Travelmarvel Estrala Thursday 18 September

lovely sleep in this morning with nothing specifically to do but pack. The hotel is ideally situated for getting out and about in Porto. The reception staff are extremely obliging but the room is quite basic re amenities. We have made do however. Photos of our wall mural and the swallows over my bed.

Once packing is done we have time to rest up, read and get ready for the next leg of our adventure. Check out is at midday so we fully head downstairs. We book an Uber with the stays of reception staff. Our driver arrives a few minutes later. Thankfully I found an address of where it boat is likely to be berthed so just hope it's right. We thought we were only about a 10 minute maximum dive from where it might be, but some 24 minutes later we were finally dropped near water at marina! We had an extra sight seeing tour that we hadn't planned. Thankfully I saw a Travelmarvel flag which we aimed for and were able to leave our luggage with a fellow and were then shown where the boat was docked.

It is too early to check in, but we are welcomed aboard and invited to have a light lunch and drinks in the lounge.

We have already met the hotel manager, guest services staff, tour director and captain! In the lounge we met Si who is from Myanmar and is already filling our wine glasses. Guess who is going to be my new best friend on the cruise? A light lunch is provided so I'm very happy to have some pasta prima vera with my wine. We are the only ones in the lounge! We are then told that our cabin is ready early so we head to cabin 201 our home for the next week.

The boat is only a year old and is excellent. We have it to ourselves for now so wander about and check out the different areas.

What a great start and it is only 2.30 with check in not meant to commence before 3pm... We are a bit special... Just ask us! So at 3pm we head to reception where we are invited into the lounge for afternoon tea! Julie is checking out the sandwiches and tells me that one of them is tomato, which she doesn't want so I'm happy for her to put it on my plate. When I go to eat it, it is smoked salmon! Si gives us a glass of bubbles as well, even though we are meant to pay for them so we have already decided that we are going to be his favourites. We then head back to our cabin for a rest before the compulsory safety briefing and meet the captain and crew, what we are given another glass of bubbles and canapes.

Time for dinner so we head to the dining room and sit at a table for 4. There are apparently 47 Irish people still to board (expected at about 22 tonight) so the dining room wasn't full. Julie saw a lady sitting on her own behind me so told me to ask her if she wanted to sit with us which I duly did. Chris is from Brisbane, travellingalone and turned out to be a very negative person who was sucking the will to live out of me by the end of the evening. The meal was very nice. I had a salad, then a curry soup which was delicious and then a spinach crepe and vegetables.

It was an amazing sunset while we were having dinner. Thanks to Julie for the photos.

We got through dinner and Julie badgered me into going and listening to the musicians who were on board just for this evening. Chris tagged along. A group of about a dozen or so had already completed a 2 week coach tour of Spain (as had Chris) and were now doing the cruise. They clearly had formed a close gang and made us feel like outsiders which is not going to go down well with me but it is early days so I'm looking forward to how they deal with the big Irish group! Time for bed and spending the first night on our floating hotel.