{"id":3629,"date":"2025-05-22T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3629"},"modified":"2025-05-28T10:51:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-28T09:51:53","slug":"dover-and-theyre-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/dover-and-theyre-off\/","title":{"rendered":"DOVER (And they&#8217;re off&#8230;)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250522_dover.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"610\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250522_dover.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3633\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250522_dover.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250522_dover-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250522_dover-768x468.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Another day, another start to a cruise assignment. Yesterday we travelled South from West Yorkshire to Portsmouth, a journey of roughly 5 hours, arriving at the Travelodge in Four Marks in time for our customary Indian takeaway (from &#8216;The Saffron&#8217;, a fine establishment indeed).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This morning we enjoyed a bacon roll and a cup of tea at the local coffee shop in Four Marks, before heading to the cruise terminal in Portsmouth. None of this would be unusual if it wasn&#8217;t for the fact that the Spirit of Discovery was due to set sail from the cruise terminal at Dover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s all in the plan, of course. Once we&#8217;d parked the car, a seven seater taxi duly turned up and proceeded to transfer us to Dover &#8211; a journey of roughly two and a half hours, a trip we shared with the bridge instructors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we&#8217;d reached Dover, getting on board ship was efficient and painless, and pretty soon we were in our cabin (E005), followed by lunch in The Grill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s been a while since we were last on the Discovery, but since it is more or less identical to the <em>Spirit of Adventure<\/em>, it feels very familiar. It&#8217;s quite minimalist in its d\u00e9cor, with more dark wood than its sister ship. Of the two it is slightly older, not that you would necessarily notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Emergency drill was followed by the customary Entertainments meeting in the Map Room (Ward Room on the Adventure), and once we&#8217;d finished unpacking and the ship was on it&#8217;s way, it was time for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s first classes tomorrow, so that means an early night\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another day, another start to a cruise assignment. Yesterday we travelled South from West Yorkshire to Portsmouth, a journey of roughly 5 hours, arriving at the Travelodge in Four Marks in time for our customary Indian takeaway (from &#8216;The Saffron&#8217;, a fine establishment indeed). This morning we enjoyed a bacon roll and a cup of tea at the local coffee&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,15,38,37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3634,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions\/3634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}