We had originally booked the maiden voyage in June to sail on 11th January Unfortunately, as with many cruise timetables due to the Covid pandemic, this was delayed to May As the date approached the excitement of embarking on yet another maiden cruise grew.
To add to the excitement we were delighted to be invited to join Cunard executives and the Sovereign Cruise Club sponsored motor yacht to head out into the Solent to welcome Queen Anne on her arrival at Southamptonβ¦.
Just three days later we were embarking with considerable anticipation as to what the Cunard future holds. Due to the postponement of the original date all passengers were given the opportunity to transfer their booking intact to the new date. The only real change was that the itinerary would now include two ports of call whereas the original date had only one scheduled port of call, Lisbonβ¦.
Fair warning I guess that here was something different. We would normally have booked either a Princess Grill or Queens Grill accommodation, however the original sailing date would have given little or no opportunity to utilise the Grills Terrace spaces and, more importantly, Princess Grill staterooms onboard Queen Anne are smaller than their opposite numbers on other Cunard ships while also being devoid of a bath.
Storage spaces were certainly adequate for a one week cruise but would need considerable innovative skills for those of us who tend to appreciate dressing up on longer itineraries. A good feature proved to be the easy removal of the hanging rails in wardrobes to facilitate the storage of long dresses and full length hanging of trousers. Our embarkation had been speedy and the stateroom ready for occupation but as our luggage was yet to arrive we set out to make our initial tour of discovery and find somewhere to grab some lunch.
