Jan. 8 - 10 Southampton and the first few sea days

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Flight across the pond was uneventful. With our earlier bus ticket, we were off to a great start, and checked into the hotel at Southampton at 2pm. With the flight and the time change and the bus ride, not enough sleep was grabbed anywhere, and we made the mistake of lying down for a bit. Jet lag took over and only the earsplitting five-second fire alarm disturbed us much laterSo we got our walk around old Southampton the next morning, and found, oddity of oddities, a genuine full-scale French boulangerie called the Victor Hugo, with a coffee grinder and high street patio out front. Excellent espresso and ham and cheese croissant. Back to the hotel to get a cab. Slow boarding but when it started we were up front with our new status. An upgrade from G to EE on the Promenade deck was welcomed, but a little disappointing to see that our OceanView cabin, while classed as an unobstructed view, comprises a large chunk of bulkhead. We reported our disappointment to the front desk right away, without much hope. They have since offered us a $1200 suite upgrade (but it wasn't us, they confused us with someone else), and today offered a cabin with a larger window (don't think it is, unless you're talking millimetres) two decks down, mid ships for a $700 upgrade because they somehow got the idea we wanted mid ships because of the weather. Nope.Explored the ms Rotterdam - a very elegant ship! Sail away was great, lots of food and drink and music, and a marvellous meal and show. Spent the next two days on the Bay of Biscayne...rain, hail, galeforce winds (60-80kph) and waves up to 12 on the Beaufort Scale. Ship rocked and bucked like an angry bull...and for the very first time we succumbed to seasickness (Paul much more than Jane). Feeling much better today and we are looking forward to Gibratar and the hopefully much calmer Med.Lisbon is heavily closed on Mondays, so it will be lots of external sightseeing and almost no museums and galleries open. All the pickpockets will be outdoors as well, and we are told that they just love it when the ships come in and people don't reassess their security levels when they leave the ship.

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