Cruise.co.uk Christmas Cruise

What happens when a cruise agent organises a Christmas celebration for its staff aboard a ship sailing from the UK? Everything goes swimmingly and nothing goes wrong, right? Wrong...

Take a large number of these:







And a lot of this:

And you end up with this:

Yes, you've guessed it. The day we set off for our Christmas party on board Fred Olsen's Balmoral, the south of England and most of Europe saw heavy snow. The novelty of pretty snowscapes visible out the window and snowball fights at the motorway services soon wore off when news of disrupted traffic started to filter through to the jovial passengers.

The snow was severe enough to render the Chunnel unusable and to completely close the port of Calais due to icy road conditions which were preventing lorries embarking or disembarking the ferries (not aided by a 1-day strike initiated by the British Immigration Service).

At our end in the UK, the constant stream of lorries looking to deliver their loads had nowhere to go as no ships were sailing and no trains were departing. Traffic heading to Dover was delayed by anywhere up to 12 hours (depending on which travel report you listened to!).

After 5 hours, a group of around a dozen of my colleagues and myself decided to get off the coach and walk. We grabbed our luggage and  began the long and cold march to Dover. A journey of around 7½ miles lay ahead of us if you believe the satellite navigation on our phones... It made for some cracking photo opportunities though!

We were especially pleased when our suspicions of a lack of movement seemed to be confirmed by this sign and took great pleasure in sending an MMS image to our supervisor aboard the coach. 3½ miles later, the traffic took a surge forward - and to our utmost chagrin, the coach caught us up! All but two of us, cold and tired got back on the coach...

Foolhardy or forewarned, Richard Smith and myself carried on... baggage in hand. Over the next two miles, I think the traffic moved no more than 150 yards so when we crested a hill and saw the docks ahead of us, we were very happy to receive a call from our colleagues asking where we were. They had not moved more than about 5 yards since we'd left. They were all considering walking. In the end, everyone walked at least 5 miles to reach the ship before it sailed!

Walking through the docks of Dover, we passed people from rival agencies who had also decided to walk - some in fact, inspired by Richard and my walk! Richard and I arrived at the ship over an hour before anyone else - including our managers who, following the coach in a car had taken a "short cut" to beat the traffic.

Here are some photos from the last stages of our walk. I don't think I'll ever be so pleased to see a ship in my life!:

Richard shows the way.

Some drivers even tried to overtake the queue!

A sign of hope...

Our first view of the sea.

 

Six miles in, the docks are finally visible at the bottom of the hill.

That's our ship, that is...

 

The famous white cliffs - a little whiter than normal!

The harbour did look beautiful, and, putting the icy roads aside, it was very atmospheric.

Long hike nearly over, we're at the far side of the docks, closing in on the cruise terminal.

Don't look back now...

Well, I was impressed... I think Richard just wanted to get on the ship!

Thar she blows!

And on that note, we headed almost directly to the bar.

Merry Christmas!