No Hassle

Before we booked this cruise we though we might do something from our bucket list. I fancied New York and Niagara Falls but there wasn't a package holiday that suited us so sorting it all out would have been a problem. In the end we opted for this cruise because it was no hassle, particularly for me because Janet organises everything.

A couple of weeks ago she set up Cruise Central in the spare bedroom so that we could collect together clothing and equipment and tick them off her master check-list which has been honed to perfection after years of cruising. This left the dining room table free for us to lay out our pills, potions and personal hygiene products. It's complicated. For a 25 day holiday we needed double prescriptions and so before we could start Janet had to convince the doctor that we weren't dealing. There's always a delicate balance to be struck between the number of pills you need to make you go and the number you need to make you stop, and the quantities of pills for sea sickness and hay fever depend on variable weather conditions. The amount of paracetamol required also varies with the cost of alcohol on board and the difficulties involved in smuggling it onto the ship.

After the flight restrictions of our last cruise we decided to OD on luggage and pack three large cases. The weight of a large case filled with normal clothing is about 25Kgs which is why the budget airlines set a limit of 20Kgs so they can make money on excess baggage. Unfortunately the health and safety Gestapo have seized on this figure and many travel businesses now have a 20Kg limit including P&O and the coach firm that takes us to Southampton. We've had to buy a device for weighing suitcases that fixes to their handles. You do a snatch and lift with your arms extended and hold them horizontal for several seconds until it beeps. Somewhere, someone will now be collating data about case weighing related injuries to old people. It's not beyond a bureaucracy who have limited the suction of vacuum cleaners to come up with the requirement that in future all cases will have to be able to speak their weight.

The coach was brand new and very swish. Unfortunately the designers had decided to deal with the problem of that horrible rolling motion you get on coaches by making the interiors easy to hose down. The seats were carved out of solid granite and incorporated a little ridge at the front to exert pressure on your main arteries. Still it was better than driving and all we had to worry about, through the rain and the motorway jams, was being sick and deep vein thrombosis. At Southampton there were no queues at reception and only a small one at security. We thought the staff must have organised an appeal for a new scanner but there were still only two - although they were both working. After security, instead of being packed into a lounge to play boarding bingo, we went straight to the ship. According to rumour this cruise has attracted a huge number of regular P&O customers who all have priority boarding. I guess they were all queuing in the first class lounge whilst we just strolled onto the ship.

As we were collecting our luggage in the corridor a lady in an adjacent cabin called to the steward. “Have you found my cases yet” she said with a mouth full of plums “they've all got PRIORITY written on them”. Now if only those cases could speak.

Dave