I booked my first cruise aboard Grand Princess, on a 14 day West Meditteranean cruise departing from Southampton 19th June 2010. On the day of departure 4 large cruise ships were boarding at the same time causing traffic congestion leading up to the dock entrance and into the terminals. Our coach became stationary waiting in a line of 6 coaches to off load passengers for an hour at the embarkation point. When finally leaving the coach passengers endured a further wait in a line of approx 1/2 hour to check in and board the vessel. We were due to sail at 4-00pm, we arrived at the Southampton teminal at 1-45 pm and were still boarding after 3-30pm

I noticed a large number of children in the check in lines, discovered they had a free child place promotion for this cruise also with a 1/2 price teenagers deal. Resulting in approx 300 kids boarding, although it was school term time the parents took the kids out of school to take advantage of the deal..some schools levied a fine for taking the kids out during term time. One guy told me it was worth the £50 fine to get a free holiday for the kids...my reason for selection of this particular date for cruising was in the belief children had returned to school after half term holiday. I was to soon realise it was not a very clever idea, this particular cruise trip.

Eventually on board and arriving at our cabin to discover the boat drill had started, by the time we located our lifejackets and attempted to make our way to the muster stations, it was all over, to find ourselves swamped by the returning passengers. This delay in boarding passengers right up to the departure time and the ships attempt to leave at its given time slot to my mind this was a serious safety issue, no attempt was made to ensure all late boarding passengers had mustered. As a former Merchant Navy engineer officer I am well aware of the importance of lifeboat muster and at a later time personally took my partner through the procedure to ensure she could locate the boat stations! Read more