We both awoke early which is not surprising as we were due to leave mid morning for Dover to join the Seabourn Ovation for the start of the UK tour.Anyway after a light breakfast we finished the final packing and threw away the rubbish and left home at around 11.00 for the two hour trip to Dover Cruise Port. We knew we would be early but you can never trust traffic conditions on the M25 and also M20 so we did not want to be late for out 14.40 Boarding time. We did a quick Loo stop en-route near Maidstone then carried on to Samphire Hoe which is a country park largely constructed of the Channel Tunnel boring left over earth from which they have created a country park.
We arrived at Samphire Hoe at about 1300 and bought a cup of tea and ate our home made ham and tomato rolls whilst overlooking the sea with strangely enough, te sun was shining which was a bit of a shock. After completing this task we left there around there 14.15 and headed over to the Cruise terminal where it was quite well organised as we could drop of the car in front of the gate and they took the car away for storage nearby. After a few minor formalities we boarded the ship and headed toward our cabin and following the required visit to the muster station we were ready to unpack our suitcases for the next two weeks tour of the UK. By the time the unpacking was completed and the sun was shining we took a glass of wine on the balcony for a short while before deciding it would be good to have a shower before dinner and put on some smarter clothes.
For dinner we had already decided to go to the main restaurant just to lay the ground rules regarding Noels food issues but apparently it was stored on the Seabourn Computer all my do and don'ts and so we were happy. For dinner Noel had the prawn cocktail followed by a fillet steak, they did make a mistake on the green beans with spinach where there was some onion , but the plate was quickly changed with brand new steak and vegetables. Jennifer had chicken consommé soup and then followed by the prawn and scallop fettuccini which looked delicious together with a couple of glasses of a Californian Chardonnay, After dinner we went to the observation bar where noel tested the Jack Daniel and Jennifer had Tea?? . After being there a while we started chatting to the neighbours and just started talking bout how bad British Airways are and the another guy suddenly joined by apologising as he has heard us mention BA and Hong Kong and we subsequently we discovered that he had lived in Hong Kong at the same time as us working initially for BA and then went to work for Cathay Pacific and and it was at this point we knew many of of the same people and he even had heard of me??, what a small world. It was an interesting chat and then we adjourned at around 1030 to bed.
We were both quite tired by this time but an enjoyable and interesting evening.
