Overnight Santander and then on ferry to Portsmouth

 We arrived in Santander about 3 pm and booked in to the Hotel and immediately went for lunch in their cafe which was packed with locals, which is always a good sign.

We had a quick sort out of out packing for tomorrow nights stay on the ferry cabin and then went for walk along the promenade which was also very busy. There was a large building containing cinemas and arts activities also full up and so Santander seems to be a bustling little ( hardly) town.

In the evening we watched some tv and then had not a bad nights sleep. The next morning we had breakfast and left the Hotel around 10.30 for the short drive to the Ferry terminal and lined up in the space for those who had booked Priority Departure and then boarded and and dropped our stuff off in the cabin and went to the club lunge for lunch.

When departing Santander Port for Portsmouth you have to go thro the new EES procedure and you need to get out of the car , show your passport etc.

There are about ten gates in a row all marked with a number 1-10 and as you drive up, the gate allocation process is a joke. There is a nice little chap in his yellow jacket holding up his two hands where you have to count the number of raised fingers which then denotes which gate you go to. One would have thought there is a better way…But that's Spain for you.

It was quite a smooth crossing and we saw dolphins on couple of occasions and eventually the next day on Thursday arrived in Portsmouth harbour on time at just before 8 pm. As a result of our paying for priority dis-embarkation we were off the ferry by about 8.15 pm and home at around 9.30 and looking forward to a nice cup of tea.

So that's the end of this trip which we enjoyed very much but fancy something different next year, we shall see.