At last, the first day of our cruise has arrived. The journey from Scotland actually started a day earlier with a leisurely morning flight to London and onward train journey to Southampton. We spent the night in the Mercure Dolphin Hotel, ideally situated within the historic old centre of Southampton, and close to the city's docks. An overnight hotel stay prior to boarding meant we were suitably refreshed before joining the ship, and it also de-risked the whole process as there was virtually no chance missing the ship's departure due to travel delays.
Britannia is leaving from the Ocean Dock, which is on the eastern side of Southampton's vast dockyard complex. This is one of the original docks used by the great ocean liners as far back as the early 20th century. In fact, the dock itself was used by Titanic back in 1912 on its fateful voyage across the Atlantic. The bollards reputedly used by the ship are still in existence on the quayside. They're painted orange to highlight their significance and anyone able to look east from their cabin will see them as their ship departs.
Cruise ships leaving from the Ocean Dock have their passengers boarded at the Ocean Cruise Terminal. It's a modern terminal building but has been built with capacity and throughput in mind, and consequently facilities are somewhat basic. This year, P&O are adopting a new system of boarding their passengers in allocated time slots to ease congestion in the terminal. Our check-in time was 1530 which in our opinion was rather late. Like many people, we have a tendency to arrive early – not by deliberate intention, but purely by allowing extra time for the journey in case anything goes wrong. As it happens, our taxi transfer from the hotel also arrived early and so we were at the terminal about 45 minutes before our allocated time. No harm was done though and it simply meant an extended wait in the terminal prior to check-in. Once check-in was underway however, we were on the ship within a matter of minutes. Whilst we'd never advise anyone to take risks with their journey to the terminal, our best advice is to heed P&O's instructions and arrive as close as possible to their allocated check-in time.
Britannia is visually impressive on the outside and first impressions of the interior are equally so. Upon boarding in Deck 5, we found ourselves in the stunning central atrium, with its splendid array of eateries and shops overlooking the vast public space. There was little time to explore however as it was now 1600, and we'd been advised of the mandatory safety drill taking place at 1700. And so it was off to our cabin – a standard balcony cabin on Deck 12. Our luggage was already waiting on us, and we were promptly welcomed by cabin steward, Andre, on reaching our cabin which will be 'home' for the next fortnight.
After completing the somewhat tedious but extremely important safety drill, we returned to our cabin with only minutes to spare before departure. The ropes were let go at 1800 and a few moments later, Britannia eased out of the dock and headed down Southampton Water, with fellow fleet member Ventura following closely a few minutes behind. It was a beautiful autumn evening for setting sail, but darkness soon fell as we passed around the Isle of Wight and headed out into the English Channel.
The evening progressed quickly and after spending some time on the balcony, we headed inside and explored some of the rest of the ship. For the first evening on-board, we took the unusual step of ordering room service for dinner. It was admittedly unadventurous, but it was getting quite late and our daughter was tired, so we decided against a meal in one of the restaurants.
Tonight, we will progress westwards through the English Channel before emerging into the Atlantic Ocean around breakfast time on Saturday morning.
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