CELEBRITY Eclipse docked in Bilbao at 6am this morning as it completedthe first leg of its mercy mission.

The £500m luxury liner sailed into the northern Spanish port beforedawn had broken.

Almost 100 Spanish tourists will disembark, before 2,200 strandedBritish holidaymakers join the ship.

NOBODY knew what to expect when we arrived at Bilbao this morning.

The only thing for certain was that there will be at least 2,500 British holidaymakers desperate to get home.

From the moment we set sail from Southampton on Tuesday night, this mercy mission to Spain has been a surreal experience.

As a cruise ship virgin, I had no idea what to expect as checked-in at the City Cruise Terminal just hours after our spot on the ship was confirmed.

Leaving Southampton behind, my colleague, Daily Echo photographer Chris Moorhouse, and I were among just 200 passengers on board a liner built to handle 2,850.

Our deck was filled with the excited shrieks of a group of 26 Spanish schoolchildren that had been stranded in London by the ash cloud.

The sun has shone brightly as we’ve cut through the calm seas of the English Channel and Bay of Biscay.

Walking the decks of the “ghost ship”, we lucky few are outnumbered at least 12-to-one by the ship’s more than 1,200 crew members.

The eerie silence was only broken on the top deck by the cheesy holiday tunes playing at the pool bar.

At night, a jazz band entertained a handful of onlookers in the enormous atrium, while a string quartet played to an audience of zero.

That will all change this morning when the first British tourists begin boarding for what will surely be another extraordinary journey.