I saw three ships come sailing in !!!

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Those of you who are regular cruisers will know that every day, whether onboard or ashore, presents itself with new experiences. Some are good, a few are bad. (It's usually the bad ones that are unavoidable!!). With each voyage, although you can expect many similarities for those who prefer the comfort blanket of familiarity, I'm anticipating something different. This cruise is with P & O (a first) and will be over the Christmas period (another first!)

For 2000 years people have been jumping on the bandwagon and releasing Christmas editions from within mainstream Arts. In Books: Chaz Dickens a Christmas Carol (which has nothing to do with festive hymns!!); TV: The Morecombe and Wise Christmas Show or the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Extravaganza; Music; Mistletoe and Wine by Cliff or Have a Wombling Christmas by the much under rated Wimbles of Wombledon (or whoever they were called); Schools throughout history lay on a special performance at Christmas Time. Even the Bible has its own version of the nativity!!! Consider this edition of the blog to be my tribute to all things festive. The only difference being I didn't record the following events back in June. (in fact they haven't happened yet so I've no idea how this is going to go!!) There will be no repeats or re-releases in the following episodes. Hopefully it won't be a matter of, 'Didn't he crack that gag back in the Panama Canal?' or ‘didn't that happen off the coast of Bora Bora?!!'

This year we have decided to get away from the dark, wet and windy climate of the UK and instead chose to spend Christmas in the middle of the North Sea somewhere off the coast of Norway!!!

We are sailing on the P & O ship, Arcadia from Southampton. This is marketed as an adult ship. When I stopped smirking like a naughty schoolboy, I realised that it just means that bookings for minors, and not miners, as I first thought as I couldn't understand what P & O had against the coal industry, are not accepted!! In other words, the ship is a child free zone. Normally this is a good thing but at Christmas the wide eyed look of awe and excited astonishment on a child's face, as Santa enters the room is priceless and will be missing from this special day. Seeing the child rip off the wrapping of the present with eager anticipation only to see that angelic face turn in to the spawn of Satan as the Compendium of Games is quickly cast aside as the child realises it's not the Thunderbird 5 or chopper bike that Santa had promised little knowing that Santa hadn't done much over time during the year so couldn't afford it!!

Our first port of call is across the English Channel to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. From there it is possible to visit the quaint market town of Bruges. After a day at sea, heading North West we dock in Copenhagen…wonderful, eh?? The next day, Christmas Eve, we will wake up in Norway were we will have the chance to explore the magic and festive ambience that its capital, Oslo, will have to offer. Although there is an abundance of interesting museums in Oslo such as the Kon-Tiki museum, a museum dedicated to the vessel that crossed the pacific despite being wholly made from Balsa wood; the Viking ship museum (the clue is in the title) and the Norwegian museum of Cultural History for the real die hards!! However, I promise that not one museum will be visited or written about in this blog. (apart from the previous sentence!) The main reason is that they'll all be closed, it's Christmas Eve, after all! It is then a 2 day crossing back to Southampton so we'll spend Christmas day and Boxing Day on board.

We drove the 240 miles to Southampton on Friday 19 December for embarkation on the 20^th. We stayed in the Novotel a mile or so from the cruise terminal

This is our 15^th cruise. Until now we have only sailed with MSC or Princess. It is our first time with P & O. Several of our friends swear by P & O. I hope I heard right and they said ‘by and not ‘at'!! The next 7 days should reveal the truth!

The title of this episode was chosen because of the festive connotations. As we are sailing from Southampton I thought it would be easy to work the title in to the body of this post as ships are always coming and going. Unfortunately, the only other ship in Southampton today was the Rotterdam, a mid-size cruise ship from the Holland America Line. This, however, set sail at 11am and as we didn't arrive at the port until shortly after 12 noon, we never even got to see one ship ‘go sailing out' never mind three ships ‘come sailing in'!!

We found the ship at berth 46, the Ocean Cruise Terminal. This dock is located further from our previous visit to Southampton docks when we boarded the Emerald Princess in October. We were in the Mayflower Terminal, 1760 yards further on from the Ocean Cruise Terminal. Is that what they mean by P & O going that extra mile!!

The Arcadia is the fourth largest of the current 8 ship feet of P & O weighing in at 86,799 tonnes. The capacity is 2,016 passengers. In fact I don't know why I didn't say it is one of the smallest as only the Adonia and Aurora are smaller (the Oceana is the same size!!)

After dropping Roisin with the luggage and driving around a nearby car park several times before I saw the Parking4cruises, I was directed to a parking bay where I got out the car and handed over the keys before an operative appeared with a camera started snapping the car from all angles. Another rep then proceeded to examine the car noting every scratch and bump. I thought to myself, Blimey! With my car, she's got her work cut out. I'm probably the only customer who needs a continuation sheet!! I fully understand the visual examination but to take photos as well. I wonder if anyone has ever returned to pick their car up and say: ‘That's not my car!!'

On entering the terminal, I was greeted by a brass band playing a selection of Carols. ‘Once in Royal David's City', ‘We three Kings' and the very apt ‘I saw Three Ships come sailing in!!'

We were handed the usual health declaration asking if I had recently been in contact with someone known to have Ebola or if I'd just come back from West Africa. Along with this we were also handed a card with a letter thereon and told to take a seat until our letter was called.

‘Will all passengers with the letter G for ‘Glitter' make their way to the check in please. G for ‘Glitter'

This was going to make the waiting more fun. Guess the letter!! Roisin managed to guess the next 3 letters correctly: ‘Holly', ‘Ivy', ‘Jingle Bells'. Neither of us managed to guess ‘K' for ‘Kings'. ‘L'. What could ‘L' stand for?

‘L' for ‘London'!! What?? What's Christmassy about London? I would have thought ‘L' for Lager would have had more of a festive feel to it and as there are no children within 5 miles, they can't be accused of promoting drinking!! After ‘M' for ‘Mistletoe' out letter ‘N' for ‘Nuts' (we guessed wrongly at Noel) was called. 20 minutes later we were boarding the Arcadia.

Our first impression of the Arcadia was very festive. There were fully decorated Christmas trees around every corner; all the staff from the bar staff to the cabin stewards were wearing Santa Hats. It was very evident that most of the crew were relishing the opportunity to wear something more than regulation uniform, although there were a few who looked a little sheepish having to direct passengers and guests while looking like someone who'd recently been rejected after applying to be an extra in the film ‘Elf'!!

Our cabin is on deck 7, aft (means near the back!!) Bermuda deck. An inside cabin this time which means no natural light. An estate agent would promote our cabin as simple but cosy! In other words, tiny with only 1 mains socket!! In today's world of IPhone, netbook, hairdryer, kindle and iPad, the poor mains socket is going to be working over time!!

We spent no time in making our home for the next 7 nights in to a festive, ‘cosy' nest complete with Christmas tree and stockings hung up for Santa to hopefully fill with all sorts of goodies and to top it off, a Christmas garland hung on the outside of our door.

The cabin steward introduced himself as Cyrus, showed us where everything was, complimented us on our decorations and gave us the ‘If there is anything I can do..' speech which is only too familiar at this stage of the proceedings!

We don't have much time to get to know the ship before our first port of call tomorrow. There's no time like the present (thinks: Mmmm! Present! I wonder if Santa will remember to drop in while we're at sea. It's not as if we don't have a big enough chimney for him to climb down!!)

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Comments

[Truce Grovellar]

Another cruise already! Nice to see the Cliff and Wombles getting a namecheck. Singers of two of the best Xmas songs ever. The greatest, of course , by a mile is Greg Lake - I believe in Father Christmas. Not only is an anti-commercialism
diatribe but has also been interpreted as anti - religious.... And the video has lots of footage of bombs going off in the Vietnam war. I'd like to see an X Factor winner take the Xmas no 1 spot with a similar song and video. Ciao! Truce

[Elaine]

Love the decorationsThe name of the park I told you about in Oslo was Vigeland Park and it is open every day but I'm not sure about transport to get there as Norwegians celebrate on Christmas Eve (it is one of Santas first ports of call af
ter he leaves his house on the sled) Enjoy your tripHappy Christmas to you bothElaine,Paul and Family

[Dame Kelly]

Is Copenhagen no good then? We've just watched the last 2 series of coach trip and Denmark looked the only place worth visiting.

[Jane H-P]

Sounds nice! I've just decorated the caravan, we're not quite as exotic as you two: Betws y coed for Christmas!

[Elaine]

Just spoke to my sister in law in NorwayGo on a site called routebok.no and you can put in details of where you want to go from and to and it will tell you if transport available.Taxi from cruise terminal to Vigeland about 50 pounds each w
ay but maybe more as holiday. She thinks public transport stopping about mid day

[chris-roisin]

Thanks Elaine. We are heading for the Ice bar then doing a walk around the city. I didn't think Vigeland was that far outside Oslo. Maybe thats for another time! Thanks Jane. Betws-y-coed so much better than Sale! (Sail??!) Truce, Much musi
c on its way!! How about Amathyst Duo or Hannukah although I don't think thats a band!!

[Anne and Philip]

Have a great Christmas cruise. Oh, by the way, Titanic sailed from Berth 46.

[SnoCone]

E is for Extension lead (for there will be one by the end of this cruise)

[SnoCone]

Obviously L is for Lights - what were they thinking??