Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 1 - Tuesday May 10th 2016 - Gatwick to Barcelona, Board Ovation Of The Seas

So this trip starts off from the Hilton Hotel in London’s Gatwick Airport. Our minds are not on the trip but actually back in Rustic Road in Peacehaven and very much focused on Ron (Trev’s Dad). He has really not been himself or well over the last few days as it led up to us going away and we have both agonised about making the decision to leave for this trip. Are we doing the right thing ? Who knows…..what we do know is that he is being very well looked after and that there really was nothing we could do for him had we stayed behind in the UK but it is with a very heavy heart and head that we leave this time

around and we both have our fingers crossed and have touched wood every time we have thought about him that he will be ok………we love you Ron x

So back to the Hilton in Gatwick.

We awoke knowing that we had a relatively leisurely morning to get ready and that started with a full buffet English breakfast as you do when you’re on holiday. Trev actually does not like to call it Holiday, he prefers the term Travelling as a holiday means that its relaxing and chilling whereas travelling is a more stressful constantly darting about here and there, airports, trains, cruise terminals….you get the gist, me, well I think that sounds a little spoilt….we are very lucky to get to do what we do and this trip has been in the planning for a year.

Gatwick was the same as always, a bit like a second home, the only stress being the weight of our luggage for the next three months away. We both scraped in with our hold cases just over the permitted 20kg mark and the self check in scales sent our luggage of into the abyss of Gatwick’s never regions to be seen again until we touch down in Barcelona.

The flight came and went as they do and we found ourselves hurtling towards the Barcelona cruise terminal with Juan (we’ll call him that) your typical crazy bearded taxi driver who seemed intent on taking every corner like he was driving for a formula one team. The Seat taxi we were travelling in was filthy, cigarette filters for roll ups littered the foot well and the dash board of this people carrier really needed to meet Mr. Sheen!

We arrived rattled but in one piece to a very slick check in to our home for the next sixteen nights. Royal Caribbean’s latest boat out of the ship yard, The Ovation of the Seas.

Our home would be cabin 8194. Nice space, balcony, sofa, desk, two wardrobes and enough room to both move around without feeling like you were always in the others way. All this with the added bonus of an in stateroom kettle! No more early morning turns to go and get the coffee on this cruise! Now effectively we have already been on this boat in all but the name as it was on its identical ship The Anthem of the Seas that we booked this cruise a year ago so it does feel familiar with a few tweaks here and there.

Now its cruise tradition that when you get on board you head up to deck 14 or whichever deck the pool is on and go for a cocktail. That’s exactly what we did , Trevs was a Mai Thai and mine a frozen Mojito. Now it has to be said that the weather in Barcelona was far from shorts and a T-Shirt so being up on deck was a bit of an effort as the sky was grey and bleak full of clouds from the tones of black to white.

As we had opted for the latest check in on the boat it was soon time to get ready for dinner. Now unlike other cruises on this ship you have a thing called dynamic dining. Basically means you chose your restaurant and your time and you go. We booked up the silk restaurant for the first night a fusion of Indian and Asian cooking and it was just as we remembered…..really good!

Being creatures of habit we were soon back to our old routine of The Schooner Bar and The Bionic Bar and like most other first night rituals we did the same as we always do…..we drank too much!

So we are on board bound for Dubai and we have started another new chapter in the book of adventure in our lives.

Even if its half as good as the other one’s we are in for a real treat.