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 - 06/28/24 (Zeebrugge, Belgium)

Today is our last stop in mainland Europe, and our last shore excursion.  We have been choosing relatively low energy shore excursions, as neither of us have the energy for strenuous activities such as mountain hikes or long bike rides.  We'll leave those activities for the younger folk.  One of the nice things about a 14-day cruise is that it filters out many younger people.  On 7-day cruises, we find a lot of families with young children.  Although most of these children are well behaved, a small few are not.  Most of these families cannot afford to take 2 weeks off for a cruise of this length.  So, they choose shorter cruises which fit their vacation needs.  However, this means that a higher percentage of older people (mostly in our age range) are onboard, and we've encountered many people with mobility problems.  Too bad that these people are often unable to get off the ship and enjoy many of the excursions available to the rest of us.

Our excursion for today was the Ghent By Canal Cruise.  Luckily, it was scheduled for the afternoon, as we ended up getting moving later than usual in the morning.  This would be our last breakfast in the buffet, and we both had hearty meals before our excursion.  We would both feel that this would be a blessing, as we didn't have another meal until we got back from the excursion 5 1/2 hours later.

Once on the tour bus, we were taken to Ghent, where we boarded a canal boat for a 60 minute tour.  We got the history of this city, and (maybe) a smidgen of a sunburn.  The tour guide told us that there would be a "Wow!" moment, and she was right.  There was a castle built along the canal that took us by surprise, and this was the WOW! moment she told us about.  Sadly, the above pictures cannot do this city justice, as I should have been shooting with a proper DSLR camera with appropriate lenses.  It is a place where one should spend several days to get the true vibe of the area.

Unfortunately, we could only spend 60 minutes walking around the city.  So we didn't go far from the canal boat that took us to the tour bus that returned us to the ship.  Even so, we were the last people to board the ship.  Once onboard, we picked up our "free" photos from the photo center, then went for dinner.  Sadly, both of us left our phones in the cabin to charge, and we were not able to get pictures of the pilot boat coming to the ship to guide us into Southampton harbor.

Once back in the room, it was time to finish packing our large suitcases and put them out for porters to deliver them to the pier tomorrow morning.  Sadly, our cruise has come to an end, and now it's time to go back to reality.

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/27/24 (Sea Day #5)

 

The last sea day of our cruise.  We have only one more full day after this for this cruise, and then we will be back in Southampton and on our way back to New York.  So, what did we do to start off this day? Laundry, of course!  After a week of cruising, we had enough dirty clothes to fill up the washing machine. Since neither of us wanted to fly back to NYC with a load of dirty laundry, we figured that it was time to kill some time and take care of this chore - just like several other people in the laundry room before us.

The Laundry room was crowded, and we experienced the same problem twice - both the washer and the dryer didn't register our first tokens being fed to the machines.  We had to call guest services to get help, and a gentleman came with extra tokens to be used in feeding the machines.  One wonders why they don't fix these machines in the first place.  But our place is not to wonder why.  Our place is to wash and dry.

After doing laundry, we went down to the shore excursions desk to get some of RQS's questions answered. And then, it was upstairs for burgers and fries.  Neither of us could finish what we ordered, as we've gotten tired of eating as much as we have been doing for the past two weeks.  So, it was back to our room, to rest until attending the Captain's Circle gathering for loyal Princess cruisers.

Around 5:00 pm, we started getting ready for the Captain's Circle gathering.  RQS looked nice in what she was wearing, while my jacket looked like it was hanging on a blob that looks like me when I'm in Mario mode.  It was nice to have a meet and greet with the staff, and I got a chance to chat with the fellow in charge of future cruise sales.  (Our booking was corrected.  Now to wait for this department on the mainland to call me back.)  Although it was a pleasant gathering with "free" drinks and canapes, we couldn't wait to go to dinner.

Tonight's dinner in the main dining room had surf and turf on the menu.  Since we already had too much to eat over the last few days, neither of us chose this option.  Instead, we both chose the Cornish game hen.  It was yummy.  But service was way too slow for our comfort, and we were about to leave just before our tea and coffee arrived.  Yet, we still ended up leaving without finishing our after dinner service, as both of us wanted to get comfortable again.

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/26/24 (Olden, Norway)

 

This is the view from our balcony this morning.  It's hard to believe how close we are to this town, given the ports we've been to on this cruise.  Mind you, we are still docked at a typical pier.  But this port seems much smaller than the ports we've been to in the past.  

Our plan for the day would be to eat a leisurely breakfast, take a shore excursions, then go back to the ship for dinner.  This would be our last day in Norway, so if we wanted to buy souvenirs, this would be the last chance to do so.  But who wants to buy overpriced Chinese-made tchotchkes just to have something that says "Norway" on them?  So we skipped the souvenir shop again and decided to go straight to the tour bus that would take us on the "Easy Nordfjord" excursion.

The Easy Nordfjord shore excursions is best described as a half-day bus trip through some of the most picturesque sites reachable from Olden.  There are several photo stops, as well as a snack provided at mid day.  Since the description can not do this excursion justice, I'll include a few of my photos taken while on this trip:

None of these pictures do the trip along "Panorama Drive" justice.  One could easily get hypnotized by the scenic beauty along the road, as the views were captivating.  Sadly, we had to return to the ship before 3:30 pm, and we made it with 15 minutes to spare.

Once back on the ship, we received a message - our Alaska cruise has been booked.  One problem: It was booked with the wrong fare rate.  Instead of being booked with a Princess Premier fare that includes a better drink package, a better internet package, and a slightly better dining package, we got the Princess Plus fare.  So, I tried to call the Future Cruises desk - with no success.  No one on the ship knew who we were trying to reach, and continued to send us to the wrong department.  (So much for people who do not speak English as a native language.)  So, I walked down to the department, and the gentleman there apologized for his error and sent in a request to Princess's main office in California to fix the reservation.  Of course, we'll end up seeing him again before the end of the cruise, as we both want a better explanation of the concierge package we bought while on the ship....