Updated 23 Sep, Day at sea and Skagen Day - Our extended family European Fantasy cruise. "Laundry and toilets and busses...Oh My!

[tkd lisa]

Well, we're back from our blow out European trip. Since there aren't a lot of reports from Europe I thought I'd share ours if people would be interested. Warning, there's a lot of trip coming! We did 3 days in Edinburgh pre-cruise, the 7 day cruise, and 3 days in London post-cruise.

First a bit of introduction.

The cast:

Me -trip planner and funder. I'm 60 (turning 61 the end of September, which was one of the 5 birthdays, 2 anniversaries, and one retirement this trip celebrated). It's my 6th disney cruise (yeah gold status). I've done quite a bit of European travel for work, plus a previous vacation to the uk in 2021 with my mom, aunt and uncle. This whole trip was to celebrate my retirement.

DM - 87 years old, 3rd disney cruise. Uses a wheelchair due to a heart problem which makes her tire very easily. She's been to Europe twice before. The previously mentioned uk trip with me, and a group tour way back in the late 90s.

DA - in her mid 70s, first cruise of any kind. DA was a late addition to the trip, and boy am I glad she came. She was also on the 2021 UK trip, and is married to my moms youngest brother. Her birthday was 2 days before the cruise, while we were in Edinburgh.

DS1 -33 years old, also 6th disney cruise. He's beginning to experience mobility issues from a still unknown source. They're thinking degenerative arthritis or gout, but he uses a cane. He and his spouse have no kids, and are happiest with small doses of the grandkids. They enjoy the interaction, but like their quiet time.

DS1S- spouse of DS1. Turning 35 just before me, birthday number 3. Plus this couple is one of the anniversaries, the day we disembark.

DS2 -turned 32 two days before we left - birthday number 4. Also 6th disney cruise. DS2 is a US Navy submarine, currently on shore duty after several years of deployments. He and his wife are also celebrating an anniversary.

DS2S - 34, 3rd disney cruise. Stay at home mom, homeschooling my grandkids, which is a full time job!

DGD - 9 years old, 3rd disney cruise. This one is a bundle of energy! She loves theater, mythology, history and reading. Hates math and writing. Enjoyed her freedom on the ship.

DGS - just turned 5, birthday number 5! He's on the autism spectrum, and was non verbal until about 18 months ago. But now you can't stop him talking! This was his first ever flight, and avoiding melt downs from over stimulation was one of our concerns this trip.

Here's the whole crew on embarkation day. Strap in for the ride!

 

[tkd lisa]

Just a bit about the title, plus some of the unique elements I'll cover in the report.

Laundry - as you can imagine 9 people over 14 days generate a lot of laundry. We had planned to use the laundry units in our London and Edinburgh apartments, plus the dcl laundry rooms to keep things manageable, but didn't expect this to become such a central theme. Stay tuned to see why.

Toilets- mid cruise we had a middle of the night near disaster which certainly made the highlight reel. Luckily no one and nothing was harmed!

And busses - you may have heard that there was a strike of the London tube workers. I didn't think it would affect us since we had mostly planned on busses due to mom's wheelchair. Spoiler a
lert, it did impact us.

I'll also talk about the impact of traveling with a wheelchair especially in the cities and tourist areas. Wheelchair was a close runner up for the trip title!

 

[iona]

And busses - you may have heard that there was a strike of the London tube workers. I didn't think it would affect us since we had mostly planned on busses due to mom's wheelchair. Spoiler alert, it did impact us.

I bet it did! We were in London on Monday (we’re local and knew that once we got off the train into the city we could get to the places we wanted to visit on foot). I commented to my husband what a nightmare it must have been for tourists. With no tubes all the buses looked VERY busy and even though pretty much every taxi driver was working extra hours an empty one seemed very hard to come by.

 

[tkd lisa]

Ready? Then here we GOOOO!

Our trip started August 27th, with three separate groups leaving different airports, meeting up in Philadelphia for our connection into Edinburgh scheduled for 7:20pm to 7:10am.

DA left Indianapolis at 11am, and was the first to arrive in Philly (around 1pm).

DS1 and his spouse flew out of Phoenix, which is where his in-laws live. They arrived in Philly around 4:30pm.

The main group flew from Tampa, leaving at 11, arriving at 1:30. Since there were 6 people plus luggage in our group, it took some planning. I packed up most of the luggage, DM (and her wheelchair), and DS2 and left the house at about 6:15. I took them into the terminal, to help with the luggage. Initial plan was for DM and DS2 to spend time in the USO lounge waiting on us, but the attendant said that there was a new policy that only military members were allowed. This wasn't a big deal for Tampa, but we had planned to utilize the Philly USO lounge to relax and catch a snack during our long layover. Stay tuned for that.

Next, I returned to pick up DS2's wife (hence known as DDIL - dear daughter in law), and the grandkids. We planned to park at an offsite extended lot because it was about $75 cheaper. Unfortunately I hit the unpredictable traffic that is becoming very common in Tampa. And since I was going against the pattern, the lights were not in my favor. I literally sat for almost 30 minutes trying to turn onto my main access road, within a half mile of my house! Given this challenge, and the travel time which was double what my 6:15 trip had taken, we called an audible and I parked in the Tampa economy lot. As a bonus for DGS, this meant a monorail ride over to the terminal which he loved.

-- Slight backtrack here -- As I mentioned in the introductions, DGS(5) is on the autism scale, and this was his first flight. In order to prepare him, we watched several videos, including the TSA one about going through security. But the absolute best prep was a video my DDIL found, called "Squeak's First Flight". With a human/puppet team, they explain how planes work, what to expect, and provide some great coping tools. I had also gone to the airport the day before and picked up a sunflower lanyard and requested priority boarding. Since DM needed this for the wheelchair, DDIL, DGS, and DM all were approved for the early boarding. Lastly, since DS2 is active duty military, he was eligible for precheck and took the kids and DM through that lane. -- Sidebar complete.

We made it to the airport, joined with DS2 and DM, and schlepped our way to the special services check-in. Big thanks to the team there. They got our 8 checked bags (including a collapsible wagon) checked, valet tagged DM's wheelchair and sent us on our way.

Next hurdle was actual boarding. As mentioned, DDIL, DM, and DGS went first. Then DS2 and DGD boarded with active duty military, leaving me to be tail end Charlie. Once on board, DDIL said the as they stepped onto the plane, DGS fell to the floor crying, stayed there a couple minutes, then said "Squeaks says it's okay to be nervous", and calmly walked to his seat! The flight was uneventful, other than the joy of watching DGS experience all the phases of flight. He loved looking out the window, and that cute little voice saying "here we go!" made us all giggle. He also got to see the effect of pressure on a sealed water bottle and thought that was really neat.

Once in Philly, DA met us and we went looking for the USO lounge. It was a pretty substantial walk, but DS2 went ahead and asked if we could all come in. They were kind enough to allow it, so we had a quiet place for a break. I have to give a big shout out to Wawa, which provided coffee, bottled drinks like tea, juice, and water, plus snacks.

Here's a picture of DGS playing with things from his activity pack in the USO lounge.

We stayed there a couple of hours, then headed toward our gate, and to meet up with the last 2 members of the party. According to google, there was a kids play area near our gate, but it had been closed during COVID and not re-opened. Slight disappointment over, we met up with DS1 and his spouse, got some quick food, and hung out to wait for our flight. A couple more pictures of the grandkids in the neat rocking chairs near the food court.



The boarding in Philly was absolutely RIDICULOUS! They were boarding multiple flights, and our flight was completely full. I wedged DM's wheelchair in near the door, and we planted the kids by her feet just to keep them safe. DDIL is subject to panic attacks, and crowds are one of her triggers, so this was quite challenging. We did all make it on board, and I had put the large group in the back of the plane, so that we would be out of everyone's way. DM and DA were on one side, and originally there was an empty middle seat. DA just switched with the middle seat person, so she could help with mom. I was on the other side with DDIL and DGS, while DS2 and DGD were the row in front of us. The other two were one cabin forward, and somehow their seats were separated, but they didn't care.

Flight was uneventful, but only DGS really slept. DGD got a couple of hours, no one else rested at all.

Next Chapter, Edinburgh Day 1!

 

[tkd lisa]

Arrival Day, 28 August, Edinburgh
Plans for Today:

Pick up Full Size Van Rental and visit the Kelpies and a local establishment where we could see Highland Cattle (aka Hairy Coos), then check in to the apartments, get groceries, and DS2 and DDIL had an evening tour scheduled exploring underground vaults?

I had never driven on the left side of the road, but my Mom’s #1 request for Scotland was to see the Kelpies, and the only way there was either a private tour or a rental vehicle. This also gave us a place to keep our luggage until we could get into the apartment at 4pm.

It took us about an hour to get through customs and get our luggage. We had a great person from special assistance helping with Mom’s wheelchair, and he took us all the way down to the rental car center, which was probably ¾ of a mile all the way at the end of the airport.

We waiting about another hour to get through the rental car line, and out to the van. Miraculously, all of our stuff fit into the Renault van, we plugged in our phones to provide Android Auto and off we went.

First stop, the Kelpies. For those who haven’t heard of this, it’s a large set of sculptures on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Website for more information here https://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/the-helix-home-of-the-kelpies-p889261

It took us about 45 minutes to get to the site, and we all went into the visitor’s center, and took a group photo outside.


There’s a small fee for a tour inside one of the actual Kelpies, and all but DS1 and his spouse opted to do this. It was extremely interesting! Apparently there is an adventure company that hosts periodic “free climbs” inside the other Kelpie a few times a year. From this picture, you can see how it could be done, but that’s not something on my “to do” list!

A shot inside during the tour.



And the group afterwards. You can see that the weather was turning blustery!



Next we loaded back into the van and headed to Swanston Farms where we were looking to see the Hairy Coos. During our 2021 trip, DA was fascinated with the cows, and we were finally able to see them in a field during our return from the Isle of Skye. The grandkids had been studying all things Scotland and London before the trip, and really wanted to get close.

It took us another 45 minutes or so to transit to Swanston Farms (link here https://swanston.co.uk/home/the-farm/ ), and by the time we got there, we had entered a pretty strong drizzling rain. Not a Florida downpour, but we were all tired and grumpy, and the roads back in this area were pretty tiny. DGS had actually fallen asleep, but we opted to wake him up since the cows were one of his requests.

We parked in the carpark, and a short scenic walk led us to these gorgeous creatures!



I had texted the apartment manager to see if we could possibly access the apartment early because we were all pretty beat. Unfortunately they were still cleaning, so we ended up getting something to eat at the Country Club restaurant associated with Swanston Farms (they had a golf course as well). Not the greatest food, but they accommodated 9 people on no notice, and helped me find a petrol station and a place to pick up a few groceries for dinner!

By the time we got groceries, it was nearly 3pm, so we headed into downtown Edinburgh. I will just say that we made it through the narrow streets without any permanent mishaps, and pulled up at our apartment building (5 Hill Street) just after 4pm. The whole crew poured out and hauled all of our stuff up the stairs to the two apartments we had reserved on the 1st floor.

Another slight side note. Destiny Apartments Scotland managed this, which I got through Booking.com I was very happy with their service. If you are going to Edinburgh, I highly recommend them. You can look them up online, and the accommodations were exactly as stated. You’ll hear a bit more later, as their manager Mina helped me plan our return to the airport.

I then strapped back in to return the van to the airport, which was fairly easy. I did navigate incorrectly which put me through the passenger drop off, incurring an additional 6 pound fee. When I turned in the rental, the check in guy was chatting about my experiece driving such a vehicle in a strange place. He came around the side of the van and said with a straight face “well, I’m sorry to say that you smashed it.” In my exhausted state, I was like “What????” and he laughed and said “just teasing you. You did an excellent job”.

Here’s a photo of me on the return tram from the airport. I think you can see the strain of the trip. After my arrival, I put together some spaghetti for the crew. DS2 and DDIL headed out to their evening appointment, which they said was excellent.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

I used to live in Edinburgh and I worked in Hard Rock Cafe on Georges Street which is down the street from where you stayed. I love reading trip reports about places I know very well

 

[tkd lisa]

I used to live in Edinburgh and I worked in Hard Rock Cafe on Georges Street which is down the street from where you stayed. I love reading trip reports about places I know very well

Stay tuned. We had tea at the dome, right next to the hard rock! Thanks for replying.

 

[tkd lisa]

Day 2, Edinburgh – August 29th

We all had a good nights sleep in our two apartments at 5 Hill Street. A quick note about them, and the first mention of our “fun with laundry”.

I knew that we would have steps at this location. I had contacted the apartment manager in advance, asking to be on as low a floor as possible. They accommodated us with a one and two bedroom unit on the 1st floor (for American’s this is the 2nd floor, up one flight of steps from the entrance door). The one bedroom unit was all on the same level, so I put DM and DA in that unit, along with DS1 and DS1S. They had the most limited mobility of the group.

The rest of our group was in the 2 bedroom next door. This unit was actually on 3 levels. The door entered into a hallway, which acessed the kitchen/dining/living room area, and the primary bedroom. Steps went up to the full bathroom, and down to the 2nd bedroom.

Both units had a compact kitchen with fridge, oven, microwave, hob (a rangetop for us American’s), a dishwasher and a combined washing unit. There was also a kettle and espresso maker, with a few individual tea, coffee, milk and sugar packets. Reasonable dishes, cookware and kitchen supplies were also provided, and everything was spotlessly clean.

As I mentioned, I had made spaghetti the prior evening, and DS1 and I each threw a load of laundry into our units. I switched it onto “dry” mode the 2nd morning, and DS1 mentioned that it had taken 2 cycles to get things dry. I switched to what I thought was a high heat dry, but it ended up washing the clothes a 2nd time! Laundry fail #1.

As morning arose, DS1 and I headed out to a local small grocery to pick up more supplies. I brought back mostly breakfast things, plus some chicken, vegetables and a seasoned rice packet to cook that evening. Everyone was stirring by this time, and we began to execute the day’s plans.

Before the trip, I had committed to providing my party with the equivalent of city passes in London and Edinburgh, but let each group decide exactly how they wanted to use the allotment. For Edinburgh, the plans were:

Royal Edinburgh Pass (access to Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh Castle, Yacht Brittania, and 2 day hop on bus) - me, DM, DA, DS1, DS1S.

DS2’s family opted just for access to Edinburgh Castle plus a one day hop on bus pass. They planned on more of the free options in Edinburgh, plus DS2, DDIL, and DGD had planned a one day tour to the highlands for the 2nd day in Edinburgh. DGS was essentially under the cut-off for free access to everything.

Given these arrangements, DS2’s family had Edinburgh Castle access for 10:30 this morning, while the rest of us had to activate our Royal Edinburgh passes. This group headed to Waterloo Station, which ended up being about a mile walk, while DS2’s family finished breakfast and headed to the hop on bus en route to the Castle.

The large group was scheduled for a 11:30 castle access after some challenges with getting 5G service to activate our pass. We caught the hop on bus and got off at the castle stop. This was the first real wheelchair challenge. This area of Edinburgh is under renovation, and access to high street and the castle was through a covered walkway which was just barely wide enough for the chair. Unfortunately, the flooring was quite uneven, and I often had to reverse the chair in order to get through, and there was only one or two “passing” areas for a 3-4 block stretch. This led to a few challenges when people were coming the other way, but we made it through.

We split and did some souvenir shopping, then met at the castle entrance. I knew from our 2021 trip that the staff would provide an aide car to take our less mobile folks up to the top of the castle. Mom, DS1, and DS1S took advantage of that, while DA and I hiked up to the top. I contacted DDIL to find that they were about halfway through the child’s scavenger challenge, and the kids were enjoying it greatly.

At the aide car drop off, DS1 and DS1S decided to split off, do as much as they could handle then get the aide car back to the entrance. DM, DA, and I pushed up to the top level where the Scottish Crown jewels were, and the staff escorted us to the handicapped access lift. We enjoyed the jewels, then saw the armory before deciding to move down to the next level and meet up with DS2’s family. Some photos of us here.




DS2’s family crossed over our paths, and continued up to complete their scavenger hunt before heading back to the hop on bus for their next journey. During my previous trip, I had bought DGD a book about Greyfriar’s Bobby. If you haven’t heard the story, Bobby is a dog who patrolled Greyfriar’s Cemetery for a number of years. There’s a statue to him near the castle bus stop, and at his cemetery location, children bring sticks for him to play with. Both grandchildren had picked out a stick from home for Bobby, so they got a picnic meal to enjoy while giving Bobby his sticks. After that, they found a playground, and finished the round trip bus tour before coming back to the apartment around 7:30pm.



The rest of the group met back up at the Castle bus stop, finished the bus route, and found a local restaurant for lunch. This first day was a pretty good indication of how our touring ended up going. The weather was clear and crisp in the morning (shirtsleeve weather for this Floridian), but turned overcast and rainy by mid-afternoon. DM and DS1 were about out of energy by the time the weather switched, so we tried to wind down by then.

DA and I did a bit of walking around, and she bought souvenirs' for her family. I cooked up the chicken and side dishes for the larger group, and we realized that seasoning was definitely lacking. Meanwhile, I discovered that I had re-washed that load of clothes, and did two separate drying cycles, trying to get things at least to a “damp” level of dryness. I ended up pulling the kids clothes and shirts out and hung them around the apartment while trying another cycle with the socks and undies (laundry fail #2).

DS2’s family came home having picked up supplies for their Highland’s day trip the next day, and we all went to bed.

Up next, Yacht Brittania, and “oh, that’s why these things aren’t getting dry!”

 

[tkd lisa]

Day 3, August 30th, Edinburgh

Once again I was up early, and saw DS2, DDIL and DGD off to their Highland’s trip. They had booked this to be able to see Loch Ness, Glen Coe, and Ben Nevis. Essentially DM, DA and I had seen those things on our trip to/from the Isle of Skye back in 2021, and we agreed it was a great opportunity for them. But spending nearly 7 hours on a bus was probably not a recipe for success for the autistic DGS 5 year old, so he stayed with Grammy for the day. This was also DA’s actual birthday so DM and I serenaded her!

DS1 and DS1S had originally thought they’d go out to the Botanical Gardens on this day, but decided to switch to Holyrood Palace, then hit the Gardens later if they had the energy. They ended up just doing Holyrood, but had a wonderful visit.

DM, DA, DGS and I then made our way to the hop on bus’s blue route, which headed to Yacht Brittania (after I started ANOTHER dryer cycle to get the still wet socks and undies a bit more dry). We eventually found the right spot (after a bus passed by us standing about 2 blocks away), and we made our way to Yacht Brittania after a pretty tour through the outskirts of Edinburgh and the port of Leith.

Picture on the bus.


Note that the trip took nearly 45 minutes, and the botanical gardens were fairly small, so it was probably better that DS1 decided on the palace.

The kid friendly element of the Yacht Brittania is a Corgi hunt. DGS was instructed to count the stuffed Corgi’s and if he gave the right number at the exit, he’d receive a prize. Given the challenges of navigating a wheelchair in the limited spaces, we ended up skipping about ½ of the onboard locations, which meant that we found 10 Corgi’s. DS reported his answer, and received several Corgi stickers for his scrap book. He was happy, it kept him occupied, so all is well.
A few pictures from the Yacht.


After the 45 minute plus return journey which dropped us at the route’s starting point, I took DM back to the apartment for a rest. I went down to the apartment management office which was a few blocks away to finalize things for our checkout. I confirmed that they had a place to store our luggage, and discussed our transit to the airport with their manager Mina. She suggested that we call a taxi for the mobility challenged portion of our group (DM, DS1, DDIL, and DGS), and walked me through the process. That left the rest of us to schlepp our luggage via the airport tram. I spent about 40 minutes doing what seemed to be 3 dimensional chess in order to ensure that we had enough hands to pull all the bags, and the plan was finalized!
The weather had turned rainy again, but DGS and I headed to the National Museum to spend some time. This was essentially all the different elements of the Smithsonian under one roof. We spent time in the space exhibit and the energy exhibit. DGS was pretty freaked out by the dinosaur section (surprisingly), so we just skipped past that. When asked afterward what was the best, he said “seeing the giant deer”, so that’s the photo I’ve included.



Back to the apartment, we basically cleaned up the left-overs. By this time, I realized “hey, why am I fighting this drying unit. There’s one in the other apartment?” So I split the stuff up, took the wettest stuff over to the 1 bedroom, tried one more run in our dryer”. When DS1 told me their cycle was done, I grabbed the stuff and said “oh, it’s actually WARM!” Maybe the heating element is out in our unit. Guess that’s why it’s not drying!” (resolution of Laundry failure).
Up next – Edinburgh Zoo, Tea at the Dome, and transition to Southampton.

 

[tkd lisa]

Before finishing up our Edinburgh portion, I thought of a few trip report sidebar things worth talking about, so I figured I'd include them here.

Wheelchair/accessibility notes.

In Edinburgh as well as London, accessibility is seriously limited. Most sidewalks are some type of cobblestone or pavers rather than smooth concrete, and even if there are curb ramps at the street, they are VERY bumpy/rough. I couldn't begin to count the times I had to do a 180 to go up the ramp backwards. And don't get me started on the big gouges/divets/cracks that seemed to always catch the front wheels just when you didn't expect it. As well as completely OBLIVIOUS people who literally walked straight into the wheelchair, or blocked our only pathway. As the time went along, DM began obnoxiously saying "beep beep", or "EXCUSE ME", and on one notable occasion in London screamed "expetive, expletive would you just MOVE!" at a group of business men just milling in the center of the sidewalk.

One other element is that none of these surfaces was level. At first, I thought Mom was just sitting in the chair crookedly, but it was that everything was on a slight lean. After the first full day, I ended up mostly able to "read" the terrain, which avoided most of the unexpected impacts (e.g. shaking mom so that she pitched forward in the chair), so I was the designated wheelchair pusher. We found the seat belt that was attached to the chair, and it was required in a few steep places. Mom began calling the cobblestones "her personal massage", but dealing with this was very tiring for her. Even though she was sitting, she was constantly tensed up, trying to prepare for a potential bump or jerk.

There were several areas where the only real option was for Mom to stand up and walk a few steps while I hauled the chair up over the inaccessible spots. Outside our Edinburgh apartment, she would walk across the street to the other side which was flatter because the cobblestones were so uneven I literally had to carry the chair across. For anyone unable to walk at least 30-50 steps, or climb at least one set of stairs at a slow pace, I strongly encourage you to work with a specialist tourist agency who handles accessibility challenges.

Using busses was a 3 person exercise. I'd push mom to the door, DA would help DM up the step and to a seat while I lifted the folded wheelchair into the allocated space. A few times, people were in that space, and on one occassion I had to remind them the wheelchairs have the priority there.

On the plus side, people were often kind. Particularly at Edinburgh Castle, where I was maneuvering her chair backwards down a 20 degree cobblestone pathway, people helped take some of the load by holding her chair arms. And the attraction employees at a number of places (specifically Edinburgh Castle and Kensington Palace) went out of their ways to find the easiest routes for us.

Overall, I gained a new understanding of the challenges many people have. I promised myself to be more alert for wheelchairs when I'm in busy crowded spaces, and I ask you to think of that as well.

Finances:

Because we were going to be utilizing so many different currencies this trip, I did some preparation. I had traveled frequently for work, and about 4 years ago discovered the Wise card. It's a multi-currency Visa backed card which kind of works like a pre-paid debit card. But it seamlessly moves between currencies and incurs no transaction fees. Each person got an account, and loaded money into pounds and Euros. As an unexpected benefit, rather than trying to split checks in restaurants, I was able to split the bill through the wise app. When a charge came in, it would allow me to send a request to others for their portion of the bill, and the money seamlessly came back to me. No making change, no figuring exchange rates, easy peasy. I'm sure there are other similar cards, but I highly recommend it, especially if you are going with a group.

Edited to add another section:
Booster Seats - Once I decided I was going to get a rental van in Edinburgh, I had to make a decision about car seats. DGD (9 years old but still hovering around 40ish pounds) technically is under the weight limit and should be in a booster, but because of her height, a booster shoves her into the front seats, so she's just worn a seat belt for about the last year. But DGS5 still uses a booster regularly. I found an inflatable booster that squeezes down to about the size of a large travel pillow, so that went in my backpack for the trip. We used it in all of the planned car trips, although we didn't have it for the unplanned taxi rides. None of the drivers said anything about it, so we just buckled him in for those shorter, generally low speed trips. But I felt it was worth the investment, and would recommend using an inflatable rather than taking up the space of a regular booster seat.

That's the sidebar for now, but if I think of anything else, I'll edit this post in order to keep the trip report portion focused.

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

Before finishing up our Edinburgh portion, I thought of a few trip report sidebar things worth talking about, so I figured I'd include them here.

Wheelchair/accessibility notes.

In Edinburgh as well as London, accessibility is seriously limited. Most sidewalks are some type of cobblestone or pavers rather than smooth concrete, and even if there are curb ramps at the street, they are VERY bumpy/rough. I couldn't begin to count the times I had to do a 180 to go up the ramp backwards. And don't get me started on the big gouges/divets/cracks that seemed to always catch the front wheels just when you didn't expect it. As well as completely OBLIVIOUS people who literally walked straight into the wheelchair, or blocked our only pathway. As the time went along, DM began obnoxiously saying "beep beep", or "EXCUSE ME", and on one notable occasion in London screamed "expetive, expletive would you just MOVE!" at a group of business men just milling in the center of the sidewalk.

One other element is that none of these surfaces was level. At first, I thought Mom was just sitting in the chair crookedly, but it was that everything was on a slight lean. After the first full day, I ended up mostly able to "read" the terrain, which avoided most of the unexpected impacts (e.g. shaking mom so that she pitched forward in the chair), so I was the designated wheelchair pusher. We found the seat belt that was attached to the chair, and it was required in a few steep places. Mom began calling the cobblestones "her personal massage", but dealing with this was very tiring for her. Even though she was sitting, she was constantly tensed up, trying to prepare for a potential bump or jerk.

There were several areas where the only real option was for Mom to stand up and walk a few steps while I hauled the chair up over the inaccessible spots. Outside our Edinburgh apartment, she would walk across the street to the other side which was flatter because the cobblestones were so uneven I literally had to carry the chair across. For anyone unable to walk at least 30-50 steps, or climb at least one set of stairs at a slow pace, I strongly encourage you to work with a specialist tourist agency who handles accessibility challenges.

Using busses was a 3 person exercise. I'd push mom to the door, DA would help DM up the step and to a seat while I lifted the folded wheelchair into the allocated space. A few times, people were in that space, and on one occassion I had to remind them the wheelchairs have the priority there.

On the plus side, people were often kind. Particularly at Edinburgh Castle, where I was maneuvering her chair backwards down a 20 degree cobblestone pathway, people helped take some of the load by holding her chair arms. And the attraction employees at a number of places (specifically Edinburgh Castle and Kensington Palace) went out of their ways to find the easiest routes for us.

Overall, I gained a new understanding of the challenges many people have. I promised myself to be more alert for wheelchairs when I'm in busy crowded spaces, and I ask you to think of that as well.

Reading your trip report and having lived in both London and Edinburgh, Im just like OMG, you poor things. Local people dont do all that hauling on the pavements. We drive or use taxis , as like you discovered the streets and pavements are just not wheelchair friendly. Thats why people were so kind to you, people they could tell you were tourists and not locals. There are specially converted wheelchair taxis everywhere. In Dublin we have an APP called Free Now, similar to UBER but for normal taxis and you can pre book a wheelchair taxi. Its been a few years since I was in Edinburgh, so Im not sure if Free Now works there, but people who need wheelchair taxis just know how to contact them and book them.

 

[tkd lisa]

Day 4, Transition from Edinburgh to Southampton, August 31
Today was our last day in Scotland. I have to say I truly enjoy Scotland. Once again I can say that I’d go back again in a heartbeat. I did want to include a picture that shows the uneven sidewalks I discussed in the last section. This one was taken as we exited the enclosed walkway by Edinburgh Castle.


Plans for today:
DS2 and family were going to the Edinburgh Zoo.
The rest of the group had reservations for tea at the Dome in the Georgian Hotel in Downtown Edinburgh. This was another DM request because we hadn’t been able to find a good tea during our 2021 trip since COVID had shut down many restaurants. I had made the reservations about 5 months before the trip.

We were all supposed to meet at the rental property management office at 3pm, for a 3:20 cab pickup for part of our group. The remainder of us would tram to the airport with luggage for our 6:20 flight to Southampton.
We had 3 rooms reserved at the Premier Inn Southampton City Centre, and I planned on catching cabs to get there once we arrived.

Overall everything went as planned. This may be the time to note that although our apartments were very well situated, and meet our needs, we did have quite a bit of noise around bartime on both Friday and Saturday nights. Saturday night there was a very robust argument outside our windows that actually sounded like it might turn violent. Several other families who were staying in the building mentioned it as well.

DS2’s family was packed out, and headed to the public transit stop by about 8:30 after DS2 helped me take about half the luggage down to store it in the management office. Once the rest of the group had finished breakfast, DA helped me take the remaining luggage down, and we all gathered in the 1 bedroom unit until check out time so that the cleaning crew could get started.

Today was the chilliest morning we had, although the sun was shining. Our tea reservation wasn’t until 12:30, so we split up into smaller groups to check out some of the shops. Here’s a good shot of me and DM just enjoying the sunshine while we waited.



The Georgian Hotel is next door to Edinburgh’s Hard Rock location (including this for you Bad Pink Tink!), and the entryway had about 8 steps up. I went in to see where the accessible entrance was, and the maitre d’ helped me understand how to make the external lift work (more to come on that).


Here's a picture in the beautiful lobby, where Mom and I waited for the rest of the group to catch up.



I also took advantage of a very fancy bathroom! Not something I typically take pictures of, but this was pretty snazzy.



Here’s a shot of our excellent selection of food.



Once our bellies were all full, we exited the hotel. Unfortunately, the straightforward external lift decided to malfunction. Mom and I were wedged in the carriage, and it was beeping frantically, stopped at the bottom but with the door locked. DA went back for help from the hotel staff who eventually just wrenched the door open saying “sometimes it does that!” By this time, the afternoon drizzles were starting, so we went back to the management office to wait.

Once the cab got there, and everyone was loading up, we had one more almost disaster. DS1 was in the taxi, I was coordinating luggage and I heard “Mom, come quick! Grandma just fell!” DM decided not to wait for assistance into the van, and slipped on the running board. Thankfully she just basically sat down. She didn’t hit her head or twist anything, and actually got away with just a couple small bruises.
Everyone re-joined at the airport, where we went in to find the Logan Air gate. This is a small commuter airline, and as we were doing check in, I realized that their baggage policy was a bit unique. Rather than check in/carry on bags, they had overall weight limits. I was pretty concerned that this was going to be a problem, but once again the kindness of the locals came to play. I went to the counter, said “we’ve got a large group of 9 people with a lot of luggage, a wheelchair, and some special needs. Please help me find the best way to handle this”. Our gate agent just averaged out the weight of all the bags, tagged the wheelchair stuff, and called it good! I gave them really high reviews in the survey they sent me.

This plane was the type with an external stair for entry, which DM could not accomplish. So they actually loaded her via the catering system. She rode up in the elevator that they use to load the drinks, and we did the same thing in reverse in Southampton. Pretty slick.

Our last view of Edinburgh was this beautiful rainbow outside the plane window.


Once in Southampton, I went to the taxi window, and a lovely lady named Deborah got us set up with two vehicles to our hotel, plus arranged for transit to the cruiseport the next morning. I had apparently booked two double rooms plus one family room, and DS2 and his family got one of the doubles initially. I just took the kids in with Mom, DA, and myself. I slept in the middle of the kids (which had two twins shoved together), and when I got up to use the bathroom, I came back to this!



I just shoved a space in the middle, and everyone crashed until morning.
Up next ... Embarkation Day. What this trip report is really supposed to be about!

 

[tkd lisa]

Disney Cruise – Embarkation Day 1 September
I was up fairly early, and checked in with DS1 to see how they were doing. When I booked the rooms I had pre-paid for 2 breakfast buffets, assuming this was going to be me and DM. But DM was still resting, and she and DA both take thyroid medicine which requires fasting for an hour afterward. DS1 and DS1S were awake and hungry since they hadn’t eaten the previous evening. The rest of us had shared an order of pizza hut which absolutely hit the spot. So I added one more cold breakfast buffet, and the three of us filled up before returning to our rooms to finalize packing. I did grab some cereal and fruit to share out with the others in the room and tide us over until the embarkation lunch.

A quick aside about the hotel. I mentioned it was the Premeir City Centre. About 6 weeks ago I had gotten an email informing me that the air conditioning was broken, but given the temperatures and short time in the hotel, I didn’t think it was worth looking for a new place. In general, the only one affected was DS2 and DDIL. Their room was 2 floors down from us, but for some reason, it was quite a bit warmer. There were fans in all the rooms, and they opened the windows but it was probably almost 80 degrees F at about 10pm when we were finishing our pizza.

Check in was also a zoo. It’s essentially an automated system, and when DS2 and the family arrived, they needed my passport information to get into the system, so they just waited with the kids for about 20 minutes until the 2nd group arrived. Once there, it took me almost another 20 minutes to push through all of the steps. I had hit the “request help” button because I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. Someone finally showed up about 15 minutes into the process, by which time I was activating room keys. We supposedly activated two keys for each room, but only one ever worked, which was very stressful since you needed a key to get the elevator, plus a key in the room to make the lights work.

Overall, I’d say this hotel was just okay. There were LOTS of cruise guests staying there. The lobby was completely JAMMED when we left, with probably 15 different groups awaiting taxi’s to the port. There were a lot of cruise ships (I think they said 6) in the port. At the same time, people who had disembarked were arriving, and trying to get someone to store their luggage. Given the limited staffing, this just added to the chaos. Our two pre-booked taxi’s arrived as scheduled, we loaded everyone up, and headed to the port.

A short (10-15 minute) cab ride later, we all met up in our boarding lane. As has been mentioned by others, Southampton is essentially a self-porter location. They had carts available for use, and you just dropped everything before entering the queue. I honestly didn’t think there was a problem with it. I left DM at the queue entrance along with DA, and headed to pick up DGS since he was booked in a room with us.

Typical security, and easier access to the elevator than I experienced in Port Canaveral, we hit the bathroom, then checked in. Quick shot of DGS with some of the Disney signage, and a boarding picture of the group.







It was a pretty long switchback laden walkway to get on board, but then we were being announced. We had already agreed to split up for lunch. DS1 and DS1S headed to the sit down lunch, DS2 and family went up to Cabanas, and DM, DA and I made our way a bit more slowly to the sit down lunch. DM is pretty strongly against Cabanas on embarkation day because of the congestion and how it affects her in a wheelchair. We ended up sitting directly next to DS1 so we were able to set up our family chat in the DCL app.

By this time, the rooms were open, so we headed that way. My group was next door to DS2’s family in forward verandah rooms (6032/6034), and it turned out the rooms were connecting, which was very helpful this trip. We had been used to opening the verandah wall, but since the weather wasn’t Caribbean-like, having an internal door made things a bit easier. DS1/DS1S were on the opposite hallway, which gave them their space. For some reason, DS2’s baggage arrived quickly, but the rest of us waited until after the safety drill to get most of our stuff.

Laundry Fail #2, part 1. The one suitcase that had been delivered happened to be the one with the dirty clothes, mostly pants and heavier shirts that we couldn’t run in the apartment unit. I took it to the Deck 6 room, and discovered that many other people had apparently done some pre-cruise touring and had the same idea. Every machine on the ship was full, so I just took it back to the room. After dinner I ran it back over and loaded up the washers. I THOUGHT I had done things right, but when I went to move things into the dryer, our detergent sheet hadn’t dissolved which I thought was weird. As I watched the next person load up the washers I had used, I realized “hey I never pressed the start button”. So essentially everything had just rinsed. By this time all the machines were in use, and our stuff was drying. When I pulled it out, I did a sniff test, putting about half of it back in the bag to do later. To be continued!

Our safety station was the Walt Disney Theater, which is really nice. This is where we realized how “unfilled” our cruise was compared to our previous experience. We were told it was about ¾ full. Previously the theater seats have been pretty much full for the drill, and this time, it was more like 40%. This played out through the cruise, with the benefit of being able to walk in and get seats for shows right before they started. In our prior cruises if you weren’t in the theater 30 minutes early, you didn’t see the show.

After the drill, most of us went to the DVC welcome reception. DS2 was picked to be one of the team leaders, and was pretty funny. Given his deployment schedule, he’s probably had the least experience with using my DVC, but he did get the swag, which was why he volunteered.



By this time, we were ready for our first dinner (early seating). The dining info in the app seemed a little odd. It showed up having something like 3 nights in Enchanted Gardens, with only one night in Royal Court. We started in Animators’ Pallet, and met our team of Suharda and Paul. They were GREAT! In fact, I told them they were the best team I’d had in 6 cruises, and I really meant it.

The kids were more than ready to get into kids’ club (it hadn’t been open before dinner), so they went there after they finished eating. I finished unpacking, did the previously mentioned laundry (not really!) then picked up DGS. DS2 and DDIL hit the first of the evening entertainments, and we all were asleep by around 11. As an aside, DGD was given sign out privileges in the club as long as she texted the family when she left the club, and complied with her curfew. Overall, this worked out for her, giving her some freedom combined with responsibility.

 

[tkd lisa]

Cruise, Brugges Day September 2
This was our first port day, and we were going to be docking near Blankenberge Belgium for our port call in ZeBrugge/Bruge. DS2’s family had booked a walking tour and canal boat excursion in Brugge through Get Your Guide, but the rest had no plans. I had tried to limit our activities to avoid wearing out my mom.

Again, I was up early, and headed up to Cabanas at opening to bring back food for the group. DS1 met me up there, and said they were just going to take the Disney shuttle into the local town and look around. I asked him to take DA with them, so they made plans to head off after all of the excursions left.

A quick aside back to our dining team. On the first night we asked for some fruit for the kids to start, and they quickly brought bowls of cut watermelon and had them waiting for us every following night which helped stave off the immediate “I’m starving”! Cries from the kiddo’s. They also brought our preferred drinks out right away, without asking. We also asked for a couple of “to-go” chocolate milks to carry over DGS. On previous cruises, I’d bring back cartons of milk and cereal, as well as some cut up fruit and keep it in our stateroom refrigerator. For this cruise, Disney wasn’t able to have the individual sized servings. But our assistant server Paul provided those two chocolate milks every evening, which got us through to breakfast. This kind of attention to detail is one of those things that makes the server interaction so great, and I really appreciated it.

Back to 2 September.... DS2’s family had ordered a variety of room service items, and that along with the platter I brought ended up feeding the group. DM and I headed off to the tube for a trivia session. We didn’t do so great, but it filled the time. I did get a picture of a fairly empty atrium.



The local group (DA, DS1, DS1S) got back aboard ship, saying it was a pretty small town, with just a few shops. We had all wanted to get Belgian chocolate, but they had a hard time finding it. DS1 did find their favorite UK chocolate, and reminded me that DS2 really loved Curly Wurly bars. Back when my kids were in high school, our favorite snacks were to find local candies in each of the EPCOT countries. The UK was the best, and I used to be able to find some of the stuff at World Market before they closed.

DM, DA, and I hit Royal Court for lunch, and it had a much better selection than embarkation day. DA headed up to the hot tub, DM went back to the stateroom and I took the shuttle into town. As noted, there wasnt a lot of shops open, but I did find a chocolate shop and picked up a box for Mom’s neighbor, along with a magnet. And off the beaten path, I walked into something that we’d refer to as a Dollar Store, and scored a couple of Curly Wurly Bars! Some pictures from my wandering (including the Penguin cafe that I thought DDIL would like because she’s a huge penguin fan).



DS2’s family did a walking tour of Brugges, followed by a canal boat road. They were able to watch chocolates being made, which they said was interesting. They got some local waffles, then came back to the boat.

As we were heading out of port, the Captain announced that due to bad weather we weren’t going to make it to Amsterdam the next day as planned. Instead we’d have a sea day, then move into a new port (Skagen) in Denmark. DS2’s family had planned to use an Amsterdam gocity pass, and the rest of us had scheduled a visit to the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem. I managed to cancel our stuff, but DDIL struggled with the GoCity people who weren’t willing to refund/cancel. She spent most of dinner on what’s app trying to resolve it. At this time, she’s in the dispute phase, and hoping to get the money refunded.

DS2’s family, DA and I went to the theater for the Aladdin show, and really enjoyed it! DS1 watched this and every other show on their stateroom TV.

Up next, a blustery and quiet sea day.

 

[tkd lisa]

Sea Day, 3 September
This is going to be a pretty boring day because not a lot actually happened. The weather was overcast and windy most of the day, and we were definitely rolling through some fairly substantial swells. Thankfully, dramamine kept everyone’s stomach in check, and by mid-afternoon things had settled down. We did our typical Cabanas/in-room breakfast, but opted to get lunch at the pool deck. There wasn’t anyone out using the pools (not surprising!), and trying to coordinate food was a bit of a challenge. DA got a burger, I ordered a ham and cheese panini for DM, and got a chicken sandwich for myself. Not surprisingly, by the time we got back to the room to eat, everything was pretty cold, I was really glad that we weren’t on a full ship, because I realized how much the DCL ship configuration expects the pool deck to be heavily utilized. And given the weather impact on the itinerary, I decided that I wasn’t going to schedule an Alaskan cruise for the future. There’s just too much potential for unplanned impact, and on a smaller ship, the inability to utilize the pools is something that I think would impact our enjoyment. Since I do want to visit Alaska, I’m going to look into something like a rail trip with side excursions, probably several years down the road when the grandkids are middle/high school aged.

Looking at the pictures, DM and I found Snow White, and the group decided to go to some of the family entertainment.



Tonight happened to be pirate night. Somehow, DS1 hadn’t gotten the “memo” about pirate night (despite me sending them pirate headscarfs to wear), and had planned for a Frozen night. But they made it work. And DS2’s family always does costumes. My pirate wench dress wasn’t the most flattering, but it did fit the theme! Some pictures of the group below.



I originally planned to go to the evening variety show and entertainment, but ended up just crashing in the room. Up next, a new unplanned stop in Skagen, and the recurring laundry woes. Plus as an added feature, the “toilet” portion of the trip report title!

 

[tkd lisa]

September 4th, Skagen Denmark.

We woke up to beautiful clear skies, and no real plans for this new port city. They announced we’d be docking at a commercial port, and it was a walkable journey to the city center, but that they’d also provide a shuttle.

I don’t think DS1 and DS1S decided to go ashore, but the rest of us headed off the ship around 9am. DS2 decided to use the wagon for the kids, and their plan was to find a local playground to burn off some energy. Here’s a couple of pictures of the area, before we split up.



DM, DA, and I just wandered through the city center. DM wanted to buy a piece of pottery, and we found a small handmade cream pitcher at a local gallery. We then took some pictures outside a local flower shop that was just beautiful. The 2nd picture was just too weird not to include. I have no idea why there was a boxer sculpture there, but we all decided it was Mike Tyson!



By that time, DM was getting tired, and we went on a hunt for the Disney shuttle bus. That took a while because it wasn’t on the path we had taken into town, and there was another ship in town. I followed their bus, then had to backtrack to get to the right stop. The skies were turning cloudy, so I texted DDIL with specifics on finding the bus stop. They were about done with the playground, but by the time they got to the bus it had started raining and there was a substantial line for the shuttle. They ended up walking back in the rain.

Everyone back aboard by mid-afternoon I went to do laundry again, since we now had another set of wet clothes. In the laundry room, I got an error when I tried to activate the system. I called maintenance, and ended up waiting about 45 minutes only to be told that their whole system was down. This apparently was a ship-wide IT problem, because when I went to check DGS into the kids club, they had to do it manually. Tonight was formal night, so we all dressed up fairly nicely and got a few group photos.



After dinner, our stateroom host told me the laundry problem was fixed (he was the one who finally confirmed it was a system issue earlier), so I threw several loads into the washer (actually correctly hitting the start button this time). When the washer was done, I went to start the dryers and got another error message “BAD TAP”. I tried all the dryers, and even the washer, but nothing worked. By this time it was probably about 10:30 pm, and I was about done with laundry woes! After calling guest services, they sent someone (happened to be our stateroom host) down to the laundry room, and he said that they would take care of it in their dryers, then get the laundry back to us. I picked up DGS, got him to sleep (after a bit of a struggle, which actually put me up in the top bunk), then woke up at about 2am, when mom said “Lisa, I hear water running!”

I climbed down off the top bunk, and outside the bathroom I also heard the water. I opened the door to find about 2 inches of water on the toilet room floor, with more coming out of the backside of the toilet! I frantically called for maintenance, got connected to guest services who said they’d send someone. A couple of housekeepers showed up with a stack of towels, and confirmed that it was a major plumbing issue that needed the engineers. They headed off for more towels, and the engineer showed up, but a couple of doors down. I said “we’re the ones with the overflowing plumbing!” He came in and said “it’s a water main break. I have to turn off your water.” The weirdest thing was that he had the housekeeper shove her writing pen into the base of the toilet to release the water. It made a crazy loud noise, and all the water whooshed out of the toilet!

Housekeeping finished cleaning, I went to the public bathroom by the Disney theater to wash up myself, and there was another lady in there from a room down the hall from us who was also having plumbing problems. I had thought they would come back to turn on the water, but the next thing I knew it was morning and the water was back on. Overall, it could have been a lot worse. DS2, who was right next door didn’t have any issues, so I’m not sure exactly what the problem was. The next day, guest service contacted me to follow up, and since we really didn’t have any impact, they offered us a $50 credit for our trouble. Had mom not heard the water, it would have flooded over into the carpeted space and potentially impacted some of our things, so that’s something to be thankful for!

 

[tkd lisa]

September 5th – Copenhagen

After our eventful night, I woke up to find our water working, and nothing damaged in our room. Plus they had dropped off our dry clothes sometime in the middle of the plumbing emergency. Typical breakfast routine, with DS1 joining me and DM up at Cabanas. The weather was looking really icky (spoiler alert, this was our total wash out day!), so DS1 they would just take the Disney bus into town so they could say they’d been to Copenhagen.

DM wanted to see the Little Mermaid statue, and some of the city, so I hopped onto booking.com and bought hop on bus passes for DM, DA, and I. DS2 and his family had already bought Tivoli Garden and hop on bus passes for the day, so they headed off as soon as the all-ashore was given to enjoy one of Walt Disney’s inspirations for the Disney theme parks.

At this stop Disney was handing out rain slickers as we left the ship, just an indication of what we were going to experience in town! We took the shuttle bus and struggled our way down to where the hop on busses were parked. This became a bit of a comedy, because the first bus I approached told me “wrong bus, you want the next one”. I sloshed through the rain to the other bus, whose driver said “No, it’s the one in front of me.” I said “but he said it was you?” That bus driver walked me back to the first one, zoomed in my ticket, and had a pretty heated conversation with the other driver who grudgingly waved us onboard. Not sure why it was an issue, but we were pretty happy just to be under cover since it was a pretty steady downpour by this time.

We took the bus loop around, which probably took about an hour. As we went past Tivoli Gardens I was thinking of the kids and hoping that they were able to enjoy the park even though it was really wet!. When we got back to our original stop, the voice track said “welcome to the Little Mermaid Statue stop”. We had totally missed that in the initial downpour. By this time the rain had slowed to a drizzle, so we got a few photos.


We headed back onto the ship, and got warm and dried off after picking up lunch at Cabanas. I think this was the first time we ate there, and DM asked me for some crab legs. When she started to eat them, she said “Ew, they’re COLD!” Not sure what she was expecting, but apparently cold crab legs wasn’t it! Oh well, more for me.

DS2’s family was unfortunately stuck in pretty serious traffic because there was some kind of accident between downtown and where the shuttle bus picked up. It was bad enough that I checked with guest services to see what options there were, especially if some of the DCL excursions were held up in the backup. It ended up that the kids caught the last scheduled Disney shuttle and got back safely. Needless to say they were all soaked, so DS2 headed to the laundry room, only to see the same “BAD TAP” error. Guest services said just to write up laundry tickets and they’d take care of us. The kids probably sent about 3 loads worth of laundry down. The biggest problem was wet shoes, since they were totally soaked. This was the drawing night at Animator’s Palate. You can see that they defaulted to comfort in our pre-dinner picture here.


I also got a photo of DM and Suharda, who wore his regular smile. I think this was the night that they did the group celebration, which meant we had something like 6 pieces of chocolate cake brought to the table. This actually had a really great benefit. DGS absolutely LOVES chocolate, and I bribed him to go to bed without a fuss, by promising that he could have chocolate cake for breakfast. It worked great, and Suharda gave us a to-go piece each night for the rest of the cruise!

Up next, Norway, and my favorite day of the cruise.

 

[Sophie’smom]

Thank you for the trip report. I am really enjoying reading along.

When I saw you mention the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem, it reminded me how much her book, The Hiding Place moved me. It’s so hard when they have to change ports, I understand why, but hard when you have planned on things.