Around midday we said farewell to our IKEA suite at the hotel of which we had become rather fond and caught a taxi to the cruise ship terminal. We breezed through the boarding formalities and walked on board the Regal Princess which will be our travelling hotel for the next 11days.
Our ship was docked on a new Cruise Terminal that had been built on land that was being reclaimed from the sea. Work on extending this area for other docks was in progress. The thought crossed my mind of the ruckus that would occur if anyone tried something like this in Aus.
This ship with 3,500 plus passengers is huge (see the large bus on the wharf for comparison) and rather disorienting to find your way about in.
It is relatively new and you can see the finishing quality has been pared back compared to their earlier ships. The stairways are surprisingly narrow. I guess not many people are expected to use them.
Our Dining Room is located low down at the stern and vibrates significantly when the stern thrusters are in use which happened through the first half of our first dinner. Fortunately it is all okay when the ship is going straight ahead. We are on a table with three other nice Australian couples. They seem to have arranged their tables here by country of origin.
Our cabin, however, is the best we have struck and we have settled in and made ourselves very comfortable.
Hardys’ Travels 