"Vi kommer til å trenge en større båt!" :: DAY 2

[JamelUK]

Day 2 - Seasick in Southampton

WARNING!

The following Trip Report is a rambling reflection on life and the little challenges it presents us, laid out in a Carry On Innuendo style that some have found inappropriate or offensive.

IF YOU DONT FIND OBSERVATIONAL SATIRE FUNNY - PLEASE LOOK AWAY NOW!

For everyone else with a sense of humour, please pull up a chair & make yourself comfortable.
Consider yourself warned!

See more...

<< PREVIOUSLY = Day 1
NEXT >> = Day 3

It’s Friday 25th Jun and I’m wide awake at 8am.

I was actually awake much earlier as I had little choice but to watch the flesh peel from my skin.

The room didn’t get any cooler, and at around 3am Mel had to get up and fetch a damp towel from the bedroom to wrap around her head.
She tells me that the digital thermostat on the pointless and useless in room air con said it was 28C.

So we don’t muck around and the 3xS's are quickly sorted and our one overnight bag is dragged behind us as exit the furnace at our earliest opportunity and head for breakfast.

Linz had insisted that we do early breakfast anyway.

She is adamant that we all get away as soon as possible and head to the dock to be one of the first people on board.

Ignoring the fact that the previous sailors wont have finished disembarking until at least 11am, and they don’t open check in until around 12:30. For some reason she is keen to go and queue outside a car park for 3 hours.

We are lucky that we are staying in one of the larger, older Premier Inns that has a bar & restaurant attached to it.

This means we don’t have to suffer the small, pathetic aircraft style plastic tray which contains, if you're lucky, no more than 4 corn flakes and a few drop of UHT milk.

No, instead we sit down to a good buffet spread of your usual full English as well as a great selection of cereals, toast and muffins.


The food is good and we get excellent service from two friendly waitresses who fuss over the kids.


All done, Mel and I are to head into Southampton for a few last minute bits while Linz & The Topps head for the dock to watch the staff clean & sanitise the ship for 3 hours before they are allowed on board. She used to be a cleaner and I’m thinking she wants to go and see if she can help.

As it is sizzling hot in Southampton today, Linz has asked us to get her some sun lotion for the kids. It’s at this point that Mel tells me that we need some too. Our conversation went something like this...

Mel: "We need sun tan lotion"
Me: "No we don’t"
Mel: "Yes we do. We don’t have any"
Me: "Yes we do. We packed some"
Mel: "Well I didn’t"
Me: "Yes you did. I put a plastic bag full of both sun tan lotion and after sun on the bed next to the bag you were packing"
Mel: "Oh I didn’t pack that"
Me: "Why not?"
Mel: "You didn’t say that you wanted it, so I didn’t think it was important"

And yet, apparently, I’m the one with the mental health issues. Go figure.

As we park up in central Southampton in a large multi storey next to ASDA we get a text message from Linz explaining that she has come to her senses and they aren't going to the docks quite yet. I doubt it's Linz actually seeing sense. I think it probably had more to do with Matt continuing his questioning from breakfast - "Why do we need to be there so early Lindsay? Why Linz? Why?!"

In ASDA we quickly put down the £27 bottle of Ambre Solair and pick up two bottles of ASDA's own brand sun tan lotion for less than a fiver.

That sorted, we move on to our next challenge. Seasickness tablets. No, we hadn’t packed any of them either. Don’t go there.

I scan the shelves, but can’t find any.

This is even one of those larger ASDA's that has things like a laundry and a travel agents at the back.

Sadly though, no “normal” pharmacy.

They do have a Chinese Pharmacy. Call me a skeptic if you will, but I really don’t see how necking a mug full of burnt leaves, bean sprouts and other assorted dust will help any seasickness symptoms.

We head on over the road into Southampton's Mall. Checking the store directory on their map we find they don’t have a pharmacy either.

They do have a large convenience type store selling a suspiciously wide variety of drugs, lotions and potions, but sadly no seasickness tablets.

I start to stride off towards the more central part of Southampton, but Mel stays put.

We have walked no more than 750 yards in a straight line, in a pedestrians area from where our car is parked, and yet Mel is worried that we may get lost and won’t be able to find our way back to our car.

We exchange glances and I walk on.

Now on Southampton's main high street I spot a Boots in the distance. Crossing the road, I am faced with more disappointment. It is one of the many Boots Opticians - a store previously labelled as Dolland & Aitchinson.

I pop my head in to see if the shop assistant can help point us in the right direction, but as she is both rude and arrogant I quickly leave her store. I don’t care if she was on the phone, some acknowledgement of my existence would have been nice.

The lovely gentleman in the jewellers next door is much more helpful and points us further down the road where he tells me that there is both a Superdrug and a Boots.

Of course, you'd do what we did wouldn’t you? Head to Superdrug first as they are likely to be half the price of Boots.

They are. They just don’t sell seasickness tablets. Apparently you need a pharmacy for that.

Now being serious for a minute I can understand the logic in this. Pop enough Cinnarizine in an hour and you can have a better psychedelic experience than a bag of Methadrone and a bottle of Bulmers at Glastonbury. Just say no kids.

But I do think they are missing out on a trick here.

On its own road signs Southampton proudly proclaims itself as the "International Cruise Terminal of Great Britain" and several ships a day sail from the docks here. Even if they are only going to the Isle of White.

So why not just put a box of sea sickness tablets by the front door? - "Please eat in moderation. Always read the label. Keep out of the reach of children."

Crossing the road, again, we find our way into Boots the Pharmacy where of course, as they invented the concept, we end up with 3 packets for the price of two. Given the efforts we have gone to to find them, I keep a firm hold of this hallowed third packet in case I can sell it on board at a profit.

Surprisingly, as it is no more than 5 minutes walk away, we find our way back to the car and make our way to the dock.

[JamelUK]

As I’ve mentioned earlier, Mel and I have been cruising with P&O a few times now, thanks to her wonderful father Bill.

So, being old hands at this we make our usual journey to the Mayflower Cruise Terminal. And find the Queen Mary II berthed there.


No sign of our ship, Azura.

I should have known really. As we ask the security guard where we have gone wrong in front of us is a BMW X series and behind us is a brand new AMG Merc SLR.

We spin round the roundabout and head down the other end of Southampton to Dock 4, where Azura is waiting for us.

Approaching the City Cruise terminal we have a major barny. And its YOURfault.

Rather than doing what any good wife should be doing - reading the documentation and telling me where I’m supposed to be going - she's sat DIBBing on her iPhone, telling you lot - "We're off! See you soon!"

Finally though we pull up and unload our car. As we booked early enough we get free secure parking for the duration of our trip thrown in, so porters quickly take your main bags to the ship for you while you hand over your car keys to some friendly Car Parking Services rep.

Here I am, smiling happily for a photo at the most appropriate of times whilst struggling to carry my camera bag, my suit carrier and our Animal Kingdom Picnic In The Park bag full of coke cans.


Excellent signage directs up upstairs in the terminal building where we are given some forms to complete and an embarkation letter.

We take a seat in the waiting lounge and study the forms. They are the usual Noro Virus warning forms...
"Have you been sick in the last 24 hours?"
"What colour was it?"
"Did it smell?"
"Could it have had anything to do with that can of Dandelion & Burdock you bought from the corner shop that only listed the ingredients in Russian?"

They would like us to complete these forms before we get to the check in desk.

How exactly? They haven’t given us any biros and there are none within sight. Being of the digital generation who use their PDAs to make notes of everything we don’t use or carry pens.

So with nothing better to do, we turn on our iPhones and play WiFi lottery.


A quick scan finds about 7 on my iPhone, while Mel's managed to find a good 14 or more.

Many are securely locked, but we do find a couple of networks without padlocks.
Sadly one is for the hotel across the way, while the other is actually Azura's on board guest network.
As you might expect both expect us to fill in credit card details in order to transit their infrastructure.

We stick with 3G and catch up with the DIBB for a bit and the silliness of certain members.
We're going to Norway, so we'll being doing trolls later.

Soon a P&O representative is calling out letters of the alphabet in turn and inviting those with the corresponding card to come forward to check in and board the ship.

The two seats next to Mel are quickly vacated.
Allowing the nutter to sit down.

She is an older woman.

She doesn’t have a pen for the forms.
Do we have a pen for the forms?
She doesn’t.
She needs one.

Filling these Norene Virus forms in is important you know.
They didn’t once and the whole ship came down with it.
They should have checked.
Why don’t you think they checked?
You would think they would have to ask wouldn’t you?
It’s good that they always check now isn’t it?
Isn’t it good that they check?
Did they ask you?
Have they checked with you?

Do you have a pen?
She doesn’t have a pen.
Her husband will probably have a pen, when he comes back.
Where is my husband?
Have you seen my husband?
He probably has a pen.
I’ll let you borrow his pen when my husband comes back.
Have you seen my husband?

Her husband is nowhere to be seen.
I suspect he may have dropped her at the terminal with a one way ticket, passing a stuffed brown paper envelope to one of the ship’s crew with the simple instructions - "North Sea. Lido Deck. Push"

Thankfully we have letter Q and we are already up to N, so we don’t have to endure her for long. Once our letter is called Mel practically sprints towards the check in queues.

This is a highly organised and efficient process and after kindly providing us with a biro to tick the big "NO" box on our Noro Virus forms the nice lady provides us with our Cruise Cards.

Your Cruise Card is the P&O equivalent to Disney's Key To The Kingdom. It does everything.

You can put your wallet away. This card opens your cabin door, gets you on and off the ship and allows you to charge anything you need to back to your on board account.

Others either side of us are given green cards, as they are first time cruisers.

We on the other hand have amassed enough "Portunas Club" points to achieve Ruby status, so our cards are Red.
There are a few "Ooh!"s and "Aah!"'s until the guy with the Rolex checks in and shows off his Sapphire card.

On then to security, and as we shuffle around the queue we get our first introduction to Azura's on board photography team.

These guys are keen. Very keen.

They want to capture for you every moment of your cruise experience so that they can create your own personalised photo album.
Which they will sell to you at the end of the cruise for nothing more than the cost of 20 gold doubloons and your soul.

Right now they want to take our "Embarkation" photo. A cheezy shot which involves one of your party wearing a blue and white life ring around your neck.

We are hot. We are tired. We are wearing pretty much the same clothes as we were yesterday as the rest are all packed in our cases. We are shuffling along in a security queue carrying various heavy bags. We are clutching on to our Cruise Cards and our Passports for dear life ready to be interrogated by the security guys and the X-Ray machines in a couple of turns of the queue.

And you believe this is the most appropriate time to take a happy photo we can treasure for ever more?
Errr, in a word. No.

While the poor, unfortunates in front of us are pulled aside to stand in front of the mocked up "we're all at sea" scene, I grab Mel by the wrist and pull her past before she can be at all influenced by their hard sales pitch - "No photo? No boarding."

Finally we get to the X-Ray machines.

I remind you that I am carrying a large hessian bag containing a 15 pack of Coke cans.

I’m just about to explain this to the small security girl before she grabs it and heaves it onto the machine.

"Shhhh...! Wow! What have you got in there?!"
"Coke cans"
"Oh! Good idea! Taking your own supplies"

Exactly. This simple stroke of genius, bringing our own drinks, will save us a small fortune on board.
Watch this space.

Up the gang plank and we are soon aboard Azura.

[JamelUK]

The rooms aren’t ready yet, so we follow the signs and instructions of the crew and head for the lifts and the Lido Deck where afternoon snacks are being served.

Shuffling our way to the lifts with our now somewhat annoyingly heavy baggage we bump into Linz.

Over 3,500 passengers are on board this ship and yet she can hunt us down within minutes. I am certain she has us tagged somehow.

In actual fact, it’s a Godsend. Ben will be sleeping with his grandparents Bill & Christine who, having been on board for the previous cruise, already have a cabin. And Lindsay has a key.

We go with her and dump all our baggage, before heading up to the Lido Deck and blazing sunshine.


With the kids already enjoying the pool...

...we need some drinks to cool off.

I produce my Ruby Cruise Card and try to attract the attention of one of the nearby waiters. You don’t have to lift a finger for anything on board these cruise ships. They come to you. The little "poke in the eye" reference to cruising Pixar make in Wall-E isn’t too far from the truth.

After waiting a couple of minutes, I still haven’t been given any attention.

Not good enough, so Bill gets out his cruise card.

Remember, he has been cruising with P&O quite a few times over the last few years now. He is a GOLD member.

As his cruise card leaves his pocket and catches the light half a dozen waiters and waitresses magically apperate around him and offer him a selection of the world’s finest liqueurs extracted from the blood of unicorns and filtered down the breasts of a virgin maiden.

Two cokes are soon in our hands and as Lindsay and I take pics of the kids entering the pool in the only way kids can...





...Mel shows off her knew iPhone to her Dad and discusses the amazing cruise they've just had around The Med.


And takes a pic of me taking pics.


Its well past lunchtime now and we suddenly realise we are hungry. So I make my way to the poolside grill.

Remember - all food is INCLUSIVE, you only pay for drinks.

This offers a great selection of your usual counter service style fayre, all cooked to order in front of you. Fish Goujons, Cheese Burgers, Hot Dogs, Chicken Burgers as well as Jacket Potatoes and the Wrap Of The Day.

I go for the Chicken Burger while Mel has a Hot Dog. They are delicious.

[JamelUK]

At around 2:30pm they make the ship announcement everyone has been waiting for - the rooms are ready.

They could plan this better. Much better.

EVERYONE makes for the lifts.


As if they actually know where they are going! Nobody actually has a clue.

They do give you a little fold up map to try and help you find your way around, but this is about as much use as the Tetley Condom.


For starters it makes lots of reference to "Port" and "Starboard" and "Fore" and "Aft".
Why they need to use this fancy nautical language is anyone’s guess. Personally I think they are just taking the bilge water.
What’s wrong with Left, Right, Pointy Bit and Blunt End?

In addition the maps refers to the three lift shafts & stairwells as Purple, Yellow & Green. So everyone goes looking for clues in order to give them some idea as to their location.

Nope. That would be way too easy. All the signs are blue. In keeping with P&O's corporate colour scheme.

We all bundle into the lift though and push our relevant deck number. Further confused as cabin numbers are referred to as deck letters A, B, C, D, E and R. Yes R, that’s not a typo.

The lift meanwhile refers to them as Decks 1 through 18. Our cabin is on deck E, so obviously we need level 8. Still with me?

When you arrive on your deck there are these long corridors that run almost the entire length of the ship.

If youve taken the wrong turn, you have a lengthy walk ahead of you.

It is whilst in the lift trying to decipher the type of code that Dan Brown could make into a good novel that we have our first encounter with Ken and Barbie.

Of course that’s not their real names. I have no idea who they are, but Mel and I quickly christened them Ken and Barbie.

He is in his late 40's, early 50's. Some would question if he is originally of eastern descent. I just think he was involved in a horrific accident at the St Tropez factory. If Ross in Friends had 2 x Number 4's, this guy was locked in the booth for a month.

He also has a horrific taste in fashion. If he isn’t wearing sky blue pants with a black shirt, he is wearing bright red pants with a white shirt. And remember, he has the best bad fake tan you have ever seen.

But his fashion sense is nothing compared to Barbie's.

She is old enough to be his mother. She is clearly in her 70's. She too has been the victim of some mad scientist with a spray tan machine. Her skin is so tanned and wrinkly Im sure it would have a "Real Leather" mark if you turned it inside out.

She wears a diamond necklace and diamond tear drop earrings last seen on the Jewellery channel. You know the ones. They start at an asking price of £4,500 and then miraculously as the auction continues they go for £7. Plus £9.99 P&P.

She wears these to sunbathe, to dinner, to sleep in and I swear I even saw her swim in them once.

The earrings are clearly welded to her ears as we never see her without them.
Maybe for security reasons, as they surely have significant value.
Or maybe because her skin is so thick and leathery that it requires specialist tools to thread them through her ears.

Today she is wearing a bright, lime green mini dress which barely covers her rear, but which does a great job of gathering up her cleavage from around her ankles.

More on them later. Meanwhile we have moved our baggage into our own cabin.

It is a good sized inside cabin with an ensuite shower room.





Our cabin Steward Benedito is wonderful and hyper efficient. When we return later in the evening he has transformed our room from a twin to a double as requested.

We change and made our way back to the Lido Deck and the Coral Pool.

I join the kids in the pool doing a few lengths. The pool is actually heated, but as the ambient temperature is now hitting near 30C it does feel cold.

Here you can see Matthew's review of the pool temperature.


Lindsay refuses to get into the pool today based on the following facts...
- It's too cold
- It will wash off her fake tan
- It will ruin her hair which she paid someone to straighten only the other day


With the cold water having a rather negative effect on regions of my anatomy I join the boys in the Jacuzzi for a bit.

[JamelUK]

At 4pm the Captain announces that we must practise our Muster emergency drill.

We play the game and only move once the alarm sounds.

Unlike those other passengers who clearly believe that in the event of an emergency they would already be sitting in their cabins, wearing their life jackets, waiting for the alarm to sound.

When the alarm, seven blasts on the ships whistle, does sound you are supposed to quickly make your way to your cabin to collect your life jacket.

Well where exactly is the logic in that? This is day 1 on board ship and people haven't got a clue where their cabin is, let alone how to find it. Even on that the last day of your cruise you will still see people get out of the lift and turn left. And then right.

However, once everyone has retrieved a life jacket from their cabin (or cheated and wrestled someone else to the ground for theirs) you are guided into one of the many Muster Stations. These are places of safety in the event the crew need to deal with an emergency.

Ours is the Playhouse theatre situated at the front of the ship.

Once everyone is assembled we are given a 20 minute, dull as dishwater talk of doom about how to jump overboard safely if we need to.

As they discuss crossing your arms across your chest and pinching your nose I ignore it all.
Back when I was a lad I passed my Bronze certificate and so know that all Ill need is my PJ legggings tied around my neck.

I do have one brief flash of panic though when I realise its June and there is no sign of the large Christmas tree in the ballroom anywhere.

After we are "dismissed" from Muster we head back to our room where we unpack and get ready for tonight’s meal.

The 15 cans of coke are neatly stacked in the fridge.

We also discover that Althams Travel - Bill's travel agency friends - have gifted us with this rather nice bottle of wine.


Later discussion brings to light that neither Bill or the Topps have received gifts, so clearly this was meant for Bill.
A small token of Altham's appreciation for Bills business and his assistance in their purchase of a large mansion in Monte Carlo.

I also make some trip notes in my notepad realising that I actually had a biro clipped to the front of it all the time we were in the waiting lounge. With the nutter.

Tonight is deemed a Smart Casual night, as they realise most people are not only still unpacking, but haven’t actually found their cabin in order to unpack yet.

For me this means my smart new jeans and a nice top.

These are the jeans I only bought two days earlier at George of ASDA and I haven’t tried on yet.

I’m a 34" waist.

Unfortunately, it would appear that ASDA have changed the definition of what size 34" waist jeans should be since I last bought some 6 months ago.

They are a little bit tight and require a wiggle to get into. In addition I hadn't noticed when I bought them that they have a button fly, so that came as a bit of a shock.

I peel the top on carefully over my sunburnt skin and we are soon heading out.

Before heading to dinner, we head up back on to the Sun Deck to watch our sail away from Southampton.

Everyone is given a Union Jack to wave enthusiastically as the Captain sounds the ships horn and we head off on our cruise.


The engines push us slowly out of the dock.

And quickly push us back in again where the dock side crew grab the mooring ropes and tie us back up again.

The Captain makes an announcement...

"Errr, you may have noticed we have a small technical problem"

No **** Sherlock.

"On our push out we noticed something unusual with one of our engines, so we are just having the engineering team check it out before we set off"

Well that’s good to know. That we are checking that everything is normal before we head off into the middle of the North Sea, miles away from civilisation and certainly outside the scope of the AA's promised 1 hour response time.

Some 20 minutes pass and we still haven’t moved.

As is traditional, there is a brass band on the dockside playing tunes as we "sail away"

By now you can hear their conversation - "I hope we're getting paid overtime for this. We only bought enough sheet music for 10 minutes. Do you think if we put our CD on anyone will notice we’ve actually gone to the pub?"

Eventually though, the Captain finds 2nd gear and we head off on our voyage.

[JamelUK]

Mel and I head to the Oriental Restaurant for dinner.


We are on the set dining plan, with first sitting at 6:30pm.

This is easiest for all concerned as we need a table for 9, and provision for Christine in her wheelchair.
It also means the kids can eat with us, and then shoot off to kids club for the evening while the rest of us go to one of the shows.
Freedom dining is also available.

We are all quickly seated and introduced to our two waiters - Melvin and Farman. In a nice touch if you are on the set dining times you will always sit on the same table and will have the same waiters so they really get to know you over the course of your cruise.


Here is tonight's menu.


I go for the Melon, Lamb Broth and Cheese & Chive Chicken. Mel has a similar starter, but opts for the Pork.
All are very tasty.



For dessert Mel goes for the pavlova while I have the incredibly rich chocolate pot.



All fed and watered we head off to tonight's entertainment - New York City Rhythm presented by the Headliner's theatre company.

As we take our seats in the Playhouse theatre we catch the end of our Cruise Director, Neil Oliver introduce his entertainments team.

Neil isnt quite as orange since the last time we saw him on Ventura but he is still wearing more Bryl Creem on his head tonight than Elvis wore during his entire career.

And, without offence to anyone, he sooooooooooo is. He'd make Julian Clarey look hetro.

This is the last we will ever see of our "Entertainments" team. We will never see any of them, with the exception of Neil, during the rest of our cruise.

I reckon they're all back in their cabins entertaining themselves. With the duty free alcohol. Or Neil.

The show eventually starts and if I’m honest, it’s not too bad. It's a celebration of New York themed songs with some dance routines. Nothing near the quality of a Disney show, but a great effort with some good vocals from the two leading players.

The Topps were meant to be joining us but they had been held up at kids club. UK Law now dictates they must sign numerous forms to say that yes, it is okay for you to touch their children, speak to their children, feed their children, rub sun screen on their children, share the same air space as their children and to wear bright orange t-shirts.

We catch up with them later in Brodies bar where we enjoy a few more cocktails.


Before heading to bed, we head out onto the promenade where we you can see the sea is flat calm.


We take this picture of what we will tell you is the Isle of White. We have no idea if it is or not, but you’re never going to know any different are you?


I also manage to get a few great shots of the moon over the water.


Soon after we retire to bed.

COIN DOZER SCORE = 1 red dice, 1 yellow whistle, 1 blue dice & a pink YoYo
NO. OF COKE CANS CONSUMED TODAY = None
WINE BOTTLE STATUS = Chilling in our fridge



<< PREVIOUSLY = Day 1
NEXT >> = Day 3

[Guest]

[judy22]

keep em coming. im hooked already - cant wait for day 3

[MEZZA]

Great day, very enjoyable to read

[mossyflossy]

I'm so silly, I completely forgot you were visiting the land of the Trolls, James.

Sounds as if you met one in the departure lounge before your letter was called!

A great first day.