Off We Go Again…..
With some excitement and a little uncertainty, we repacked the car and headed off to Southampton.
How would this cruise compare with Virgin Voyages?
We would soon find out….
Packing Nightmare!
The drive to Southampton was uneventful. It rained a lot but we were used to it by now.
The hotel we had chosen for the night was the DoubleTree by Hilton, Southampton. We hadn’t thought to check if the parking was secure. We’re almost too used to French chain hotels having secure parking and Spanish hotels having locked garages. A quick phone call to the hotel confirmed our fears, we had to unpack the car again!
We found the hotel easily and checked in. After unpacking the car for the 4th time in 4 days, we settled in to our room.
The room was very comfortable and spacious and had a bath. How we love a bath, especially as we haven’t got one (yet) at home and the lazy spa we used to bathe in developed a leak and ended up at the tip!
The beds were comfortable and very large for singles. We often book a twin room so as to have two duvets, another little quirk of ours. The only fault in the room was the window didn’t open.
‘Pizzagate’
We decided, after reading reviews of the restaurant, to order food in. What a disaster that was!
After ordering a couple of pizzas, we headed to reception to await our dinner. We followed the progress of our order….
Suddenly, the little timeline changed to delivered!
Delivered where? Certainly not to us!
We called the takeaway who remembered our order and they advised us to call the delivery company.
“Sorry, you didn’t answer your phone so we couldn’t deliver your food”
“What? We’re waiting in reception as we said we would be”
“Sorry, no food, no refunds, no redelivery. Your driver waited 14 minutes before leaving your delivery in a plant pot!”
Did he ‘eck!
Whilst we were waiting, we did see someone dash through reception with a delivery…….we’re pretty sure he nicked our dinner!
Never use the company that sounds a bit like kangaroo…. absolute thieves!
Trolly Wars
The hotel was full of people booked on to our cruise. We should have known what to expect when we saw everyone waiting for taxis hogging the 4 or 5 baggage trollies.
‘May we use your trolley please’ we asked a couple sitting in reception with their bags still on it.
‘We’re waiting for our taxi’
‘I’m sure you can wheel your bag 10 metres to the taxi?’
After a few minutes discussion how easy it would be to wheel their cases to the taxi without the need for a trolley, they begrudgingly let us have it.
Off we went to retrieve our cases and start packing the car……for the fifth time in 5 days! Now when we say cases, we’re talking cases! 2 very large, 1 medium (for shoes obviously) and 2 cabin size. Add to that Janine’s mattress topper bag and a rucksack for each of us (for the permitted drinks to be taken onboard), you can see why we needed a trolley (or two).
We’re not serial luggage luggers, we normally take 10kg cabin bags or if driving, a large wheelie bag but heh, it’s a two weeks cruise and we needed our sparkle!
Off we headed to the port of Southampton…..
