British Isles Cruise 2026 - Disembarkation / Flight Home (09/07/26)

Today was a lot of "Hurry up and Waiting."  RQS and I had requested special help from the airline to get us through the airport, and I'm glad she did so.  

But first...

We got up around 6 am, so that we could get showered and dressed, and out of our cabin by 7:30 am.  And we did just that, even though we had a disembarkation time of 9:15 am.  Our first stop was the restaurant at the back of the ship, so that we;d be able to have a leisurely breakfast and have a place to wait until our disembarkation group was called sometime after breakfast.

Waiting, waiting, and waiting....  We moved closer to the gangway around 9:00 am and waited.  At 9:15 am, we took the long walk through another restaurant at the back of the ship, through the long ramps to enter the cruise terminal, then on another path to the luggage pickup area.  Once we found our luggage, we then started another long process to find the bus to take us to the airport.  And that was a stop and go process until we got to the bus that would take us to the airport.

They were loading buses based on the departure terminal, and we had to wait again to get a free bus and have our luggage loaded for the trip to the airport.  Unlike most buses, this one had a trailer to hold our luggage - and ours was loaded in the rear, meaning first in, last out.  This would be a problem later on, as both of us needed to take bio-breaks before we reached the airport, and couldn't do so until we got our luggage back.

When we finally had our luggage in hand, we rushed to the toilets for our much needed bio-breaks.  And then to the desk to check in for our flight.  RQS had requested wheelchair help, knowing that it was both a long distance to walk through Heathrow to get to the plane, and a long distance to walk through JFK in New York to get to the ride share area.  And again, we had to wait for wheelchair assistance which would take us to and through security, and then to the handicapped waiting room.  Unfortunately, we were escorted through security by two different people and deposited to two different destinations.  And RQS had problems finding me.

Our hurry up and waiting at Heathrow didn't end there.  There is a cart that is used to take mobility challenged people to the gates, and they wanted us to share the cart with 3 other people, with no provisions for our luggage.  They thought it strange that we'd each have a carry-on and a personal bag, and for both of us to be carrying medical bags of different sizes.  (My bag was bigger, as I use a CPAP machine.)  So we had to wait again to get a cart to deliver the 2 of us to another waiting area near the departure gate.  And that still wasn't the end of our waiting, as another person had to deliver the 2 of us to the departure gate, and to the plane.

The flight was uneventful.  But there was one thing of note.  A large number of ultraconservative Jews were on the plane, and one was standing up and praying in the middle of the flight.  If that wasn't strange enough, another man came along the aisle and was asking every man he found whether he was Jewish or not.  By the time the plane landed, my butt was aching and I couldn't wait to get to RQS's place.

Neither of us were in a rush to get off the plane.  We had nowhere to go but home.  And, when we got off the plane, two wheelchairs were waiting for us.  And then, we were separately wheeled through customs, then to the baggage claim area.  The gentleman wheeling me around shared a conversation about dual citizenship, and I mentioned my foreign birth registration, and he noted his dual citizenship.  Eventually, we were dropped off at the ride share area.

The Uber ride to RQS's place was quick, and the driver helped us deposit our bags at RQS's front door.  I was lucky - my legs weren't failing me, and I had all the strength I needed to get ALL our bags upstairs.  It was a long day, and I was glad it was finally over!

British Isles Cruise 2026 - Flying to London (08/23/26)

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The flight to London, I hope, would be the most troublesome thing to happen on this trip.  Not only were we exhausted by the time we got to the hotel, but we were both at the end of tolerance for the little things that can plague a traveler on a trip to Europe.

 

But first...

 

Our flight was scheduled to leave New York at 11:55 pm.  I chose this late departure knowing that the London hotel would be hesitant to release rooms to new check-ins until 3 pm local time.  (See: Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/13/24 (Flying into London before the cruise) to reference our prior experience at the Leonardo Royal Tower Hotel.  And I'm glad we did so, given the minor headaches (for young, able bodied people) we'd have to endure.

 

We left for the airport at 7:00 pm, and arrived shortly before 8:00 pm.  I figured that being 3 hours early for being loaded onto the plane would be prudent, and boy was I right!  RQS had forgotten where she put her cell phone/wallet, and had only her passport to identify her to authorities before the flight.  So, I told her that I could handle all of the credit charges and balance things out later on.  She was happy with me, but not with the situation.

 

Next, we had to go through TSA security, and that was our second speed bump.  I sailed through the Pre-Check process easily, while RQS ended up going through the "Untrusted Traveler" lanes. And that's when her cell phone/wallet was discovered - it was in her trouser pocket all the time, and she didn't even notice it.  

 

Now that we both felt some relief, we walked over to the gates serving Virgin Atlantic (a Delta Airlines code share partner), and took a seat.  After an hour, we got text messages: Our plane went from departing from gate A3 to departing from gate B30 - a 20 minute walk for young people, but not for 2 people whose average age was over 70.  Luckily I found a Delta airlines cart that would bring us to our gate. And that's where we sat for the next 45 minutes.  But then we received another text - our departure gate had changed back to A3.  So we had to ask a nearby Delta airlines gate agent for help - and just in the nick of time, as the cart stops running at 11:00 pm.

 

Returning to gate A3, we could now rest - if we could find an empty seat. We asked the gate agent if we could get on the plane early (they could see we both used canes) and it wasn't a problem.  So, when the plane was ready to be boarded, we were among the first 10 people to get in our seats.

 

 

 

The flight wasn't much to talk about, save that the seat wasn't that comfortable to sit on, but I did have adequate leg room.  By the time we arrived in London, my knees were telling me that they didn't want to be friends, but that eased off a bit when I started walking.  And I was grateful for that, as we had a lot of walking ahead of us.

 

I don't know how many of my readers have flown into Heathrow airport, but it is a long way from where the plane discharges passengers to where passport control and baggage claim is.  Luckily, unlike many American airports, they have long moving sidewalks along this path - a blessing for the two of us.  And then we hit our next speed bump - passport control.

 

We were selected to lanes where we slide our passports into a scanner, have our faces photographed and compared with the passport.  If all goes right, "Welcome to the UK!"  In both of our cases, we had trouble with the scanning process.  I was able to go through after several tries, where RQS needed help for this process.  And from there, we went to baggage claim, and out of the controlled area to meet the person who'd be driving us to our hotel,

 

It would have been a nice thing if I could remember the name of the driver who took us to the hotel, but other things were on my mind.  For the next 60-90 minutes, we had a nice chat, followed by hotel check-in.  After 30 hours of being awake, I finally was able to connect my CPAP machine and get several hours of needed nap time.    

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/29/24 (Southampton, UK - Disembarkation and our return home)

 

This is the day we hated most:  Returning to the UK, then flying home to NYC.  The above photo was taken on our way to Southampton, and was the start of an all day trek back home via sea, land and air.

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I'm a notoriously bad sleeper, and I was up around 5 am to see the ship making its way into port.  If there's one thing I enjoy about returning home from a cruise out of NYC, it has to be seeing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and Statue of Liberty at the break of dawn.  There is nothing like that coming into Southampton.  Instead, it is coming into a passenger terminal which is next door to a major shipping terminal.  There is not much to see on the way in or out of this place.

Once we were up for the day, we packed our remaining items and went down for our last breakfast on board the ship.  Both RQS and I had a filling meal, though not as much as we'd have eaten at the start of the cruise.  We were glad to be among the few people eating in the main dining room, as it was far from crowded.  I guess that most of the passengers (and dining room crew) were dealing with breakfast in the buffet.

We stayed in the dining room until just before our debarkation group was called, and then it was off the ship, through customs (no one checking who we were and where we were going), and then to the buses that would take us to Heathrow.  Due to traffic congestion, the driver took us on a roundabout back way to our terminal, and we were there before noon. 

Traveling in and out of Heathrow as an international passenger was a new procedure for both of us.  Unlike airports in the USA, the UK has no equivalent to the USA's trusted traveler system.  This means that everyone has to be prepared to take off all their jewelry, their belts, and (often) their shoes before going through security checkpoints.  Like the USA, all liquids must be in containers no more than 100 ml in size and fit into a 750 ml bag.  I only got snagged because of my shoes.  RQS got snagged due to a couple of items she forgot in her bag.  And this triggered a security search of her hand luggage.  Unlike the USA, UK's security people were polite about this issue, and went out of their way to make travelers like us know they were not trying to hassle us.

Once through security, the path to airport gates is through a shopping mall that makes what we have in the USA look like a quaint set of mom and pop stores.  If you want high end luxury items, they were for sale here.  If you wanted common consumer goods and souvenirs, they were for sale here too.  This is where I paid a premium to replace a USB-A to USB-C cable that fell apart earlier in the day.  We had 3 hours to kill, and 45 minutes of such were spent inside a sushi restaurant where we had a nice chat with a Brazilian waitress.  (Only in London or NYC!)  And then we waited around for our gate to be called.  Waited and waited and waited....  Eventually, our gate number was posted and we were off to wait to get on the plane.

We were given aisle seats in the back of the plane, and I knew that we had to be like gate lice to get advantageous storage space for our carry-on luggage in the cabin.  So we got ready to enter the boarding line as soon as our group number was called.  This proved the right thing to do, as RQS's bag would not properly fit in the shorter storage bin above the seats allotted to window-side seats.  (The economy class in this cabin was in a 2-4-2 seating layout.)  Luckily, RQS didn't have anyone next to her.  While I had a very nice and understanding gentleman to my side who tried to help me with several problems I was having with the Infotainment system on this airplane.

   

If I were running Virgin Atlantic, I'd have been embarrassed to fly passengers in this plane.  For example in the first picture above, one will easily see that the tray table is being held in place with some form of tape.  Why they didn't bother to fix the tray was a mystery to me, a mystery which could easily be explained by the Infotainment system available on the plane.  You'll note that there is no socket in which one could plug in a headset.  Yes, there is a USB-A port which I later used for charging.  But there is no headphone port in which I could connect a headset.  So, I asked a flight attendant for help.  And she didn't know where it was either.  Another attendant found it at the side of the armrest - right where many large passengers like me could never find it.  AARGH!   This is when I realized that the airline might have taken this old plane out of mothballs to service increased demand on their transatlantic routes.  (Kudos to the airline staff for trying to make this a pleasant trip for me.  Pitchforks for those in corporate management who would have passengers fly in this plane.)  For the most part, it was an uneventful flight to New York, save that it took 2 hours longer than the flight to London.  (Blame this on mother nature, and not the airline.)

Now, before I get too boring, I have to say that JFK airport (I prefer to call it by its old name, Idlewild) is a mess.  Like many airports, JFK is undergoing major renovations.  We knew that we'd have to take a free shuttle bus to the Uber/Lyft pick up lot at the outskirts of the airport.  What we didn't know is that we'd have to exit the plane and go down a narrow set of ramps onto the tarmac to take another bus to the customs/immigration section of Terminal 4 before we could pick up our luggage and journey home.  Even though this was a simple process, we were told that JFK is one of the few airports that does this half-assed process.  Other airports have planes "drive up" to the main terminal, then route passengers (using forms of barricades) to customs/immigration.  Eventually, we made it through the gauntlet (which wasn't bad, save for a slight misunderstanding I had due to lousy signage in the customs area) and out of the terminal.  

Getting from Terminal 4 to the pick up lot isn't bad.  However, the pea soup that was the air around the airport told us that a rain storm was coming.  We were very glad that the rain hadn't started yet, as we knew it was going to be a heavy downpour.  As we arrived at the pickup lot, I summoned a ride, and he was here 5 minutes later.  For a day that started at 5 am UK time (Midnight NYC time), we arrived at RQS's door at 9:45 pm, ready to pass out.  It felt good to get home before the storm hit....

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/15/24 (Leaving for Southampton and starting our cruise)

 

This was one of the most uneventful parts of our trip so far, and yet I feel that there is something important to note....

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London traffic makes New York, Chicago and Los Angeles traffic look like their drivers are running in the Indianapolis 500.  Given the distance between Heathrow Airport and London's central district, it took 2+ hours to reach out hotel.  Going to Southampton was worse, as it took 3 hours to reach the cruise terminal - an hour of that inside metropolitan London itself.  This is one city in which I never will under any circumstances drive any motor vehicle, nor should any one else do so unless s/he is a bus driver.

Arriving at the cruise terminal, I was impressed at how quickly we were processed, given that Princess Cruises' computers were acting up and that they both had to find our Medallions and warn us that our security photos might have to be retaken onboard the ship.  (We were lucky - we scanned onto the ship without problems.)

Our first stop was to our cabin, where we found a plate of chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us.  Once we watched the muster video, it was off to the grill for burgers and dogs before checking in at our muster station.  But this was not the only thing we had to do.  RQS had bought an extra pair of specialty dinners that were not being recorded on the folio.  First, we had to nap, as we were still suffering from disruption to our sleep schedules.

After our nap, it was off to the main dining room (MDR) for dinner, where we had an enjoyable chat with two families residing in the UK.  Towards the end of dinner, I got on my soapbox a little and mentioned that the populist, right wing, authoritarian trends we're seeing in the west shouldn't be unfamiliar, as they are the same as what happened in Europe in the 1920's and 1930's.  (RQS said that I didn't go too far or too heavy on the topic.)  Luckily, I didn't offend the families, as I was feeling no pain after two glasses of wine and a double espresso with two shots of Sambuca.

Finally, we were off to Guest Services, where our claim of having 4 paid for specialty dinners was confirmed.  We could now rest easily for the evening. And, boy did I need to rest - this was the first time I could say that I wasn't sober enough to drive in years.  I'm glad I left that task to the ship's captain....