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....

Getting ready to book a Norwegian Fjord cruise.

 

Norway, land of Fjords.  This country's natural beauty draws me to see it before several of the fjords are closed to conventionally powered cruise ships.  Having cruised Alaska when I was younger, I know the value of seeing a land with much awe inspiring scenery.  On this trip, RQS will be with me, and I will have someone special with whom I can share this experience and the memories that it brings long after the cruise is over.

Right now, RQS and I are finalizing key details for this cruise.  We expect to be able to spend a day with my niece before our cruise.  It will be the first time either of us has left North America (save for my trip to Hawaii), and I am a little bit nervous.  Europe is foreign to me, and cruising provides enough hand holding for me to see the sights where we're going without limiting my choices to an excessive degree.

One port that I intend to visit is Flaam. The main attraction for me is the railroad.  As I like to remind RQS, I've been interested in trains since I was a wee little child.  I can't wait to go on this train and see the sights. But there is so much more to see. So our task is to determine which shore excursions we really want to go on, and purchase them well before the cruise.

We've budgeted approximately $7,000 each for this trip.  Like many "Bucket List" journeys, it is expensive.  We could have chosen a cruise that starts in Southampton, sails for several days in Norwegian waters, and then goes to Iceland for a few days before returning to Southampton.  Instead, we've chosen a cruise that sails directly from its home port to Norway, and then oozes its way along the Norwegian coast and through its fjords before returning home.

Luckily, both of our passports have several years to go before renewal.  However, we do not yet know whether we will need UK and/or EU entry permits.  We asked our Travel Agent about this, and he has no answers yet for cruisers.  I figure that I'll pay the small price for both entry permits and drop a $20 bill to be safe....