Love a Happy Ending Lifestyle Magazine August 2013 | Page 8

TRAVEL FEATURE

I’d never considered a cruise for a family holiday choice, until I read a book by author Milly
Johnson called Here Come The Girls. In the book four friends went on a cruise and I
remember
thinking
“mmm,
perhaps a cruise might be
quite interesting after all”.
When Ollie and I were invited
to
sample
Royal
Caribbean’s Independence
of the Seas as part of their
Royal
Mums
blogger
campaign, to experience a
real family cruise, after
running around the room
doing a happy dance, I
jumped at the chance. What
an opportunity!
After travelling down to
Southampton, we stayed in
the De Vere Grand Harbour
Hotel on the Friday evening
and then headed over to the
docks on Saturday morning.
The first thing that hit me was
the sheer size of the ship, it
was absolutely enormous!
After going through passport
control and security, as we
walked onto the ship the next
thing that I noticed was how
plush the surroundings were.
The younger kids were taken
into Adventure Ocean to get
some play-time, with Matt who