It was an early start for us this morning, as we rose at 4.00am and got washed and dressed and enjoyed a light breakfast. This was because we were being picked up by a good friend at 4.55am and given a lift to Washington Services on the southbound side of the A1(M), ready to board the InterCruises coach for the long journey to Southampton. 🙂
Yes! We were going on another cruise! This afternoon, we would be joining the brand new Cunard ship Queen Anne, which would only be returning from its seven-day maiden voyage today. Queen Anne is the first new Cunard ship since 2010, and we couldn’t wait to explore her.
Our friend arrived promptly and helped us load all our bags into the boot of his large car. Two suitcases, two rucksacks – and a further suitcase containing nothing but my shoes for this cruise. 🙂
Dawn was just breaking as we set off through the silent streets for the 20-minute ride to the motoway services. Our coach, a luxury double-decker Weardale vehicle, was waiting for us. Instead of loading our cases into the hold of the coach, it was towing a trailer behind it into which all the luggage was placed. As we wouldn’t see our cases again until they were in our cabin, I asked the driver if I would be able to collect my shoe case on arrival in Southampton, and carry it onto the ship myself. He placed it into a small storage area in the coach and asked us to remind him when we arrived.
As we still had our rucksacks as well as a large carrier bag containing the ‘props’ we would need for the Theme Nights on board, we looked for somewhere to store them. The overhead racks were hardly any use nor ornament; you’d be lucky to fit a large book on them. We therefore settled for some seats adjacent to the lavatory; these seats had space behind them in which we could store the bags.
As the driver came around and checked everyone’s name off his list, it became evident that one couple were missing. A call to the InterCruises office provided the information that the couple were on their way, and were “stuck in traffic”. At this time of the morning? 🙂
Anyway, it was another 25 minutes before they turned up, full of apologies, and explained that there had been road closures and diversions that had led to a traffic bottleneck. We were all here now, and the coach slowly pulled onto the motorway and started heading south. 🙂
Settling back in our comfortable seats, we smiled at each other in that happy pre-cruise glow. We had three sea days to look forward to, before arriving in Funchal, Madeira for an overnight stay and then visiting Fuertaventura, Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Coruña before heading back to Southampton. A fortnight of amazing cruising and attractive and interesting ports of call awaited us. 🙂
I recently started a new temporary job, and I have been using the SatNav to find my way there and back, hearing the soothing tones of the narrator saying “You have reached your destination”. From Durham to Southampton, including the other pick-up points and rest stops, it would be another eight hours before we arrived at our destination. 🙂
The next pickup point was Scotch Corner; where those who were waiting were very pleased to see us, as we were half an hour late. In fact, another coach carrying passengers to the P&O cruise ship Britannia had left Washington before us, and when it arrived at Scotch Corner, some of the waiting people had nearly boarded the wrong coach by accident! 🙂
The coach continued on its way, with further pickups at Wetherby and Leeds. Leeds Bus Station has small and awkward coach/bus parks, and when we were leaving our driver was having problems reversing the coach out of a tight spot, particularly with the trailer attached, which kept jack-knifing. Eventually Trevor, who used to drive buses and coaches, got off and directed the driver carefully out of the parking place, with much pointing and arm gesticulations. Soon the coach (and the trailer!) were pointing the right way and we could continue our journey.
Trevor and I decided this was a good place to really get into the holiday mood, and we each cracked open a small bottle of Prosecco, which we enjoyed as we watched the passing scenery; I read my Kindle and listened to some music, and tried to have a nap after our early start but it was no good; I never can sleep sitting up.
After another pickup at Woolly Edge, we arrived at the service stops at Woodall, and our driver announced we had 45 minutes in which to make the most of the restrooms and refreshment facilities. It was still only 9.15am, but it felt a lot later. As it was five hours since we’d had our light breakfast, we were hungry, so we went into Subway’s and enjoyed an egg, bacon and sausage breakfast roll, washed down with a white Americano each.
The I bought a bottle of water and a magazine out of the ubiquitous WHSmith, before we used the loos and made our way back to the coach. The sun was shining warmly by now, and we hoped the fine weather would continue, particularly since we have just experienced the coldest and wettest March and April on record in Durham, and the weather had not been too promising so far in May.
Our final rest stop was at Chieveley Service Station, where we stopped for 20 minutes. We wondered why the driver didn’t just continue to Southampton, especially after our late start, but maybe his tachograph had indicated another stop was in order, or we had been given a particular arrival slot. As Queen Anne was accompanied in Southampton by both Britannia and Anthem of the Seas, which were both massive ships, we could expect the popular south coast cruise port to be absolutely packed today.
As we passed the road signs counting down the miles to Southampton Docks, our excitement and anticipation grew, and as we drew closer to the port, we spotted the familiar cranes in the distance we looked out for the iconic red Cunard funnel. Catching the odd tantalising glimpse through some trees, we soon spotted Queen Anne, her named outlined proudly in capital letters beneath her funnel. “There she is!” we exclaimed in unison. Spotting our cruise ship for the first time is something we never, ever tire of and, in fact, this will be our 66th cruise, and our 11th with Cunard. 🙂
As the coach pulled up, we had to remain in our seats while a cruise port official boarded the coach and gave us some guidance on embarkation. She asked us all to have our passports and boarding passes ready before we entered the building, and then it was time to alight from the coach (and collect my suitcase of shoes!) How exciting was this?! 🙂
We joined the quickly-moving zigzagging queue and soon found ourselves at a check-in desk, where we had our passports checked and our boarding passes stamped. Then we made our way through security; as with an airport, I had to remove my jacket, Samsung watch and bracelets and put my mobile phone into my rucksack, at the same time removing my laptop. Then it all went through the scanner as we walked through the metal detector. Once we’d had the all-clear, it was time to board Queen Anne. “To the Ship” proclaimed that familiar yellow sign, and we happily made our way along the corridor and onto the airbridge.
Soon we found ourselves stepping into the plush interior of Queen Anne for the first time, smelling the pleasant scents of new carpets and fresh paint. We were on board!
We had reached our destination. 🙂
We had been allocated stateroom 11046, an airy Britannia Balcony cabin on deck 11. It was the first time we had had a stateroom with a 5-figure number; we’ve had four, three and even single-figure before, but never five.
As the first bank of lifts were, understandably, very crowded we thought it would make more sense to move further along the ship and try to get the lift there; as we were currently on deck 2 so there was no way we were walking up nine decks, with our two rucksacks, the shoe case and the carrier bag of theme-night accessories. 🙂
After a few minutes waiting for the lift, we soon went inside and stood near the back, while more people got in. A sign on the wall said the lift was designed to carry 18 people, but there was 10 in and it was quite a tight squeeze! People got in and got out on every deck, and we were please when we arrived at Deck 11.
We found our cabin, on the port side for’ard. Our cruise cards (which also act as the cabin door key) were waiting for us in the slot outside our door, as well as the day’s programme and some “Welcome Aboard” literature. Our cabin steward, who introduced himself as Ben, greeted us and showed us around our home for the next 14 nights.
Stateroom 11046 was bright and cheerful, and contained a king-side bed with crisp Egyptian cotton sheets and pillowcases, as well as a couple of bedside cabinets, a two-seater sofa and small coffee table, and a dressing table with circular mirror and chair. Floor to ceiling glass doors led out to a sunny balcony containing two deck chairs and a small rounded table. We have had larger cabins, but as the Queen Anne, at 115,000 GRT, carries just under 3,000 passengers, the cabins are probably smaller than usual to pack everyone on.
Regular readers of this blog and my Twitter/X posts will already know that Trevor and I tend to prefer smaller vessels, usually with fewer than 1500 passengers, so it was unusual for us to cruise on a ship this big. However, having cruised on all the other Cunard queens, we wanted to see what Queen Anne was like, hence our booking this cruise. How would this new, modern vessel compare with the traditional Cunard cruising? Having taken our first Cunard cruise in 1997, on board the iconic Queen Elizabeth 2, we have noticed how Cunard has undergone many changes over the years, mainly not for the better.
One such example was the complimentary half-bottle of Pol Acker sparkling wine, that sat there on the small table next to two flutes, both of which were taller than the bottle. We remember the days on Cunard when you would get a bottle of Moët & Chandon champagne along with a dish of strawberries; this was eventually replaced by the cheap bottle of Pol Acker plonk and now, in another show of cost-cutting, the pathetic half-bottle.
But no matter… we were here to have a fantastic cruise, so after dumping our bags, we made our way up to the Sky Bar on deck 14 to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a freezing cold white Zinandel, that fruity, summery rosé wine. It was so pleasant sitting there, overlooking the Pavilion pool with its retractable roof (which was open) as well as the rooftops of the terminal buildings of the Port of Southampton. In the distance we could see the dark blue funnel of Britannia.
As we had already checked into our lifeboat muster station on the way to our cabin, we didn’t need to do anything when we heard the seven-short-blasts-followed-by-one-long-blast of the ship’s whistle signal that indicated the safety drill had begun. As is usually the case, all bar and restaurant service stops during the safety drill, and several people who came to the bar were disappointed that they could not get a drink. 🙂
Once we’d finished our wine, we decided to return to 11046 and see if the suitcases had arrived. It was now 4.15pm and we had discovered that first-sitting dining takes place at the ludicrously-early time of 5.30pm. This came as a surprise to us, as it is usually 6.30pm on Cunard cruises. If our luggage didn’t arrive soon, we wouldn’t be able to get washed and changed for dinner!
In addition, we hadn’t seen the usual little card in the room that gives details of our allocated table number. We spotted our cabin steward, Ben, in the corridor and he advised us to call the purser’s desk to find out our table number. Calling the purser was like ringing our GP surgery; annoying hold music accompanied by the perfunctory “Your call is important to us, thank you for holding”. If it was that important someone would answer the blimmin’ phone!
After about 20 minutes, Trevor finally got through, but the person he spoke to was clueless, and we still didn’t know our table number. We imagined the horrendous queues at the entrance to the Britannia Restaurant if everyone was in the same boat as us (no pun intended).
However, after we’d logged into the “My Voyage” page of the Cunard web site, we spotted that we’d been allocated table #349.
It was now 5.00pm and still no sign of our cases. Trevor went out into the corridor to see if he could spot any of our luggage in the pile; he did actually see one of our cases so he brought it back to our cabin and we thankfully found something more suitable to wear to dinner! We had 23 minutes to get ready!
I changed into a pair of black trousers with a lace insert down the outside of each leg, along with a grey and black lace top. I wore my famous “Gulls and Buoys” Irregular Choice nautical shoes, ran a brush through my hair, applied some fresh lipstick and eyeliner, and grabbed my black sequinned clutch bag. I would have to do! 🙂
Table #349 turned out to be a pleasant circular table for six next to the window. One couple were already seated when we arrived, and they introduced themselves as Andy and Margaret from Devon. The first thing they did was apologise for their attire; their cases hadn’t arrived! The other two seats remained empty, and we wondered whether the other couple had gone to eat elsewhere. They rushed in at 6.00pm, apologising for being late, and said that their cases had only just arrived so they also had to get ready in record time.
They introduced themselves as Eric and Christina from Washington, DC, and so table #349 was complete. On first impressions, we were sure we’d have a great fortnight in convivial and interesting company.
The meal (and the company) were excellent; Trevor and I both enjoyed a succulent Steak Diane, which I washed down with a cold Sauvignon Blanc and iced water. At 6.05pm, we noticed that the Queen Anne was moving; our voyage had begun. 🙂
It was about 7.40pm when we left the restaurant; we had 20 minutes to make it to the theatre to see tonight’s performance, which featured four female classical singers called “Ida”. They were superb; they did a pop-classical crossover, and sang songs such as Barcelona (made famous by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe) and The Prayer (by Andre Bocelli and Celine Dion). They also did some interesting interpretations of Elton John classics. Altogether, it was an amazing performance and we really enjoyed it a lot.
We finished off the evening by going to the Golden Lion, a traditional British-style pub, to do the trivia quiz. We were joined by another couple, and we scored 13/20, which we thought was pretty rubbish, but the winning team only scored 14. We had the rest of the cruise to win a quiz! 🙂
We stayed in the Golden Lion for a while afterwards, listening to the resident musicians, two jovial Irish guys billed as “The Full Irish Duo”, one of whom played the guitar while the other played the fiddle. They gave us a rendition of a couple of foot-tapping songs before our 4.00am start caught up with us, and we decided to head back to 11046 at 10.15pm, very early indeed for us when we are on holiday, but it had been a long day.
After propping open the balcony door a little, so we could let in some fresh sea air and hear the gorgeous sounds of the sea, we settled down in our comfortable bed with its rustly clean sheets, and slept very, very well.