Spain, Portugal and Gurnsey

Our holiday started with a car to Ryde, Island Line from Ryde St Johns to the pier head, Fast Cat to Portsmouth, train to Fratton,  (The fast through train leaves as the Cat arrives on Sundays!)  train to Southampton Central and a taxi to Ocean Terminal where we boarded Ventura.

The slow train arrives at the central platform but there is still a lift for oldies with heavy suitcases - Pippa please note!

Arrived at terminal at 12 Midday and despite a 3 30pm boarding time we were eating lunch on board at 1pm!

Time to look around ship and see some of the harbour movements:

 Shieldhall reverses out while a Raptor and Red Jet pass

We were in with Arcadia which left first and Queen Elizabeth which left just before us

We are on freedom dinning so as we like eating early we were eating as we left Southampton but we had finished just in time to see us pass Seaview and it was pretty clear for some decent photos!

and of the Fort

We have not cruised for three years and there are many changes. One improvement is that for a single extortionate charge we get unlimited time connected to the glacial internet. In previous years it was time limited! This will make blogging much easier as I can do it on line rather than pre writing by adding photos on line watching the clock and getting frustrated as to how long it took!

After dinner we saw the first Headliners show which was a biopic of Bert Bacharach - not bad!

Monday is a sea day and it started with a swim for IB while IG read by the pool. We are amazed at the age profile on the ship. We are pretty much the oldest on board and there are a fair number of families with young kids. the pools get busy with noisy kids so an early swim is the order of the day.

We have two port presentations to see - good opportunity for a snooze - and we will do a few laps of the prom deck to work up an appetite for dinner and a comic in the theatre tonight!

So we have our first port tomorrow, Gijon in Spain which is a shuttle bus ride away from where we park.