The morning of my first ever cruise I was awake before 7am. Not due to excitement but because I couldn’t sleep – don’t think that hotel bed agreed with me, not had a good sleep in it my entire stay.

I did actually fall asleep at around 10.30pm but was awake again before midnight. So I stayed up and watched the grand prix before eventually falling asleep again.

So at 9am, still 4 hours to boarding, I headed down to check out of my hotel. Time to test the Hong Kong taxis and find out whether a lack of printed boarding pass (and luggage labels) would break everything – the travel agent had seemed horrified that I lacked these but when you don’t own a printer you have few options.

The taxi didn’t know where the cruise terminal was, so instead of letting me get in he got out of his car, waved down another taxi and asked them. They clearly knew where to go because he waved me into that car.

The predicted cost turned out to be wrong. $99 and since I had two $100 notes on me, no tip. Then again he didn’t help me with my case, putting it in the boot or getting it back out, and the taxi fare was only $90 when we reached the cruise terminal. It literally cost me $9 driving around inside it to the drop off point.

That’s where things took a turn for the worse. I followed the signs marked, “To ship” and got told to go away. My suitcase was too big, and I needed to drop it off. So I walked back, found a hole in the wall that opened out into a luggage conveyor and stood there, unwilling to just thrust my bag into a random hole. I walked hesitantly away from it and a security guard took pity, beckoned me over and led me to another hole in the wall, this one with a man stood by it and some luggage lined up against the wall. The man had a lanyard and a thing saying ‘Ground Operations’ and made sure my passport wasn’t in my luggage before telling me to leave it with him. I looked at him, looked at the hole in the wall, looked at the queue for a bus just a couple of yards away and decided to take the gamble.

Finally the lady let me into the building and I made my way up to a joyfully large room labelled Waiting Hall. I mean, 80m wide and three times that in length. It was full of chairs, with a small trestle table where you leave the elevators. The lady sat there checked my boarding pass (on my phone), handed me a sheet of paper with instructions (basically, Check In, Board Ship by 7pm) and another piece of paper with the digit 1 written on it, and told me to wait.

I waited. I took a photograph. I waited.

An hour later I connected via the free Government wifi and provided feedback to the cruise line that waiting is fine, but having no information about how long I’ll be waiting, how I’ll know to stop waiting and no access to food or drinks (even water) while waiting was maybe not the customer experience they were seeking to deliver. Obviously I hit ‘submit’ on their web form and immediate heard a tannoy welcoming all 30 people sat waiting (on the rows of chairs that could seat nearer 800 – we had a row each). The lady invited people with priority boarding to check in, then 30 seconds later went “Might as well do people with a ‘1’ too”.

Check in was easy. Hand over passport, have it taken away for photocopying, get my photograph taken, given the card that lets me into my cabin and told to board the sihp. Security was even easier, no passport control, just an airport style bag scan that took seconds. I even forgot to remove my belt and got waved through.

On boarding I was informed my cabin wasn’t yet ready. Given I boarded 100 minutes before I was meant to I didn’t mind that, just took the lift up to the Lido. No, I don’t know what a Lido is, why it’s called a Lido or indeed why everybody on a cruise ship seems to want to call it a Lido. On the deck plans it’s marked as the Lido Market and the Lido Pool. In short it’s a buffet continually serving food and (more importantly) coffee.

As I was finishing my coffee the ship’s tannoy informed everybody that rooms were available, so I went in search of my new home. It’s.. cosy. It’s also oddly blurry, sorry, I didn’t notice until now. But it’s everything I expected and everything I needed. So I dropped my bags (camera bag and a carry-on bag in case my suitcase took a diversion), picked up my kindle and went exploring.

I’ve now seen most of the ship. It’s quite dull really, kitted out like a bog standard four star hotel with various rooms for this and that. Lots of little bars and snug seating areas but they all charge for drinks. I eventually stopped for lunch and popped into the Lido for a coffee to take with me to.. The Dive In. Where (from 11am to 5pm) you can get a freshly made burger or hotdog, and chips. Or a burger sized mushroom if you’re a vegetable.

Naturally I went for a burger with no salad, but got them to add the mushroom instead. The young Asian man taking my order was impressed, I think he’s going to be trying that himself later.

I sat watching four young women take selfies of themselves and their ice creams by the pool, ate my burger, read my book. After I found a new staircase and a different part of the ship, one that finally offers nice views without glass screens. Kowloon is still covered in smog.

Then back to my room to grab my passport and back off the ship. My suitcase is already there, which is nice and efficient. I have $100 and a strong desire for a big mug to get a proper coffee, rather than the titchy thing the Lido provides by default. Sadly I haven’t been able to find one, so I headed to the roof of the cruise terminal instead and took a photo of that stern pool with Hong Kong in the background.

People are still checking in and the day is yet young but I’m going to stop leeching off the Hong Kong Government’s wifi now and head back on board. Next update in two days (at best) from another part of China.