one piece, as they didn’t seem to be in the best condition now.
Finally, we were up to the ship, and even though it was warm outside, it suddenly felt a lot colder than inside the walkway to get here.
It took forever to actually board, and we soon found out why. A number of the photos taken in the terminal, including ours, hadn’t uploaded, so we had to have them done again. They’d clearly told us we wouldn’t need our photo ID again, so I’d put the passports away, but we had to get them back out, because they had no photos of us.
I think we eventually stepped aboard the boat around 4:00pm maybe? From dropping the car off to this point had taken an hour non-stop! No wonder I was exhausted, given most of that had been standing around. Not good for my chronic fatigue!
When we boarded, there weren’t any signs to tell us where to go. It was only when I got to these elevators that I even found out what deck we’d board on. They could certainly do with a bit more signage to make things easier.
We headed down to guest services on deck three, as I wanted to check whether they were going to be doing a Sail Away Experience on the bridge, but sadly they weren’t. They were doing the inside access tour for $150/person, and Mark decided to go for it. Oh well, I guess that uses up our $300 credit from Celebrity then…
From deck three, we headed up to deck 12, and the elevators here are quite something, with light flooding in from above.
Our first impression of the ship was that it’s quite contemporary, perhaps most so that I imagined it would be.
Next: I can see ourselves spending a fair bit of time here…
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I'm sorry to hear that your check in experience was so frustrating. The employees in the port are actually port employees - not cruise line employees. It is sad because often times guests have a negative experience in port that taints their impression of a cruise line who has little or not control over the port experience.
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You probably saw a little bit of it last year as well, as we stopped off there for a night after our visits to Cardiff and Bath. 
He was very thorough, and took lots of photos of the car, and carefully examined it, which was good to see. 
No wonder I was exhausted, given most of that had been standing around. Not good for my chronic fatigue! 
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