The day after we disembarked, I had won a day visit to explore the ship and have lunch, courtesy of Cruise.co.uk
Since she had kindly given me a bed for the week, I took my friend as my guest as we set off again on the ferry and walked round to the Ocean Terminal. Today it was a very different experience from our preview cruise. The official naming was to be on the Thursday and many of the high-profile guests were arriving this day so security was much higher. We had to show our passes three times on the way to the Ocean Terminal and as we arrived there the blue carpet was lined with ship's officers, making our entrance feel very special.
After checking in we were given our special commemorative lanyard (which we were allowed to keep) and passes as well as a guide book for our self-guided tour and a meeting place for lunch. Since we had already seen all the public areas, we took our time, had a coffee in the buffet and then went to join the tours to see the show cabins.
I have to say the least impressive was the owner's suite, which had a beautiful large corner balcony - totally overlooked from the sports deck above!
By now it was time to start thinking about heading down for lunch. This was a superb four courses with wine. While we were eating the Captain and Head of Princess Cruises came to say a few words. As we slowly made our way off, security men with sniffer dogs were carefully going all around the atrium.
It was a lovely day and thoroughly enjoyed by us both. I stayed down in Southampton, because the following day was the naming ceremony. We chose to watch this from across the water at Hythe Marina where, with good binoculars, you could see the whole proceedings.
That evening was the grand fireworks display. The maiden cruise proper on Sunday however was, to me, a real anti-climax! No fireworks, no fireboats - nothing. In fact I think we had a much nicer send-off when we sailed on the preview cruise on the 9th June.
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