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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.
Cabin was excellent - Although sold as a restrictive view, we had an uninterupted view from 50% of the cabin wide floor to ceiling window.
Food - Overall 8 out of ten. Main returant was good, Buffet was fine. The two pay venues Orchid - and Marco Pierre Whites - excellent.
Entertainment - Bearing in mind 23 nights - good, mind you one of the comedians was well past his sell by date, and the Batchelors (1 original) was not my cup of tea.
My only niggle is that Arcadia is not a late night ship. I like a late drink, and after 24:00, only the main bar tended to have people - and very few at that.
Arcadia will I use her again - not until I am into my 70's, the age group is a little old for me. If what I came across as average the I will also stay clear of Oriana. Overall good value for money, and 3 weeks resting on a fone ship.
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