IT'S HOT and steamy here, a few minutes and perspiration overtakes everything. The smell of food reminds me a little bit of Thailand. Air conditioning in the hotel is on all the time and very effective, so the heat hits you when you walk out, like walking into a sauna!
Like clockwork, we were met by a very cheerful agent, and met some of our fellow travellers for the first time. We were then transferred to the port, directed to our ship, Aurora, and then to our cabin, B151 on deck 10 where we were happily reunited with our baggage.
I never fail to be amazed by smoothly running logistics. Straight through security, immigration, P&O's admin and cruise card issue.
Our first impression of the ship is very good indeed, clearly Aurora has recently had a facelift and everything is looking brand new and exceptionally clean. Carpets are all thick and soft. We've cruised quite a lot in the last 12 months and have managed to accrue 1200 points each in the loyalty programme, aka the Peninsular Club. We are on the Mediterranean Tier. What that means in the real world is that we have just earned ourselves a magnificent pair of P&O slippers,.... each! Its hard to contain myself, but I will try to share the joy when I found them waiting on the bed, an enduring symbol of our cruising life, along with a voucher for a welcome drink of alcoholic champagne or non-alcoholic elderflower pop.
Today we've unpacked and appreciated all the storage space in the cabin, the balcony and the bathroom. There's even a curtain splitting the room into bedroom and sitting room so it feels more like a suite than a cabin. It feels quite luxurious. And then there's the safety briefing, alarm sound, muster points etc - we both fell asleep at our muster point with our life jackets on. What's that about?
We've also started to explore the ship, found and examined the gym, the restaurants, the pools, the hot tubs and the spa. We have been introduced to Galvin, our cabin attendant until Cape Town. The big buffet lunches and five course evening dinners have started. I have to bear in mind that I am considerably less active than last year, and cannot eat nearly as much pudding and fudge! Tomorrow in an effort to become slowly accustomed to what can be manic excursion behaviour we have decided to stay on the ship and mess about. Until we are completely over the jet lag we need to avoid stiff like that.
So, until tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment