Southampton Mayflower Terminal

[thecatcher]

Recently embarked the Queen Victoria this time by Mayflower terminal for the first time. What a dump. It took 1 1/2 hours from joining the check-in queue to boarding. Unlike Ocean terminal there is no seating. Is this shambles reserved for Cunard passengers or is it normal?

[John Bull]

Shambolic check-in is down to the cruise line or their shore agents.

We've always had very smooth embarkation/disembarkation at Mayflower on P&O cruises.

 

And Cunard passengers generally give good reports on embarkations. But they very rarely use Mayflower, they normally use QE11 terminal (Southampton's struffy & most archaic terminal) or Ocean terminal.

 

Mebbe a late change of terminal caught their staff out?

Or just a bad day at the office.

 

JB :)

[Langoustine]

struffy

 

Serious question: Is this a Britishism? I've never seen this one before.

[Globaliser]

Serious question: Is this a Britishism? I've never seen this one before.

Considering that the context doesn't suggest the real "struffy", I vote for auto correct. :)

[John Bull]

Considering that the context doesn't suggest the real "struffy", I vote for auto correct. :)

 

 

........... and perhaps I should vote for abstinence while posting ;)

The word in my brain was "scruffiest", but it didn't transmit well to my typing finger. :rolleyes:

 

JB :D

[Ray66]

Shambolic check-in is down to the cruise line or their shore agents.

We've always had very smooth embarkation/disembarkation at Mayflower on P&O cruises.

 

And Cunard passengers generally give good reports on embarkations. But they very rarely use Mayflower, they normally use QE11 terminal (Southampton's struffy & most archaic terminal) or Ocean terminal.

 

Mebbe a late change of terminal caught their staff out?

Or just a bad day at the office.

 

JB :)

 

Cunard mostly use the Ocean terminal and only seem to use the QE2 terminal when there's a big ship (such as Azura) in Ocean.

 

We've always had Ocean terminal with Cunard apart from one occasion when we used the Mayflower Terminal and there was seating there.

 

With Ocean Terminal we sit first and then book in. With the Mayflower Terminal we booked in first and then sat and waited to be called.

[Langoustine]

Considering that the context doesn't suggest the real "struffy", I vote for auto correct. :)

 

Thank you. I clicked on the hyperlink and got it. Gee--learning a new word in my 60's...now I have to look for a place to use it...

[Langoustine]

The word in my brain was "scruffiest", but it didn't transmit well to my typing finger.

 

Trust me, I understand.

[KirkNC]

We had a large seating area in Mayflower for our Princess cruise.

[Morgans]

There is indeed seating at the Mayflower. It isn't the newest terminal but I wouldn't describe it as a dump either. Perhaps you had arrived for check in at the busiest time, hence the queue.

[thecatcher]

We had a large seating area in Mayflower for our Princess cruise.

You don't say when this was but it may be in the meantime Mayflower has undergone a transformation. There was, what could have been a large seating area, but it had no seats. The space was occupied by the snake like procession of queuing passengers. Maybe Princess are more customer friendly than Cunard which in my experience is not difficult.

[Ray66]

We also had a large seating area when we used the Mayflower terminal. This was last year with Cunard.

 

We booked in first and then we waited in the seating area upstairs. This is the opposite way round to what we have done in the Ocean terminal.

[thecatcher]

We also had a large seating area when we used the Mayflower terminal. This was last year with Cunard.

 

We booked in first and then we waited in the seating area upstairs. This is the opposite way round to what we have done in the Ocean terminal.

 

Thanks to you and others for your replies, now I think I get it. For us check-in was so slow, in view of the number of passengers waiting, that it regulated embarkation so that a seating area after check-in wasn't necessary. We didn't see a seating area. Another hold up in our security channel was that only one of two scanners was manned.

As another poster has suggested we arrived at a busy time. Maybe true, but neither I nor others had been given preferred arrival times which works well at Ocean.