Another excellent journey to Southampton was provided by Eavesway. It has to be said that their swish new glass coaches are not very comfortable because of someone's curious decision to make the seats out of solid granite covered with carpet. However, the adjustable foot rests do allow you to choose which part of your lower body goes numb next and you have the consolation of knowing that you are being uncomfortable in style. We arrived at the cruise terminal just before one o'clock which unfortunately appeared to be the time of choice for most of the other 2000 passengers. The enormous queue stretched out of the terminal door and snaked backwards and forwards along the pavement. It was two hours before we got the “smile please” from the ship's photographer who had drawn the short straw for the “happy passengers boarding” picture and was having a very bad day indeed.
It wasn't long before we discovered that the work experience lad had done the table plan and that the five of us, despite our joint booking, had been allocated to three different tables. With heavy hearts we joined another queue to see the restaurant manger. This queue was moving with glacial speed at the entrance to the dining room which was being guarded by an increasingly nervous waiter. Foolishly P&O did not triage the queue for serious problems and so we were held up by passengers who wanted their own table in the best window with a guaranteed view of dolphins and probably their own gypsy orchestras. After the best part of an hour we made it through the door to be informed by the restaurant manager that he could not deal with any more queries because he had to close for the lifeboat drill which was, he assured us, the law of the sea.
Sometimes the veneer of civilisation can be worn very thin. To be fair to the restaurant manager, he did realise immediately that not upholding the law of the sea for another couple of minutes was definitely the safest option and he rapidly agreed to sort out our problem. As we left the restaurant in triumph the nervous waiter on the door was calling for backup. Later that night we arrived for dinner to discover that we had indeed been our given our very own table. It was surrounded by other tables with odd numbers of occupants in what we concluded was probably the “naughty corner” but I'm glad to report that the waiters, the food and the wine were all excellent. The psycho and his wife on the next table will just give me something else to blog about.
Dave C
ps (from Janet) Internet connection is dire - more later xx
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