Melsea's Adventures of First...

[melsea]

Melsea's Adventures of first..

First day of our special trip. 16th Oct 2013.
Woke at 4am. A Fly Cruise, a big first for us.

Alun our taxi friend turned up 10 minutes early. All bags in and we were on our way. Weather was a little foggy & some parts very foggy. Quite a bit of traffic considering it was 5am. Got to Heathrow terminal 5 at just after 6am. We had 2 hours to wait for us to be able to drop off our bag, as we had already checked in online and all we needed to do was drop our bags and get a label attached. When we had our luggage weighed my bag was well under at just 18.62kg, bills was only just under at 22.88kg, the lady said they usually allow for a little leeway so we were very pleased with what we had achieved. I had bought two days ago a hand held scales and they are just brilliant. We then went through security. Poor Bill had to take his shoes off and then when he walked through the scanner arch they he bleeped and they checked him out. They put his shoes through the X-ray and all the while I went through without a hitch. Bizarrely I was wearing virtually the same clothing I wore when I went to Glasgow which when I went through security I bleeped and had a complete touch down, this time nothing thank goodness. Bill ended up going into the full body scanner where they then saw he had nothing. Having endured all that we continued our way through to departures. We had a wait of almost two hours before we knew which gate we were to go to. At just before the allotted time for our hate to be shown it came up and fortunately it was close by which was a relief. It wasn't long before we were getting on. We had two seat together by the window and no one next to us. We took off about 15 minutes later than scheduled, it was raining by the time we took off. There was a queue of planes waiting to take off which was why we took off late. We climbed to an altitude where we were way above the clouds and we were seeing blue sky instead. The flight was good and it went by very quickly. Our lunch consisted of a BLT wrap with tea or coffee. I also asked for a diet coke. We arrived in Rome at around 2.20. It was a good few minutes before we started to get off the plane. Immigration was painless so much so we just walked through no queues. The line for Italian nationals was horrendously long, strange we thought.
We made our way towards baggage claim and we saw just before we got there two reps for Imagine Cruising. They ticked us off their list and off we went in search for our case. This was when our experience of traveling by plane came to a fiasco. There were three to four planes that came in at the same time and many were going on cruises as I noticed there were various reps for different cruise lines. Also for some ridiculous reason they had sent all luggage to the same carousel so there was so much luggage that some went over the edge at the back. Our luggage eventually came through and we went over to where the rep was. It was almost two hours later by the time we set off to the port. We arrived at our destination at just after 5pm. Had our original flight been kept then we would have arrived at the ship much earlier and we could have had a leisurely time in Civitavecchia instead we lost most of our day.
When we arrived we took our cases and we dropped them off and they were taken by Cunard staff. There were a good dozen of us on this transfer so we were not alone. We went to check in which like the process we usually have in Southampton it was quick and in no time at all we were boarding the ship. Immediately you could see this ship was more luxurious as the decor was what you might expect from Cunard. We found our cabin which is an inside on Deck 8 at the aft.

We got ourselves ready for dinner although initially we were not going to as we had had a very busy & tiring day. Having had a shower I felt so much better and was glad we did go to dinner. Our table was not a round one but a long type. Only six people turned up and we took this as being the missing couple were most likely be tired to join us. The other couples were Dana & Tim from USA, Steve & Sue from the UK can't remember from exactly where. We all chatted quite freely and the evening went well. The meal was very nice. Although at first we were all flummoxed by the layout of the menu which our waiter explained to us. First part was a light option set menu chosen by chef and this was a stand alone option in that you could mix and match with the rest of the menu. Below this was the start of the main menu where it was a mixture of starters and a soup for choices, then there was a salad that replaces the choice we would normally have the soups like you do on P&O. Then on the facing page there were the choices of the mains which consisted of 6 meals. Below that are the desserts. Also the menus consist of two landscape sides so it's a bit awkward to handle. When our meals came they were excellent and very hot. So first day & night over and we go straight into our first port the next day which is Salerno gateway to various sights like Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri.

[melsea]

Forgot to mention we are on Queen Elizabeth.

[Dancing Queen]

Melsea, are you ever at home, I've only just finished reading your last review

Enjoy Queen Elizabeth we shall be on it in a few weeks, beautiful ship

[melsea]

It does seem that way at the moment but this is our last trip of year and it has been a bumper one. We have been making up for it as we had to cancel our world cruise on QM2 so we have certainly made up for it. We have managed to cruises that we can now take off our bucket list.

We are like Queen Elizabeth and there are some differences certainly but I will do a comparison later. Not noticed the difference in class either. The ships big enough not to notice!

TA TA for now. In Rhodes today.