Thursday August 9th, 2018 Southampton, UK

We had arranged through Cunard for a driver to pick us up at Heathrow and drive us down to Southampton. We waited in the arrivals lounge for about 10 minutes and then spotted the driver holding the "Mr. Wylie" placard.

After a short walk to a very nice Mercedes we were off for the ~90-minute drive to Southampton. Lots of traffic on the M25 circular road as usual.

We checked in to the Mercure Southampton Centre Dolphin Hotel around 2:30PM. 

The hotel is an odd mix of old and new buildings located about 5-minute drive from the cruise terminal and about a 5-minute walk to the city center. We dragged bags over carpets, up and down 2 or 3 stairs several times to reach our ground floor room- old UK hotels are rarely level. The room was more than a bit grubby and unusually hot – we immediately opened all the windows. This hotel was not inexpensive (perhaps due to its location) and so we did not feel the experience was good value.

After a quick wash and change we walked up the street to the shopping mall; there is always last minute shopping to do before embarkation!

That night we met up with my brother Michael and his wife Glynis who are joining us on this cruise and we headed out for dinner to a local tapas restaurant, called Bacaro, selected by Michael based on a prior visit; the food and company was excellent.