The time has come around once more to begin a new cruise travelogue series, and, like many others, this one starts in Southampton. I’ve written about embarking on cruises at the port of Southampton several times already on this site and if this embarkation had been mostly identical to those others then I might have skipped over this introductory post altogether. However, this one was pretty memorable.
Late June, 2022. This would be our third cruise on Sky Princess, operated by our preferred cruise line of choice, Princess Cruises, and it took place barely four weeks after getting off the same ship when we’d cruised to Denmark and Norway.
When we had booked this cruise that would be visiting some fjords and ports we’d not seen before in Norway ahead of a few stops along the north coast of Iceland, we’d filled in all the little details, picked the cabin we wanted, and chosen the earliest possible boarding time. Before we’d left our house on the day of the cruise departure, though, all of that had been changed by Princess.
Firstly, a fair amount of time before the cruise we’d spotted that the cabin we’d picked had been swapped out for another despite us requesting no upgrades. We’d half-expected this to happen, though, as, as with our previous cruise, what we’d chosen for ourselves – one of the few rooms with bigger balconies on these ships – had been commandeered for quarantine purposes; this was 2022, after all, and the pandemic was still in people’s minds. Our Premium Deluxe Balcony on deck 9 was replaced by a Mini Suite on the Lido deck. This was not what we would have chosen, even if Princess considered it an upgrade, but we decided not to fight the decision. As it turned out, we ended up really enjoying the convenience of being close to the pools and fast food places and we really liked the space in the cabin, even if the balcony suffered by comparison.
The second change came via a message the night before the cruise: the ship would be late in and our boarding time of 11:00 was pushed out to 12:30. No big deal, we thought, unless everyone ignores it. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people likely already with firm plans in place to turn up and our slight fear that perhaps Southampton would become a parking lot as a result turned out to be well-founded, though not just for that reason.
When we arrived at the port gates at just after midday we could see chaos in car form. However, the traffic, very slowly, was inching forward so we followed the line towards the ship’s berth. Then we followed the line away from the ship’s berth and down some side roads to perform a U-turn because people in hi-vis gear told us to. Then, after a hefty delay, we were sent to a parking area in queues. Then, after some time there, we were sent to another parking area in queues. Then, after some more time, we were sent to the area beside the ship where they would eventually take our details, park our car, and let us board. Not 11:00 then, nor 12:30. Not even the 15:00 we’d heard someone say it would be as there’d been reports that a fire alarm had cleared out the embarkation and disembarkation building for a while. We eventually boarded Sky Princess at 18:48.
You might imagine that we would be fuming after all this, but we genuinely had a load of fun while queueing. For a start, some of the parking people were doing their best to entertain grumpy passengers; one was even directing cars as if directing planes at an airport. As for us, we dug around in the glove compartment and found a USB stick of music we’d not listed to in ages, plugged it in on shuffle, hid the display screen, tried to guess the songs as they came up, and danced and sang along in the front seats. What’s the point in getting upset about things nobody’s got any control over? Everyone’s doing their best, and sometimes shit happens.
We aren’t the sort of cruisers who immediately head off to find some food as soon as they board the ship. Usually. You’ll understand that we were a little peckish on this occasion, though; not to mention thirsty. We had suspected there might be some delay at the port so had brought water just in case, but only a small bottle between us and that hadn’t lasted long. So, with it likely to be some time before our cases arrived we more-or-less just dropped our carry-on luggage in our room and went to dine in the Cielo dining room. We sat with a couple of American women and had a very good first meal on Sky Princess while sharing stories of how the day had been for everyone and everyone’s cruise history; all the usual stuff.
Back to our room for the much later than planned sail away and a small summer sunset from Southampton.
In addition to our cases then turning up – allowing us a chance to hang everything up, grab a shower, and get into something a little smarter and less grubby-feeling for the ship and its upcoming cruise – we received a letter from Princess Cruises informing us that they would be giving everyone some on board credit as a gesture of goodwill to make up for the delays in embarkation. Considering it wouldn’t have been their fault that there’d been a fire alarm and evacuation at the port building, that was a great move from Princess, and it’s not the first time we’ve benefitted from them from some issue that generally didn’t really affect us that much and wasn’t their fault in the first place either.
To finish off this day of embarkation chaos at Southampton, it won’t surprise you if you’re a regular reader of our cruise accounts to learn that we hit the drinks hard. Take Five, the jazz lounge, was our haunt for a few hours, selecting a variety of drinks from the extensive menu, enjoying the band, and enjoying the view of our home city of Portsmouth as we cruised past along the Solent.
We finished the evening off in the Vista Lounge, and I really mean we finished the evening off in the Vista Lounge. It was just us two and a mother and daughter who we were chatting with and dancing with at three in the morning when the lights finally came up and we let the DJ go to bed.
A long cruise embarkation day, not without problems, but one we thoroughly enjoyed nevertheless. In the next post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series I’ll share a few pictures and details of the next two days which would be spent at sea, relaxing, before the first of many great ports on this cruise.
I was on that cruise! We arrived at the port at 11am after a 2 hour bus ride from Heathrow and were told to wait on the bus! Imagine telling that to more than a dozen women who needed a comfort stop. The cruise was great though.