Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

Reports about cruises on Arcadia
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melsea
Senior Second Officer
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Joined: February 2013

Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#1

Post by melsea »

Hi folks it's been a week since were back & have only just found time slot to begin transferring, updating my blog of this truly amazing cruise in more ways than most. So here it goes..

16th May Southampton and we're off..

Having had a good restful sleep Bill woke up first and was having a bath. I started to put away the various things that I had used from my case while here at the hotel. At 7.30 we made our way to breakfast, which in this hotel is in another building. Having stayed at this hotel before we know that the full breakfast is a very full one and rarely do we managed to finish it all. At 10am the reception rang to say the taxi had arrived. He had a very nice clean & newish vehicle which Bill was pleased about. It didn't take too long to load up the car & then we were off. The journey was fairly quick considering that Southampton is having a bit of an overhaul in its road system. The taxi man was saying that later the roads would start to get even more busy so us leaving when we did was the right thing to do. The luggage was taken by one of the porters and stacked along with others that had already arrived. The last of the disembarking passengers were waiting downstairs of the Ocean Terminal. When we got to the upstairs area of the terminal there were already a number of people there. As we had priority we was led to a section to one side to wait. Some of those people who were elsewhere turned out to be guest being escorted onto the ship for a tour, they looked like travel agents or some other corporate style guest. At just after 11.30 the check in for us was opened. By sheer luck we were the 3rd couple through, check in time was less than 10 minutes. We were then escorted to an area where we had complimentary tea & coffee with cake. No sooner had we sat down with our drink we were told we could board the ship. Catch our breath, drank tea & made our way through the airport style security. All very quick and then we were on board. Directed to the Meridian upper floor for something small to eat & drink. Depending on weather you were in a suite or were in Baltic or Ligurian tier you were given either a yellow or blue card to place on the table wherever you sat. We were given a blue one. Had our little eats and drink. And again we just got ourselves a cup of tea when the lady came to our table to say our cabin was ready, it was now 1pm. I knew our cabin was at the aft end and on deck 6 which meant we had to go up three decks. It wasn't difficult to find. We are C171 inside cabin. Nice size room, nice furnishing.
& bright. We have one of the cabins that has an interconnecting door for the next cabin. We saw that we could unlock our side. I checked outside to see whether their outer door was still open, this would indicate whether the room was ready and had anyone in there. Anyway seeing that no one was in yet. I went back to the door opened it only to find that there is another door behind our one but with no handle. Which was a relief as you cannot enter this one unless you know the other occupants. One thing I didn't mention was that in the area by the lifts the cases were being placed here until they had distributed them to the cabins. Two of the four lifts were being used primarily for luggage use only. I hadn't twigged until later that this process doesn't happen this way on the other ships I have been on namely Aurora, Oriana and Oceana, I am not sure about the Azura. The others are generally brought through and up in lifts that are more integral and out of sight so you generally don't see the cases in view. Anyway when we were passing to go to our cabin we spotted some of our cases so Bill went in search of the remaining cases as we already two of them in our cabin when we arrived. Cases all present and correct. We straight away unpacked as unusually for us we have our first port the next day. We have never sailed out of Southampton where the next day is a port it has always been a sea day, so that was a first for us and consequently it made sense to get the cases unpack.
Bill stayed in the cabin while I went and explored this new ship to us. I found out that there was plenty of walking space on the upper decks and discovered that this ship has a wrap around prom deck which I ended up doing a couple of times. At 3pm I went to the spa for the raffle, this time I did not win boo hoo, have to use our OBC instead. I found the Crows Nest which was a nice area. Will discover more of the ship as cruise progresses.
At 4pm we had our muster drill ours was in the Meridian Restaurant. Once that was all done it wasn't long before set sail. The weather has to be said was rather good and the sea was calm. While making our and we were close to the Isla of Wight I suddenly noticed that we were turning right and my first thought was, are we turning back, had we missed an announcement? But no was the answer to that. Due to the way the seabed is, all shipping have to go around a particular way to avoid it, I seem to remember seeing this on a programme about Southampton Docks. There was a container ship following us behind and I looked to see if he turned as we had done and yes it did. If you didn't know it would have looked as though we were about to sail into the port on the Isle of Wight. Fortunately we turned left more and headed out towards the open sea. We turned left as we sailed into the channel making our way towards our first port of Zeebrugge tomorrow.

As we had booked a last minute fare we did not know our dining arrangements until we got board. There was the little card in our cabin and we were given what we would have had if we had that choice. We had second sitting in the Lower Meridian Restaurant on a table of eight. When the evening came and we made our way to dinner and were escorted to our table, it was a nicely position one which was situated on an elevated platform where we could see out the back windows from where we were. Only 6 of us turned up at the table. The other couples seem nice and very relaxed. Meal was good and HOT & we were finished eating around 9.45pm. This to my mind is because the meals are now plated and there is more than enough on the plate and if the vegetables on your chosen plate is not what you want you can swap it for something you like that is on another dish our waiters told us. Also when on a large table or even a smaller one you don't have to wait for the waiters to bring the extras, I prefer my food hot, got fed up with cold food on previous cruises. First experience plated meals on Cunard last year and it works and your meal finishes at a reasonable time so you can make the show if you want to go. Speaking of which I went to the first show which started off with the Cruise Director, Christine Noble introducing the entertainment officers. As usual she so reminds me of Joyce Grenfell in her manner, seems really scatty, IMO. But I did learn one thing though, she comes from New Zealand, Christchurch. Onwards to the show which was good and they seem to have boundless energy which I used to have and wonder where it has gone!. Both the singers and dancers were good on this show, I know from experience that they differ form show to show as each one has strength and weaknesses with certain songs and routine.
So with the first day out of the way and gone very quickly it was most definitely time for bed as there is a port tomorrow. Can't wait , it's so good to be back on board!!!!!!!!

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Dancing Queen
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#2

Post by Dancing Queen »

Sounding good so far Melsea will look forward to the rest :D
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Dennis The Menace
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#3

Post by Dennis The Menace »

Great stuff Mel :)

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Suekersh
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#4

Post by Suekersh »

Thanks Mel. Looking forward to the rest.

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Gill W
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#5

Post by Gill W »

I'm curious about '3 boats'

Looking forward to more
Gill

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melsea
Senior Second Officer
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Re: Melsea's Adventures of 3 boats & a Baltic Heatwave...

#6

Post by melsea »

Gill

I wondered when someone would ask but you will have to wait until the rest of my reports to come by and you will realise what I mean by 3 boats..

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