2016/05 Europe cruise - Heathrow |
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Saturday May 21st
It was a noisy night with people moving luggage and others stumbling around, not sober yet. It was though a beautiful morning and we had time for breakfast before we had to vacate our cabin. Then the few of us that were left sat around waiting for our shuttle.
New guests were already arriving, eager to set off on their cruise to Amsterdam. Both manager Frank and program director Rob were going on vacation, so the return trip would probably have a different flavour.
Our shuttle driver scared us all by playing chicken with the taxi drivers at the airport. This was all for no purpose as we still had to wait in line for an hour before the check-in desk was allowed to open. We had just enough time for lunch. I tried to buy a tee-shirt but was told the till couldn’t open for another 15 minutes. Seems to be a little over-regulated.
At Heathrow we’d be starting the last ten days of our trip, a good point to wind up this part of the story.
So was the cruise a success? The cruise part definitely was; it’s a great way to travel without all the hassles of driving and parking and hotels and luggage. The size of the boat was about right; I don’t think an ocean cruise with ten times the number of people would have suited us. The excursions are a different matter; we enjoyed the free time when we were able to organize ourselves, but less so the organized tours. Certainly we could have done without some of the tours where we were competing with hundreds of others to see something. So would we do it again? Perhaps, but we’d want to do more of our own trip management.