Drove down to Southampton, 4.5 hours from Preston. Had taken up the free parking offer ( also got a 300.00. on board spend). No hassles whatsoever.

Arrived at the terminal at 13:15, sadly it took until 14:40 to board. This fortunately was the only major negative point over the entire 3 weeks. The bottleneck was the security check - way way over the top, indeed worse that most major UK airports. Only 2 security scanners available - P&O and British Ports need to sort this one out - 2nd successive time this has happened - Indeed the check in desks we empty on at least 3 occassions whilst we queued in order to redeuce the queue size waiting to board.

OK onto the actual cruise - Arcadia - 2nd time on board, and a much better experience than the previous trip. Crew very attentive and friendly. Ambience overall good, public rooms good, but do reflect in places the ships age - i.e. Carpets - this years refit should take care of that. Read more