In Southampton for the start of our cruise on the Ventura to Greek Islands. We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning and hope this augurs well for the cruise.

After breakfast we walked around Southampton because we are not due at the cruise terminal until 3 pm. Big shopping centre but temptations are resisted and we settled for a coffee and cake as a late morning snack. There will plenty of food later when we get on board.

Taxi picked us up from the hotel at 2:15 and we are off to start our cruise. Unfortunately when we arrived at the dock gate we were stuck in a long stream of traffic. 20 minutes later news filtered down the line that smoke had set off the alarms inside the terminal building and an evacuation of the building was ordered.

Near Chaos ensued, some passengers part way through embarkation procedures, a lot like us who had just arrived and others still arriving who were then stuck on coaches for over an hour and a half.

Embarkation procedures eventually restarted after we had been stuck outside the terminal building for 2 hours.

When we got to the check-in desk we were called aside to go to the security desk so they could check one of our cases because of a suspect item in it. Managed to convince them it was my imitation skean dubh and not a real one. As a result of this we were last on board the Ventura at almost 6 pm with just a few minutes to get to the lifeboat drill.

After dinner still no sign of the "offending" suitcase so thoughts of "Oh no it has been left in Southampton". 1 untagged rucksack had been delivered to cabin, not ours. Had to go to reception, hand in rucksack and get our case. PHEW!

We finished unpacking. Exhausted by this time and so off to bed.