DamianG

I completely agree, sadly there were a load of passengers being intercepted on that particular cruise.

The couple that were in front of us were carrying a single small bag. They were stopped by a steward in the terminal who asked where their luggage was. "We are going to collect it now" was their answer. At this point they were directed to a waiting area and advised that general disembarkation had not yet commenced as luggage was still being unloaded and moved to the baggage hall. So they had either missed or deliberately chosen to ignore the disembarkation information that would have been left in their cabin for them to read. I do not think you will have any problems self disembarking and if challenged you will be able to deminstrate that you are carrying all your luggage (if you really need to).

We’ve self disembarked Iona (albeit not at full capacity) and Arvia (a sold out school holidays cruise) with no problems either time. As others have pointed out it’s an early morning time slot and though there was a large queue around the Atrium both times it moved quickly. We joined the queue both times around 7:30am and were on the road home before 8am. Just a general observation, on both occasions there were passengers in the self disembarkation queue without any luggage! They were being intercepted shore side and made to wait until the end of self disembarkation before being allowed to enter the baggage hall.

Fabulous photo, what a gorgeous girl. We struggle to get Teddy to sit long enough for a photo after his grooms.

It’s a few years ago but we also found taking the train to Den Haag very straightforward. We walked from the dock to the train station but these days would probably look to take a tram or other option from the public transport hub very near the dock (as mentioned above).

We've registered our interest in G626 and G627 and are now waiting for our travel agent to process and confirm the booking next week. Thanks again for all the comments.

Thanks Kalos, it’s also occurred to me that I’ll have the launderette to myself! 😂

Thanks for all the replies. We’ve now found an opportunity to sail on back to back cruises on the same ship (Iona) so are shopping around for the best price. Staying onboard between cruises when most others are disembarking & embarking sounds like a unique thing to do, and we’ve love to hear anyone else’s experiences of this.

We are looking at various itineraries during the main school holidays in 2026. Yet again some of the Mediterranean cruises have very few days in port, such as this one with just five and a half days: B618 Mediterranean (pocruises.com) At least there are some new ports (for us anyway) on certain cruises, such as Gijon, El Ferrol, Santander and Cherbourg (somehow we've never been there). It's also good to see Cagliari again on some itineraries from Southampton. Finally, I don't recall seeing an itinerary like this one before, with a combination of the Mediterranean plus a call to Madeira: N619 Spain And Portugal (pocruises.com) At first glance the cruises all looked a bit "same old" but after some research I think there are some more interesting itineraries (for us) than we've seen for a while. Best regards Damian

Hi all Has anyone ever done back to back cruises on different ships from Southampton? I have half an idea to do a week on one ship, disembark, then embark another same day (obviously from a different dock). I know that @daiB has completed many back to back sailings. Any advice Dai? It's just an idea for now but I would be interested to hear anyone's experiences of swapping ships same day in Southampton. Thanks Damian

An alternative strategy is to not buy the drinks package until your second day onboard. We have done that twice as we were pretty certain that we were unlikely to "drink our money's worth" (so to speak) on embarkation day, especially as we knew that we would get some complimentary drinks in the upper loyalty tier embarkation lunch and a sailaway drinks voucher. We missed out on the 10% discount for booking in advance but that was offset for us by skipping a day plus we were able to use OBC towards the cost. Also, going this way means you can "pay as you go" on embarkation day and get a feel for the drinks menu prices before making the final decision as to whether a drinks package is worthwhile for you or not (in terms of both prices and restrictions). It looks like the current discount for internet pre-booking is 15% but occasionally they offer as high as 20% so for us that is the better pre-cruise offer. We initially booked internet for our 2025 cruise with a 10% discount but later saw that it was being offered at 20%. Fortunately we were able to cancel our original booking then reorder it with the 20% discount. The refund was received on the same day. Good luck with your pre-cruise planning. Damian

Genius, this would also partially resolve the issue of no midship passenger stairwell. 😉

Thanks Avril. They're just back from a 16 night cruise on Aurora and father-in-law was getting short of breath. Diagnosed as a chest infection and a little water on the lung so the most likely cause is the notorious Aurora air con. We're all relieved as the diagnosis could have been far worse. Damian

Hi Jane So sorry to hear this, not least the 10 hour wait in A&E. My in-laws had the same experience (but thankfully less of an emergency than yours) on Tuesday when I dropped them off at 11:45am then picked them up after discharge at 10pm. Best wishes for a swift recovery. Damian

Thanks again for your ginormous effort in providing the biggest and best live blog I've ever read. 200k+ views and over 1700 posts tells its own story. One of the great pleasures of writing these (as mentioned by @Dermotsgirl) is being able to look back on them in future years and remind yourself of some of the better things that happened but may have faded in your memories.

Thanks again, we've sailed from Southampton many times but this has lots of firsts (Horizon Terminal, ABP Parking and a morning embarkation time rather than afternoon). Much appreciated.

Thank you, we have booked Travelodge in Buckingham which works for us.

Thanks both, great information and more or less what I was thinking. Hotel now booked to break up the journey South and get us to the port earlier than usual. Best regards Damian

Hi all. Generally speaking, what time does boarding start at the Horizon Cruise Terminal (Southampton) for those with priority please? I appreciate that we will be given a specific time nearer to our July cruise, but we're just trying to get an idea for our travel arrangements. Thanks in advance.

We've all got different tastes of course but for me that's the most appealing menu to date and I could easily choose five courses (though I doubt I could stomach it in reality) Also, there are two of our favourite wines (Gavi di Gavi and Silk and Spice) recommended to accompany it. It sounds like the cheese plate is a single variety (Stoney Cross). Has anyone experienced this on a celebration night previously?

What a fantastic summary! May I add the Polar Museum and the Mack Brewery as alternative visitor attractions in Tromso (depending on personal taste of course).

Thanks again @Selbourne for your continuing efforts in posting this fascinating blog. Your latest thoughts and pictures from Curacao certainly brought back some very happy memories from our visit there albeit it was a long time ago now. I used to regularly get a sore throat after a short while on cruises until we got into the habit of not having the air con in the cabin on the very lowest setting. That was suggested on Cruise Critic and seems to have worked for us even if it does sound somewhat unscientific, and I appreciate that your symptoms appear to be far worse. I also appreciate that it may appear somewhat ironic suggesting not having the air con at the lowest setting given all the temperature issues around the ship, but it maybe worth a try if all else fails. Wishing you a speedy recovery and that your Curacao visit sets the tone for the remainder of your cruise. Best regards Damian

Indeed, we watched the same recent Aurora vlog with all the air conditioning issues and I was going to mention it here. The worse part was the constant reassurances that it had been fixed when it clearly hadn't.

Chris Wells is brilliant. On one cruise he joined in with ballroom dancing in the Atrium, and invited several lady passengers to partner him. Whilst he was dancing a drunken passenger knocked over the champagne tower, but he just left the crew to sort it out and carried on focusing on his dancing partner. We saw him around the ship a few times and he always had time for a word with us, a true gentleman.

Thanks for all your updates so far @Selbourne , I know from personal experience how much effort goes into it. Talking of which are you keeping a word count? My Arvia blog last year ran to 25k+ words but I think you are going to eclipse that! Congratulations on breaking your launderette duck! You can now award yourself a white belt with a yellow stripe through the middle. I'm sure I saw someone wearing one of those in the MDR on Arvia on a formal night, not that any staff challenged them about compliance with the dress code. 😁 Keep at it, as you have a long journey ahead to become a 5th Dan Master in using onboard launderettes, like myself and @TigerB 😉 Wishing you and Lady S smooth sailing, great weather and fantastic ports for the remainder of the cruise. All the best. Damian