21st July 2011 - St Annes to Southampton

Julie had booked a mini bus to pick everyone up from our house at 6.15 so by that time we had a huge mound of luggage on the drive. Normally it's not a good idea to advertise the fact that you're going on holiday but the mound was big enough to convince any passing burglar that there was nothing left in the house worth stealing. The mini bus driver looked smug as he packed the mound into a fourth dimension that seemed to exist behind his back seats.

One of Eavesway's latest coaches was waiting for us at Blackpool Coach Park. You know the ones where the driver sits in the basement with the luggage, and the passengers have panoramic windows beneath a roof that is held up with structural curtains. I thought the screens that dropped down from the ceiling to show the safety video were a bit pretentious. However, it was useful to know that you had to walk carefully down the aisle when the coach was in motion and that you shouldn't flush the toilet when the coach was stationary at traffic lights. By the time the young man on the video had pointed out the numerous safety features and the location of the emergency exits I was fully expecting him to add “in the unlikely event of this coach parking on water a life jacket is under your seat”

Most of the passengers got on at Preston and we do seem to have a slightly different demographic for our cruise on the Arcadia . Looking forward from our seats at the back, there were far fewer bald patches than usual and the men also had more hair than I would have expected on a P&O cruise. Maybe the weather in Norway, even in the summer, puts off a lot of older people – I guess we're about to find out.

We only had to stop once more, at some services south of Birmingham, to pick up the last couple of passengers so we had our packed lunch at 10.00 am and I had a tall cup of Starbucks coffee. If you've never purchased a Starbucks coffee, a “tall” cup is how this moronic, English strangling, purveyor of luke warm beverages describes the smallest shortest cup in its over priced range. Our driver was either on a time limited tachograph or a promise and we got to Southampton docks soon after 1.00 pm. A new record and another excellent journey from Eavesway.

In the passenger terminal they were processing embarking passengers in batches called by a letter of the alphabet and so, when we all got a “Z”, Janet and I couldn't resist mentioning we were in a suite. We were immediately whisked away by a P&O hostess who led us straight to the front of the queue even fending off a couple of wheelchair users who had tried to get ahead of us. Our balcony overlooked the quayside so, after a leisurely snack and a cup of coffee, we were able to wave to the rest of our party as they finally boarded the ship. The rest of our party, rather ungraciously I thought, waved back.

Dave C