All aboard; the start of the journey.
6th January, 2020
And so it begins; our “Round the World” trip that should have been, starting here on 6th January, 2020… in Tilbury!
What can we say about Tilbury, other than “you can get on a cruise ship there”? There, I think that pretty much wrapped it up.
After arriving to check in about 5 hours early due to the hotel kicked us out a lot earlier than our embarkation time (so we tried our luck), and standing in a queue for about 2 hours we had our cases taken, handed over all of our paperwork, passports, vaccination records and visa, received our cruise cards and a glass of champagne, and up aboard we hopped onto our new home for the next few months.
The ship
The CMV Columbus. It has been known by many names over its 40+ year lifespan (Star Princess, Arcadia, to name a few), but it definitely felt like the same ship built at the end of the 70s. I think “quintessential British” was the feeling they were trying to go for when they designed the ship, although areas have been updated since.
Being ‘young’ on a World Cruise
You will notice a theme going forwards over the next few posts. Being two people in their 30s embarking on a 4 month ‘round the world’ cruise, isn’t all that common given a number of factors such as time off of work. This became very apparent wondering the ship to the bemusement of many of the other (mostly grey-haired) travellers and the staff. So many times we were confused with working on board the vessel. One of the better confusions was on day one when a gentlemen thought I worked in the onboard gym! I liked him! He was my friend!
Muster Drill
One of the first things you have to do, before the ship can leave the port, is perform a ‘muster drill’. This is where the ships alarm signals, you return to you cabin and retrieve your lifejacket and proceed to your muster station, where in the event of an emergency you would board the life boats, if required. Unfortunately, not only do you have to perform this before leaving… but every two weeks!
Off we sail…
At some point, once everyone was aboard, all the cased collected and distributed, the ship fuelled and supplied and off we go. Although we don’t really remember what the sail away looked like… it was pitch black by the time we did!
Now, out into the English Channel and off on a long, arduous trip… across to Rotterdam tomorrow.
