Welcome Aboard the Azores! Plymouth, England, UK

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Monday 26th January, 2015. Welcome Aboard the Azores! Plymouth, England, UK

We were collected from our home in Bristol as arranged at 12.15 pm. This arrangement had changed from the original plans as we had received a telephone call from the cruise company on Friday informing us that the departure port had changed. This was a bit of a blow as one of the reasons we had chosen this cruise was that it departed from Avonmouth which is the Port of Bristol. The upside of this change meant that we now had to be delivered to Avonmouth 4 hours later than originally planned and we would be transported by coach down to Plymouth. Al least it meant that our lift was not too inconvenienced.

On arrival at Avonmouth Cruise Terminal we had to hang around for our coach which was number 10. Coach 3 had not even departed when we got there so we knew we were in for a long wait. M went to find Gary who had called us on Friday to inform us of the change of schedule and managed to charm us a couple of places on coach 9. The cruise terminal was really grim with plastic seats. There was a lady with a trolly dishing out polystyrene cups of coffee but that was the only services provided. We were handed a packed lunch when we boarded the coach. M didn't fancy hers as she had seen the bags being stored in what looked like one of the toilets! The journey wasn't too bad and the embarkation was fairly painless. Our suitcases were outside our cabin when we arrived. We had the mandatory life jacket drill. Again we weren't taken to the actual boats - just to the theatre where we practiced donning them.

Dinner was a free dining experience as it was the first night. We showered and changed and made our way to the single dining room only to be told that it was full and we had to go to the buffet. D was incandescent and voiced this fairly loudly (to be fair it had been a pretty rubbish start to our holiday). Some kindly steward asked how many of us there were and found us a seat in the posh Grill Restaurant. We were later joined by Roy and Patty. The wine flowed freely (literally and metaphorically) and we all got on famously. We chatted about our day and Roy really made us laugh by describing the Avonmouth Cruise Facility as "Refugee Central". Very apt as that was exactly what it was like. We missed the show and retired fairly early. The ship is tiny but we are looking forward to exploring what there is of her tomorrow.

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