Monday 29 April

The clocks went back one hour last night so we were awake and raring to go by 6.30. We went for breakfast in the main dining room and so it seemed did the whole ship!

The queue was massive but moved quickly and we found ourselves on a table next to a couple from Wales who we chatted to about cruising and Warner breaks.

Service was extremely slow but we got through in time to go to a line dancing class in the beautiful Queen's Room. Line dancing was fun but not so easy on a slightly rocking ship and with an ageing brain and body!

It was then time for a hot drink in Sir Samuels.  We then explored the ship starting with The Golden Lion pub where we were pleased to see that the menu was the same as 10 years ago in spite of rumours we'd heard about Michel Roux changing the menu.

We had a wander through the buffet - King's Court - with no intention of eating but of course saw lots of tasty morsels and ended up having some lunch.

Then it was choir time. We were handed the lyrics to Any Dream Will Do (as if E didn't know it off by heart already!).  We were told we will be doing a performance later in the week - eek! - so it looks as if there will be daily practice. The leaders were singers from the entertainments team - more subdued than Tom but did some of the same vocal warm ups.

Next on the agenda was more food - afternoon tea in the beautiful Queen's Room.

After a cup of tea and scone it was back to the cabin to get ready for our first gala night - the black and white ball. This was very well adhered to and 99% of passengers had made the effort to comply with the theme.

Caviar!

Dinner included a complimentary glass of bubbly but, again, service was quite slow so we missed the show. After dinner we headed straight to the Queen's Room where we bravely got on the dance floor even though we haven't done ballroom dancing for a long time.

We like to sit at the back if we can. Two advantages: we can drop off without being noticed and we can sneak out early if it's not very good

We went to the late performance of the show 'Be our guest' which was very good. However by now the 'old folks' were tired and went to bed.

Embarkation Day

Sarah and Chris picked us up from home but we had too much luggage for them to take so we took one of our cars as well and we got to Woodall Services for the pick up in good time.

The coach then arrived quite early and we got on board and settled down for the journey.

What a contrast it was to driving ourselves there.  There were two drivers and they loaded our bags on board and off we went.

We had several stops at service areas en route including half an hour at Leicester Forest East, so we had time to grab ourselves a cup of hot chocolate each.  The coach was half empty so we were able to spread out and the whole journey proved very relaxing.

We arrived in Southampton in good time but it was the usual gridlock, although there weren't any road works for a change!

Embarkation at Southampton took longer than we're used to, although we were hard pressed to remember when we last set off from here.

We soon found our cabin and our bags were already there. Usually we would have to wait to access our cabin and then wait for our luggage to appear.  From home to cabin it was all a pretty painless experience.

A lot of storage in the cabin and the sofa means that the cabin is larger than it might be.

We started to explore the ship as we were determined this time round to find every facility we could. It had been almost 10 years since we were last on board and it was hard to remember much about it.

We wanted to go outside as we left port and enjoy the planned 'sail away' party.  However, having started as a very wet grey day the weather was now much improved but, in spite of that, it did manage to rain just as it was time to go and we weren't allowed on deck because of slippery conditions and we never saw any sign of the 'sail away' party either.

Most basic toiletries are provided and there is plenty of sanitiser in the cabin.

P&O's Arvia about to set off on a 14-day cruise around the Mediterranean.

MSC Poesia about to set off for Rostock on the Baltic in Germany

Disappearing  into the distance is Cunard's Queen Victoria as she sets off for a 7-day trip to Hamburg, Rotterdam and Zeebrugge

Fawley Oil Refinery

We move on to Spithead with the Isle of Wight nearby

The man who started it all, Sir Samuel Cunard