July 7, 2023

We departed Dublin at 7am, a fairly fuss-free flying experience (which, when Jared is involved, has become the exception rather than the rule.) This time our flight was only delayed by an hour. Mercifully, we were both so tired, that we slept waiting on the runway, and for most of the flight to London.

From Gattwick, we made our way to the train station in the airport, tapped our cards to get on and then waited for the train to London Victoria Station.

Travel Tip: you do not need to queue for tickets, just tap your bank card or oyster card – just make sure you tag off with the same card you tagged on with or there’s a £25 charge in your future.

After a frantic last minute platform change to keep us on our toes, we boarded the train with half of London, and stood like sardines the 30 minutes to Victoria Station.

London Tilbury is the ‘London’ cruise terminal –much like the ‘London’ South End airport which is actually 60km away from the centre of London. Knowing this, we had elected to get there by the cruise-provided coach service which left from the Victoria Coach station

Travel tip: the Victoria Coach Station is not the Victoria Bus station – word to the wise.

This was only just down the road from Victoria Train station, and despite our delays, we still had ample time before our 12:30pm coach, arriving at the coach station about 10am.

We got coffee and the necessary pastries, and set up camp in Pret a Manger with all our bags, while Jared went on a mission to find a nearby distributor of laptop chargers, as he’d left his at the office in all of his manic last minute end of month flurry the day before.

Jared was delightfully successful in his mission, and I was getting antsy, so needed to get the wriggles out, so went for a wander further down the road and found a cool sculpture, a church, and an amazing square with beautiful gardens and fountains. It was a welcome oasis to salve the hustle and bustle of the morning.

The coach departed at 12:30, but we were some of the last ones on the coach at 12:10.

Travel tip: make sure you have a stapler or tape or something to adhere the labels to your bag – we forgot and ended up macguyvering them together with coffee stirrers as there was no tape or staples to be had at the coach station – this caught us at both ends, and our McGuyvering was successful neither time.

The coach journey meandered through a smorgasboard of London highlights – Westminster abbey, the Tower of London, the Shard, Millennium bridge, Tower bridge etc, but with only 2-4 hours of sleep under our belts at this point, we snoozed the whole way, until Jared elbowed me, alerting me to the presence of a cruise ship in our near vicinity, “We might be here”.

Luggage taken care of by the cruise staff, we took our backpacks and snaked our way through cruise terminal security, check in (where I had to physically give up my non-EU passport) and avoided the photo op before embarking onto Deck 5 of the Ambience to find our room. (5152, just above the waterline)

We’d gotten a scandalously good last-minute deal on the cruise, but upon entering our room discovered that this meant that we had twin beds not a double. We asked our eager-to-please room attendant if that could be remedied and he was more than happy to help.

After the safety demonstration in the Palladium, we missioned it down to Level 7 where the Buckingham restaurant was located, and secured our table for the later sitting of dinner – deciding that on this cruise we’d embrace the more nocturnal life. We were shown our table for 2 – right next to a wine cabinet. “How much for the key?” Jared joked.

Having not really eaten since a rogue croissant at 11am, we sampled food from the buffet restaurant on Deck 12, and also had a couple of cocktails on deck, then we returned to our room, to find it completely rearranged, and one of our suitcases had shown up – but not the other.

The boat was set to depart at 5pm, but ended up not leaving until 6pm, which meant an extra hour of absolutely blissful 30 degree London heat, so I indulged in an evening swim. The sea-water pool on the main deck wasn’t heated, so it was a delightful antidote to the warm afternoon.

I then dried off in the sun as the ‘Tilbury Ta-ta’ departure deck party got underway.

We found this cruise while hunting on various websites for ‘last minute’ deals for a Mediterranean cruise, there was nothing in the messaging or advertising that suggested that this particular cruise was solely for octogenarians, but as we wandered around the boat, familiarising ourselves with our home for the next 12 days, we realised that we were some of the youngest on board – a very different demographic than any other cruises we’d been on.

We saw some lovely lights on both sides of the boat as we traversed through the English channel, with Belgium and the Netherlands on one side, and the English coast on the other, and our phones trolled us jumping between time zones and back again.

After dinner, (started at 8.15, and 5 courses later finished at 10.15) we ambled along to the Palladium theatre where the entertainment director was talking about what was going to be happening where and when, then we continued on to bed as we were both drifting off in the theatre – late night partying would need to wait for another night.