We arrived at 1100am and dropped off our luggage, completed a health declaration form and then we had a brief wait to be called to join the queue to be checked in. My DH stated on the form he had cold symptoms so we were pulled from the queue so he could be assessed by a doctor. We waited approximately 30mins or so for this to be sorted but were eventually told we could complete our check in, which involved another wait for someone to be available. Unfortunately the computer system checking the reciprocity fee for Australian and Canadian guests went down just as we were completing our check in.

Two hours later we made our way to the ship. This involved being transferred by bus to the ship. We ran from the bus to board the ship as it was raining. We were shown to the baggage access area to board the ship. At 5' 2'' I struggled but I was on board, YEAH. Except I hadn't actually meant to board with my husband as I had planned on going to the BA cemetery for the 3pm free walking tour. They closed the downstairs access not long after we boarded so I headed to level 5 to the gangway to wait for a break in guests embarking so I could disembark. Wasn't going to happen. I spent an hour trying to disembark before giving up. I decided to head up stairs to check the ship over. The ship looked neat and clean.

Prior to leaving home both my DH & I loaded the iconcierge app on our phones. The app has information about where and when activities were scheduled and information about the restaurants location. My DH decided to pay the $10pp for the 2 of us to be able to communicate on the ship through the iconcierge app. A great investment as we spent a lot of time apart from each other due to our different interests. Read more