Jan 3rd - Departure Day

It’s Jan 3rd and we are onboard P&O Arcadia but first let us catch you up on the last couple of days. We visited close family and said our goodbyes for 16 weeks. We know this is going to be an amazing trip with lots of exciting first time experiences for us but we forgot about some of the sad experiences we have never had to do before such saying goodbye to loved ones for so long - there were lots of tears but at least we are in the era of video calls so it should lessen that blow.

Yesterday was our eldest daughter’s (Katherine) 25th birthday so we spent the day with her doing whatever she wanted though we did take a break to undergo the COVID test - nervous few minutes waiting for the all clear but another hurdle passed.

Jan 3rd arrived and we agreed that Pamela could have a double birthday and open her family gifts at home a day early - to reduce the amount travelling the world! Lots of lovely gifts many of which were sparkly and Pandora company have done well 😆

Then we were off but before the trip today even began we were informed that all boarding times were put back 2 hours as there was an outbreak of Norovirus onboard during the previous cruise and the ship needed to be completely sanitized before the world cruise could start. Therefore, we trundled down to Southampton, in persistent drizzle, with our 2 daughters and Emily’s boyfriend Hugo. We arrived at 3pm (our new boarding time) to be greeted by horrendous queues and suitcases everywhere.

After another emotional goodbye we joined the queue.

Hugo, Katherine, Mark, Pamela & Emily

Due to all the paperwork needing to be checked (vaccination papers, passports, US ESTAs etc…) it took 2 hrs before we finally reached our cabin and could relax and await our suitcases - they took another couple of hours.

We managed to grab some dinner in the buffet - we usually use the main dining room but were short of time as we wanted to experience the sail away with the firework show. Food was fine but to be honest we were more tired than hungry and we joined many other passengers out on a wet and rainy deck to witness our departure - the fireworks did indeed make an appearance and were fantastic.

We ended the day with a 10:30 theatre show (Sonia White - a west end vocalist who was very good) though she should have included "sit down you're rocking the boat" because we were shaking a fair bit - Mark ha invented his own scale and reckons we are at "young kids fun house at the fair level". Apparently the next couple of days could be dicey but then all should be good for a while. That's it for now as it has been a long day though we also have realised that Mark needs more practice with blog posts especially around images!!!!