Getting to the Ship - July 7

 Our wonderful neighbor, Dwight, gave us a ride to the airport on Saturday evening and check-in went very smoothly.  We were able to hang out in the United Lounge while we waited to board.  The flight was pretty smooth and we landed at Heathrow on time at 10:40 am.  We'd arranged for a private transfer with Koi from the airport to our hotel, Moxy of Southampton, and our driver was there and waiting.  It was about a 90-minute ride to the hotel on the Motorway. and apart from the driver being a bit more aggressive in his driving than we are, it was fine.  The Moxy is part of the Marriott group so we used our points.  It's one of their "cool and hip" (my words) series so everything was just so precious.  The room had no spare inch of space, but it was clean and the bed was comfortable, so no problem.  We were able to check-in upon arrival around noon and were just beat so we set an alarm for 90 minutes and took a short nap.  Michael wanted to see about getting something to wear to the workout center on the ship (no need for that gear for me!) so we walked over the very nearby mall (West Quay) and found a Marks and Spencer where he found swim trunks that will do nicely.  We were surprised at the volume of people in the lovely indoor mall.  Seems like online shopping hasn't done the damage here that it has at home. Then we found a Greek restaurant and had an early dinner.  We had wanted a pub, but none were in the area.

The view from our room.  There is a cruise ship in the background which is not ours.  Our berth was at the QEII Cruise Terminal about a mile down the road.

Back to the hotel for an early night.  After a not very good night's sleep, we got up at 9:30 and made our way to breakfast, which was a complete waste of  GBP 16.50 pp.  Made a quick trip back to "Marks and Sparks" to exchange the swim trunks for a better size and then off to the ship.  For some reason my Uber account was set to pay in cash which caused a bit of a stir.  Fortunately, Michael brought our leftover coins from a previous trip and he was just able to scrape together the GBP 8.10 required.  One of the coins was so old, the driver said it was no longer accepted.  

Check-in at the cruise terminal went very smoothly and we were on board by around 1:30.  We had a bite to eat at the buffet and then went to Coffee Connection where we could watch as passengers came on board.  After a bit, Jan and Tom arrived.  They had been in a hotel in London (included with their cabin category) and traffic was horrendous so it took the bus much longer to get to Southampton than planned.  Because there were stomach bug issues on the previous cruise, the ship had to go through an extra deep cleaning before we could board.  And we normally at least have access to our cabin to drop our carry-on.  This time they had the hallways blocked off until cabins were ready around 3:00 pm.  

This is our itinerary as taken from the Passages for today.

Our luggage arrived before 5 pm and we were unpacked and ready to go by 5:40 pm.

We met Jan and Tom for a cocktail before heading into dinner.  The ship is still in "clean mode" so no self-service at the buffet and no table settings in the restaurant.  They bring everything once you're seated.  The menus are just printed on paper instead of the usual printouts in large leather holders.  However, the service and the food were just as expected.  After dinner it was off to the cabin for an early night as we are both done in.  

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