Norwegian Jade - Part 3: Embarkation

​The check-in and embarkation process for this cruise didn’t go wholly smoothly.  First of all, in advance of the cruise, the online “cruise personaliser” didn’t seem to be accepting bookings for the spa or restaurants; a bit of an issue on NCL given the focus on a variety of dinner venues, rather than a single main dining room. We were resigned to just making reservations once on the ship, but when we came to check in a few days before departure, the glitches seemed to have resolved themselves.

This voyage was leaving from Southampton’s Ocean Cruise Terminal, which seems far more modern and well appointed than the Mayflower terminal that we’ve used before with both P&O and Cunard, however, the location seems to involve more busy roads and slow moving traffic than Mayflower.

In the terminal things were somewhat chaotic as NCL seem to have sold cabins to a very large Chinese tour group without bothering to provide any Chinese speaking staff, or even signage. However, once through that scrum, security was quick.

On the ship, there was further bemusement. Not only was the room set up (twin/double) wrong, but there were excursion tickets for other people on the bed. It seems that they had already set the room up for the guests embarking in Hamburg, as if we didn’t exist.

After all that, it seemed that we’d earned a drink a seat to watch other ships leaving Southampton ahead of us.