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Well this is different.\u00a0 Well, not so very different actually!\u00a0 We do seem to start our trips in distinctly non-conformist ways.\u00a0 This time a “technical hitch” at our credit card company resulted in non-payment of part of the final amount owed to Silversea.\u00a0 “It’s OK.\u00a0 Just wait a day or two and it will sort itself out!”\u00a0 Or so we were told.\u00a0 A delay of five days in the payment meant that our e-tickets didn’t arrive until three days before departure from home.\u00a0 Stresss!<\/p>\n
We packed more than we would normally take to Austrslia for a three month trip.\u00a0 Much more, in fact.\u00a0 But the weather is likely to be colder than that in Oz – and more variable.\u00a0 Not to mention that the ship is going to be substantially more formal than we are used to.<\/p>\n
On Thursday we drove to Jeremy and Lucy’s through torrential showers which caused massive flooding and, at times, almost no visibility.\u00a0 We even got a polite message from the car saying that the radar controlled variable cruise control had been switched off because the car couldn’t “see” the traffic ahead through the spray!\u00a0 That’s another first!<\/p>\n
We hesitated at Weymouth to carry out a property inspection on behalf of Dorset and Weymouth Councils.\u00a0 A small problem with planning permission!\u00a0 Probably best not to ask!\u00a0 That way I don’t have to explain – and only two people will ever know what it is I’m talking about!\u00a0 Much the best!<\/p>\n
On Friday (9th September), with the car’s electronic vision fully restored we drove the last thirty-odd miles to Southampton.\u00a0 Entering the Dock area via gate 8 – one of only two remaining art deco entrances to the port.<\/p>\n
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This is Gate 8, but it’s neither my photo nor our ship!\u00a0 Our port access documents were inspected six times by a total of 14 hi-vis jacketed staff by the time we got to the car park which was less than 500 metres from the road and all of 50 m from the terminal buildings.<\/p>\n
The first task was to complete health check forms.\u00a0 Basically declaring in 10 different ways that we didn’t have Covid.\u00a0 A bit like the US immigration question: “Are you, or have you ever been, a terrorist?”\u00a0 I mean WHO is ever going to answer that question in the positive?\u00a0 We then queued to have our forms inspected.\u00a0 Then we queued again to have our wrist temperatures measured and recorded on the form.\u00a0 We then queued to have all our hand luggage scanned.\u00a0 Then we queued again to have our forms re-inspected by a doctor who also wanted to see evidence of our inoculations – the QR codes which we had already uploaded to the company system in order that tickets could be issued in the first place.\u00a0 He seemed to have difficulty with double sided printing.\u00a0 Yes there really are three codes on two pages on my documents!\u00a0 Then he repeated his difficulty with the second set.\u00a0 Creepers – we hope he’s not the ship’s doctor!<\/p>\n
Anyway, we were now in the departure lounge where we queued at passport control for our health forms to be inspected yet again in case we had caught the virus while queueing.\u00a0 Finally, the forms were taken into custody along with our passports.\u00a0 Our security passes were dished out and we were through!\u00a0 One more queue on the ship to present our security cards and we were liberated to the bar on deck 5 – and a bottle of champagne with two jet lagged Canadians!.<\/p>\n
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As i recall, we came on a cruise to avoid queuing at airports!\u00a0 But at least the bar has more waiters than customers at this point!\u00a0 And the champers is free!<\/p>\n
Having taken two hours to be “processed”, we had only 20 minutes to wait before we were given access to our cabin.\u00a0 Suite 946.<\/p>\n
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That much hooch would last me a year or more at home.\u00a0 I guess I’ll be smuggling 7\/8 ths of a bottle off the ship in a couple of weeks time!<\/p>\n The walk-in wardrobe was supplied with enough hangers for all our 237 hanging items.\u00a0 So the extra 20 hangers we lugged aboard are surplus to requirements – so long as I double stack two pairs of trousers!<\/p>\n This morning we had tea in bed courtesy of Kumar, to discover that we were still only somewhere off the Kent coast – we hadn’t even entered the North Sea proper.\u00a0 By teatime today we are somewhere between Yorkshire and The Netherlands.\u00a0 \u00a0Fortunatrly, the sea is really calm.<\/p>\n We passed huge arrays of wind turbines and a number of oil\/gas rigs and platforms.\u00a0 I didn’t realise how many there are out here – and we are still miles south of the main fields off Scotland<\/p>\n There are six restaurants on the ship of which we have sampled three to date.\u00a0 The food has been exceptional so far and we have no reason to think the standards will fall any time soon!<\/p>\n Tonight we have our first formal evening -:that’ll be fun in a dressing up sort of way.<\/p>\n OK.\u00a0 So I’m off to see if I can still fit into my DJ!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [pmb_print_buttons] Well this is different.\u00a0 Well, not so very different actually!\u00a0 We do seem to start our trips in distinctly non-conformist ways.\u00a0 This time a “technical hitch” at our credit card company resulted in non-payment of part of the final… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-norwegian-fjords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3621"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4617,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3621\/revisions\/4617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/20220910_121602-300x169.jpg\")
Absolutely lovely – and bear in mind this is the second bedroom of one of the four owners’ suites.\u00a0 Our neighbours didn’t need a second bedroom and bathroom so we were able to rent it!\u00a0 It comes with it’s own butler – Kumar – who seems to be trying to outcompete himself.\u00a0 I asked for a whisky and he presented me with a litre bottle of single malt!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/20220909_220446-169x300.jpg\")
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