British Isle Cruise--Day 7

August 1, 2015—Day 7, Embarkation

Today would be both exciting and frustrating:  exciting since we would be boarding the Royal Princess for the British Isle Cruise; frustrating since we had been notified that there would be delayed embarkation due to the need for deep cleaning and sanitation of both the ship and terminal due to the gastrointestinal virus (commonly known as noro) on board during the previous cruise.

When more than 2% of the population on board become ill with the noro virus, cruise ships report it to the CDC.  When more than 3% become ill, the ship goes into code red, which consists of enhanced sanitation procedures during the cruise, including no self-service at the buffet, passengers are handed their plates and utensils, and there are no salt and pepper shakers on the tables (instead passengers are handed little paper packs of salt and pepper when requested)—there are other procedures too, of course, but these are the ones that seem to be noticed by the passengers the most.  When that cruise ends and the passengers from that cruise disembark, the ship undergoes deep cleaning and sanitation.  Once those departing passengers clear through the terminal, the terminal is also sanitized to prevent re-contamination by the embarking passengers.  Unfortunately, that means the terminal is closed until the sanitation is complete and there is a long delay before the embarking passengers (us) can process through the terminal and board the ship.  While the delay is for a very good reason, it does throw the entire embarkation process off track resulting in some chaos.

I had received an email from Princess notifying us of the delayed embarkation and that boarding wouldn’t start until 3:00pm.  Also, to minimize congestion at the terminal, there would be staggered boarding by deck number.  Since we were on Caribe deck, we were scheduled to board at 5:00pm.  Checkout from our hotel was no later than noon.  We needed to find something to do until it was time to board.

Since we would not be on board for lunch, we decided to have a late breakfast.  That actually worked well since none of us were hungry when we first woke up.  Instead, we went for a walk early in the morning.  Our hotel was one block up from the road that ran parallel to the dock area, so we decided to walk that way to see all the ships in port.  There were four ships:  a P&O ship, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas (one of the largest ships in the world), the Caribbean Princess, and our ship, the Royal Princess (one of the largest Princess ships).  By the time we got back to the hotel it was 10:00am and we went to the hotel restaurant for their breakfast buffet. 

After breakfast, we finished packing up, then took all the luggage downstairs where the hotel would hold them for us until it was time to go.  Then we walked over to the mall just to kill some time.  I saw a lot of folks just sitting around with carry-on luggage and later found out that the Princess buses from Heathrow had dropped off the passengers at the mall and would then pick them up later for the transport to the terminal.  Unfortunately (lol), killing time at the mall meant that I ended up spending some money (and will have more things to pack in my luggage).  We then went back to the hotel and ordered something to drink just to have someplace to wait.  Since we had priority boarding due to our loyalty status with Princess, I had prebooked a taxi to take us to the port at 2:45pm.

When we arrived, there was already a very long line outside the terminal since they hadn’t quite opened.  We joined the line and finally made our way inside the terminal.  Once inside and up the escalator, we were able to go to the preferred boarding lines to check in.  This part went fairly quickly as there were very few people in this line (I felt bad for the hundreds of people waiting in the general boarding line, but not enough to give up my preferred boarding).  From the time we entered the preferred boarding line through check-in and security, we were on board and at our cabin in about 30 minutes.  

We met our cabin steward and had him open the divider between our balconies so we could go back and forth between our cabins through the balcony doors, and also have a longer balcony (the balconies on the Royal Princess are much narrower than on other ships).  Our luggage showed up within 20 minutes, so we spent the next hour unpacking.  Our steward had told us the passenger safety drill (muster drill) was scheduled for 6:30pm and by the time we had unpacked it was less than an hour away, so not really time to eat dinner in the dining room.  Since we were hungry, we went up to the Lido deck to check out the Horizon Court buffet which we heard was really huge on this ship. 

The buffet is incredibly long—twice as long as on other ships.  On the other Princess ships, there is an inside swimming pool mid-aft, just outside the buffet; on the Royal (and presumably on her sister ship, the Regal), that swimming pool doesn’t exist and instead, the buffet continues into this area making it twice the length of other ships.  This means there was plenty of seating, but also it isn’t easy to find all the food in the different areas without walking half the ship (from aft to mid-ship). 

Code red procedures were in place as everyone entering the buffet area had to wash their hands (there is a wash station set up at the entrances to the buffet with sink, soap, and paper towels) and use the hand sanitizer.  This was being enforced much better than I’ve seen on other ships (although this morning my dad said he did see a couple of people who managed to avoid it by walking in the “out” door—I don’t know why is this such an issue with some folks).

Since it was getting close to the time for the muster drill, I just had soup and my parents had a salad.  As we were getting ready to leave, the captain announced that the passenger services drill would be delayed until further notice.  I knew this meant that sailaway was also being delayed since the safety drill is required to take place before the ship sails.  We headed back to the cabin and stood out on our balcony watching as more people were still boarding.  Finally, it was announced that the drill would take place at 7:30pm and we gathered our life jackets and headed to muster station E in the Princess Live theater. 

At the beginning of the drill, the captain told us about the need to maintain strict sanitary practices and that the additional precautions would continue until it was determined the ship was in the clear.  Hopefully, there would be no new cases of noro on board, and we would come out of red—I guess we’ll know in the next few days.

By the time the muster drill was over, it was time for sailaway.  My dad and I quickly went to get three pina coladas and we sat out on our balcony with our “traditional” sailaway pina coladas as the ship pulled away from the dock and headed out.  Unlike other ships, the Royal’s ship horn wasn’t the normal horn you hear, but instead plays a portion of the song from the TV series, “The Love Boat.”  The three of us sipped our sailaway pina coladas and watched as we headed out.  After a stressful, chaotic day, we were finally under way at 8:30pm—very late for a sailaway that was originally scheduled for 5:00pm.

After finishing our pina coladas, we headed back to the buffet for a little more food since we hadn’t eaten much.  But since it was so late, we only ate a little, then headed back to our cabin.  Unlike other cruises, I didn’t head to my favorite bar, but instead finished unpacking the toiletries and getting a few things organized, then finally at 11:00pm climbed into bed.  

The ship was under full power headed to our first port call at St Peter Port on the island of Guernsey—the captain had said we would make the port on time despite the late departure.  Although the ship was steady and wouldn’t rock me to sleep, the slight vibration of the ship sailing at full power was comforting and I fell asleep thinking of the days to come.