On the 10th April 2007 Norwegian Cruise Line announced their NCL America ship, Pride of Hawai'i, was such a success she would be temporarily withdrawn in February 2008 and renamed Norwegian Jade to do European cruising for the summer. From March-May it would be from Barcelona, May-August Southampton and then Barcelona again before returning to the States. In 2008 they changed it to all year round deployment with a second season from Barcelona and Southampton plus a couple of trips from Rotterdam between. For the 2008 inaugural Southampton season for NCL, they were offering two short cruises. The first was to Le Havre in June but I would be on QE2. The other on the 11th-13th July was to the dreaded Z place! I swear Zeebrugge is haunting me. But I had a curiosity about how much of the Pride of Hawai'i would be left for such a 'temporary' venture after the change and so did Pam. So despite me never having endured NCL decor in person at that time, we went ahead and booked balcony cabin 8026 at the end of May. Whether it was a wise or foolhardy decision remained to be seen. Pride of Hawai'i made her final sailing from Honolulu on the 28th January 2008, arriving in Los Angeles on the 9th February for a one week wet dock. She underwent her first voyage under her new name on the 16th to Miami. After a trip across the Atlantic, she had a further two weeks dry docking, commencing her sailings on the 30th March. She arrived in Southampton for the first time on the 30th May. I ended up enjoying Norwegian Gem so looked forward to this. Pam received the tickets a week before the trip and found we'd been upgraded to mini suite 11060.
The day arrived and it was quite exciting. After a week of dressing up every night on the QE2 I was glad I didn't have to for a change. Normally I don't mind it but then there's often casual nights to break the monotony. On Cunard there isn't. This time Pam was arriving by train as she was going on Braemar the day we returned and I had no idea when she'd get here. She was already at Town Quay before I was on the ferry. Braemar had returned from being stretched the previous week and moved from 104 to 38/9 the day before. Now I had a chance to look at her new shape properly. |
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