The Thing One Thing I Hate About Cruising

Well actually there are two things I hate, firstly eating too much and putting on weight but really my pet hate is queuing!

I hate queuing at airports, dining rooms and, most of all, at Southampton waiting to get on board a ship, it’s such a waste of time and so unnecessary

In the past I have always aimed to arrive early at Southampton, 11am was always a brilliant time as there were very few other people there so early, probably because all the coaches carrying many passengers to the port tend to all arrive around 1230. So it was straight to check in, quickly on board and well in time for lunch. The cabins were never ready this early but, to be honest, that didn`t really matter, just head for the bar and the holiday had started.

In the last few months P&O have been trialling a new check in system where everyone was given a check in time on their cruise documents, it was apparently very successful and so was rolled out across all their ships just before Christmas, and in time for my New Year cruise on Ventura.

Our check in time was 2.30pm and the wording was very clear on the documents – Do Not Arrive Earlier Or Later Than Your Allotted Time! A challenge in itself!

Now Ventura holds just over 3000 passengers so check in times were not the same for everyone but it looked like quite a lot had the same check in time as us.

The journey to Southampton went quite well, just a bit of a hold up on the A34 meaning that were actually about 30 mins late, a quick call to the number on the tickets and we were told that was fine – so much for having to get there at exactly2.30!

Traffic in Southampton was quite light, that is until we entered the road into Dock Gate 10 where there was a huge queue of traffic, obviously caused by everyone trying to arrive t exactly the time on their documents, and so we sat and waited and queued for over an hour before we finally got to the terminal itself.

So much for staggered boarding making embarkation easier, and waiting time less, all it has done, as far as I can see, is move the queue from the terminal building to the road outside so that you wait in your car instead of inside the building! Of course there was no wait at check in because everyone else was outside!

We finally got on board around 4.30pm, far too late for lunch and just in time for the Safety Briefing and that made me feel like the first day of our cruise was over before it had started. So is this another cost cutting exercise, being cynical just think how much money P&O saved by not having to provide food for over half the passengers!