we arrived at the port of Southampton about 3 hours before embarkation, we had early embarkation due booking a concierge class stateroom. There was no queues, we drove straight up to baggage drop off and in to the car park, easy, straight forward and simple, that's how it stayed, we were on the ship sipping Champagne less than an hour later. We spent some time enjoying the quiet ship, then the buffet. There was an announcement about an hour later saying the staterooms are ready, off we went to find ours.

We could not have been happier with our stateroom, champagne on ice, flowers, plush robes, large bathroom, huge corner shower, larger than large towels, lovely furniture on balcony, it was just what we booked. Our stateroom attendants were invisible, keeping it spotless, we only saw them when they delivered our breakfast. The only slight niggle was storage, but because we did not have to fly, we took too many clothes, serves ourselves right really.

Just after sail away we went to find the restaurant, we had asked for a table for 2, but found we were on a table for 8, we spoke to the maitre d, he swiftly, with no fuss, moved us to a table for 2. perfect. We had every evening meal in the main restaurant, enjoying some lovely food and wine. it was busy, lively and buzzing. we did not use any speciality restaurants. we ate quite a lot in the buffet, the range of food was huge, there was some queuing to be done, but we took it in our stride, timing was important and that also made it easier to get a window seat. the brunch in the main restaurant is not to be missed. we enjoyed the speciality coffees in the coffee lounge. The only niggle was afternoon tea was served in the buffet, we were expecting it to be white gloved service, silver tea pots with soft music, but you could get something similar in the coffee lounge Read more