New Forest

As beautiful as the weather was yesterday, it was that crummy today … at least until late afternoon.

We woke up to decidedly chilly temps and rain, which continued on and off throughout the day. At times it was just a barely noticeable drizzle. At other times it was a downpour … usually short in duration. Keeping fingers crossed that we’d catch a break when it was time to embark Celebrity Silhouette, we went down to the dining room for our morning meal.

In fact, we did luck out a couple of times with the weather.

First, there was a break in the rain when we set off to drop off our checked bags with the longshoremen at the City Cruise Terminal. To double our luck, we found an old IKEA cart at the entrance to the port … which made managing our bags on the sidewalk that was in less than good condition much easier.

We had no desire to board the ship … it was only 10:30a and we planned to walk into town for some gelato before embarking Silhouette. But we wondered if we might be able to check-in while the terminal was still quiet. So we headed there next.

No problem … even though our check-in slot was between 1:00-1:30p. No one blinked an eye. They just directed us inside with instructions to have our passports and express passes handy. No lines anywhere … just a few passengers lallygagging here and there. Formalities took maybe 5 minutes and we were done. We would realize later just how lucky we were to have managed check-in so quickly.

Leaving the terminal, we walked out into ever-increasing rain. No can do on the walk into town for gelato. We had arranged for a late check out at noon at the Holiday Inn and left our carry-on bags there, so we returned to relax in our room for a while. A smart move, as it turns out. No sooner were we under cover that the rain really started to come down … the downpour lasting about an hour this time.

Another lucky break in the rain just as we decided to return to the terminal to embark the ship shortly after noon allowed us to walk to the City Cruise Terminal without getting wet. In fact, the clouds seemed to be moving out … the sun breaking through with patches of blue in the sky. Excellent!

Seeing the lines snaking around the waiting area inside the terminal — passengers queued up at least four deep, waiting their turn to check-in — made us appreciate our quick check-in this morning all the more. Since we’d completed the formalities already, we were allowed to skip the line with just a quick scan of our express passes and continue straight to the gangway.

The rest of our embarkation day story will be in the next footprint …Read more