We always leave our stateroom curtains open about 18″ as we love to wake up to the sights and sounds of the sea. I was woken by light filtering into the cabin, but it was only 5.15am. Getting out of bed, I wandered over to the balcony and saw that the Queen Anne was making her way slowly up Southampton Water. There was an almost-full moon in the dark blue, pre-dawn sky casting a glittering path on the Solent, as lights twinkled from the shoreside buildings. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this early-morning scene, before going back to bed for a couple of hours. 🙂
Once we did eventually get up, at seven o’clock, we got washed and dressed and made our way to the Artisans’ Foodhall for breakfast. Understandably, as it was disembarkation day, the buffet was pretty crowded with people and coats and carry-on bags. We enjoyed a full English breakfast as it would be several hours before we would next get anything to eat.
We had been given Orange luggage tags and we understood that groups would be called to disembark according to their colour. Our estimated time was 8.30am. After finishing our breakfast we returned to 11046 and collected our carry-on bags, and my shoe case, which I always carry off the ship myself. We had a last look around, checking all the drawers and cupboards to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything, before leaving our cabin and making our way to one of the lounges to await our call to leave the ship. On the way, an announcement came over the PA system to advise us that there was a “slight delay” with disembarkation and passengers were asked not to block the gangway in the meantime.
As we passed through the Queen’s Room, we could already see a lengthy queue, about four people wide. We wondered why they were all waiting when we had just been told there was a delay. In addition, we noticed several different baggage label colours; no-one was standing in their correct groups; it was just one mass exodus.
Eventually, the call came for those with “orange and green” labels to make their way to Deck One to begin the disembarkation process. However, we couldn’t move; the queue was stuck solidly in the corridor and there was no way to get past. We just had to stand there. About 15 minutes later, a member of staff came along the queue shouting “Orange and green please, only orange and green!” When we told her we were orange, they opened up another lane and all the orange and green people were ushered along, jumping those in the queue who were not orange and green. 🙂
Eventually we negotiated our way through the masses of people and cases until we reached the gangway and had our cards scanned. We had to make our way along the zig-zagging air bridge and down the escalator into the luggage hall. Here, we reached another massive bottleneck. Because some people had disembarked before their group was called, there were throngs of people milling about at the bottom of the escalator, as their luggage was not yet ready to collect. Each time the escalator delivered another load of people below, the crowd got bigger and bigger before an official in a high-vis yellow jacket bellowed “Stop the escalator! Stop the escalator now!”
The emergency button was pressed to stop the escalator, and once again, we found ourselves just standing there waiting. We had to stay there until the crowd thinned out below (it took some time!) before the escalator started up and we were on the move once again. What an absolute palaver! 🙁
We hurried through the crowds and into the luggage hall; the groups of luggage were placed in rows according to their label colours. We soon found our cases and trundled them out of the luggage hall and out of the cruise terminal, looking for Coach #7.
We found the coach, where our driver (the same one who had brought us down) asked our names, so he could tick us off the list he held on his clipboard. When Trevor gave his name, the driver laughed and shook his head. We were puzzled until he showed us the list which showed that Trevor had supposedly cancelled the coach trip back to the north-east! What?!
The chaos and the confusion continued. Our cases were loaded onto the coach and we took our seats inside. We waited…. and waited…. and waited. The driver advised us there were still a couple of passengers missing, and we wondered if they were the ones who had cancelled and Cunard had got them mixed up.
After several attempts to phone the missing people, it transpired that they were still stuck in the queue to get off the ship! This was ridiculous; we have never known such a disorganised disembarkation in 66 cruises. To cut a long story short, it was 10 o’clock before we even left Southampton docks, and we still had the eight-hour journey back to the north.
At least we were on the move now, and it was just a case of the coach heading north and making its drop-offs on the way. However, it was the Friday before a Bank Holiday, so the traffic was absolutely horrendous. We had one 45-minute stop after about three hours, where we had a Big Mac and coffee at a motorway service station, and then, because of the long delays with the traffic, we had to have another 45-minute break at Wetherby.
All in all, it was 8.00pm before we were dropped off at Washington Services on the A1(M), where our daughter Melanie was already waiting to give us a lift home.
We arrived back in the house at 8.15pm – another great cruise had come to an end, and now we could start to look forward to the next one in seven weeks’ time. 🙂