We had to fly west to eventually fly east but arrived too late at our layover to get a sit down dinner. We finally settled on Chick-Fil-A for the third day in a row. Even then, we were their last customer. We had planned to eat and grab a beer at our 8:30 pm layover instead of grabbing something to eat around 5 pm before our initial departure. Big mistake. All the restaurants had last call before we were able to deplane in Minneapolis for our 2 hour layover. Lesson learned!!
We were delivered dinner on the second leg of our flight but I slept through it. Yeah for some sleeping on the plane. 😴
We caught a tailwind and arrived 30 minutes early in London which put us ahead of schedule. Going through customs was a breeze.
We were escorted to the port by a 52 passenger bus (only 4 passengers 😂) and had plenty of room to spread out. I took a few pictures along the way. There were a lot of signs stating “sos” and a telephone symbol. Silly me- I thought they were being proactive about cell phone usage and they were offering pull off areas to stop and use your cell phone. Well, they were areas to stop and use cell phones if you were experiencing car trouble. There were many spots were along a 4 lane highway (each way) that didn’t have any shoulder space. Interestingly, there wasn’t much shoulder area along this stretch of the motorway (what we call highway). Signs told you about this but it took me awhile to grasp the idea. Another thing I observed was the few tunnels we went through. They went through hills not mountains and this kept the roads flat and even. Was this to support the owners fields or just an easy way to not build a road over hills? I am use to seeing tunnels under water or through mountains.
Does this sign means the speed is being monitored by cameras?
At the port we saw Amazon has a warehouse.
We arrived at our port terminal and I could not find my passport. What a panic I was in. I looked through all 3 pieces I was carrying 3 times pulling nearly everything out of each bag and couldn’t find it. I remember having it to scan at customs and sticking it quickly in a zippered pocket. Finally, (after I was beginning to tear up) I found it in my camera bag mixed with my camera manual. 😅 What a way to start my trip.
However, I wasn’t the only one having trouble. My sister-in-law and her husband came up right behind us to board the ship (we invited them to cruise with us) and they were the last to board! 😱 But they had their own troubles. Their luggage was still in Atlanta, so they had no luggage to be placed on the ship except what they carried with them. They arrived much earlier than us in London and had time to quickly shop for a few items that would carry them for two days at least before their luggage would catch up to the ship. There were others passengers that had luggage sitting in Atlanta as well! What a great first cruise experience for them. Needless to say, we all needed a drink once we settled into our rooms! Here is the view from our room balcony - The Thames River.
Welcoming champagne 🍾
We missed our safety meeting so we had to search the team out and satisfy that requirement Next, we found the welcoming reception and enjoyed the beverages and snacks. It was much needed by this time after our stressful adventures! We began our sailing down the Thames River.
Dinner was good. Fancy plates were set at the table but removed once were placed our orders. How odd. The food was delicious but we were looking for a buffet style restaurant and this was a sit down service. The hostess did mention there is a dress code (no jeans) but it was waved the first night. I told her their luggage didn’t arrive yet so there was an issue in that they had no other clothes to wear. We will look for a buffet restaurant in the future.
I forgot to take pictures of our main dishes but got the important ones. Dessert! Raspberry tartlet and Banana compote.
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