Yesterday was the hottest day of the year, if not the century, and we drove to Southampton for an overnight hotel stay. We are leaving our car here as part of one of these hotel & park deals.
The drive down the A43 & A34 wasn't too dreadful - the satnav decided to route us round the outskirts of Winchester which was tedious, but we did get to see how the other half live.
We stopped half way at Wolvercote near Oxford at a nice car park (with loos) and a paddling spot which was crowded with families all having a splash in the cooling waters. We didn't paddle or splash. Far too grown up for that.
However, the hotel air conditioning certainly isn't very cooling. It's barely coping with the outside temperature - there's a hint of chill from the vents but not much.
The taxi arrangements tomorrow seem straightforward, although I'm leaving the car in the 'wrong' car park tonight, and getting the cases out tomorrow after breakfast, and then moving it to the 'right' car park. The pickup info is clear and comprehensive - something I was a bit stressed about.
It's now tomorrow (as it were) at about 6am. I don't really know how much either of us has slept - we've both definitely been asleep at various times but the temperature and humidity in the room has been impossible.
Another complication is that we seem to have two taxis booked for 1030 to take us to the port. I need to talk to the receptionist about that because one of them is clearly a duplicate.
I'm not sure if a modern hotel should be able to deal with these extremes of temperature, or whether I should cut them some slack because the temperature is •extreme•. Either way, it's not been a good experience.
By 9am we'd had breakfast, not that either of us felt much like eating, and the taxi error had been sorted out - I spoke to the bored man on reception at about 6:45 after I'd had a cool shower (hopefully I don't stink quite so badly now).
The taxi arrangements worked well - which is more than I can say for Fred Olsen's arrangements at the terminal. The representative making announcements about security and boarding didn't have any amplification and was ignoring ⅔ of the waiting crowds which caused confusion and chaos.
However security and check-in was pretty painless.
Once on the #BoatTripNorth we were told that as the cabins weren't ready we should have lunch or go for a dip in the pool - although without our cossies and nowhere to change, I'm not sure how skinny dipping would have gone down!
The ship is the Borealis and I'll give some impressions later.
3 pm and we're in our cabin, and very fine it is too. All the cases are unpacked and the safety thing is dealt with.
Time for a wander round the boat to get our bearings.
Because we're going to be at sea, away from land, I won't have internet, so these updates will be a bit more randomly spaced than I'm used to.