  SPIRAL 2 is a high intensity heavy ions beams accelerator project that has
been going on for more than 10 years now. Countless efforts in different
disciplines made it what it is today. One of the most important steps after the
set up of the different equipments has been the very first full cool down of
the superconducting cavities in an accelerator operation type configuration.
While this has been a major achievement for the SPIRAL 2 teams, it also
hi-lighted new challenges and constraints that would have to be addressed in
order to have a high availability rate of the beam from the cryogenics side.
This paper retraces this particular episode.
