Melsea's Adventures almost there...

[melsea]

Here we are in sunny Southampton at the hotel for our stay before heading to port tomorrow morning to board the never been on Arcadia ship. We were still packing things yesterday and finishing off this morning. I collected our currency from Thomas Cook which I had ordered on line to collect this morning. I completely forgot to do it yesterday, could have done without that as I made us a leave later than we had planned for. The journey to Southampton went very well, especially by the fact that the never ending roadworks we have had on the M25 for 20 miles has come to an end after some 18 months. I took over the driving half way and that's when the lorries start to do a mass overtaking of the lanes. At one point I could see that ahead of me past the many lorries there was an empty stretch of motorway, after several miles getting past this traffic I was able to have the road empty in front of me for some way. About 15 miles to go Bill took over the driving and we arrived. Cases off loaded and we settled into our room or rather the outside patio area we have as part of the room. We were given one of these rooms before and we liked it so much that we always ask for it. There are only a handful of these rooms and it's nice to sit outside in the sunshine.
1 sleep to go and then we are off, our check in time is midday, as the hotel has a checking out at 11am I guess we may get there at 11.30, traffic permitting. We will be heading to the Ocean Terminal which we have sailed out of twice before and if memory serves me right it's a nice terminal to be in.
So there we have it, with this unexpected sunny warm weather we are about to experience it's looking like we may well have good sailing weather to our first port on Saturday (Zeebrugge) Bruges.

So folks that's it for now until I come back to tell you of my little adventures...

[oldbluefox]

Best wishes to you and Bill for a lovely cruise, Melsea. If the weather is anything like we are having up here it makes for a wonderful start to your holiday.

[melsea]

Thank you OBF.

[david63]

Out of interest - which hotel is it? Or is that a closely guarded secret?

[oldbluefox]

The webcam shows a tent in Mayflower Park with a load of suitcases outside..............

Bon voyage, Melsea

[melsea]

Thanks OBF
Just as well we are going to the Ocean terminal.

David63

It's the Ellington Lodge but don't tell anyone though.

[Jean W]

Melsea, I suspected from your description it was the Ellington. We love it there.

Hope you have a great time.

[melsea]

We are now at the terminal and there are quite a number of us here already waiting in the priority section.

Jean, yes it is the Ellington.

[Dennis The Menace]

Have a great time Mel, really looking forward to your updates

[Belle53]

Hope you have a wonderful cruise Mel, you can't beat the Baltic.