September 8th, Disembarkation Day and London Part 1
The dreaded day had arrived where we had to leave the relaxing portion of the vacation. Given the situation with my family, with several neuro-divergent family members we try to avoid the crush in the atrium. Added to that, since at least part of the family really aren’t morning people/breakfast eaters I haven’t eaten in the MDR on disembarkation morning since my first cruise back in 2002. I had booked two “hire-cars” (essentially vans with drivers) via
Booking.com to take us to our London lodging (more to come on that in a bit), and the were scheduled for a 9:30 pick up. We had to be out of our rooms by 8, and Cabanas opened with limited access and service at 7:30 (if I remember correctly). DS1 and DS1S were up early and decided to go ahead and do our MDR seating since they were ready to get out of their room. I got DM and DA up to Cabanas around 7:30 to get us an inside table, while DS2s family hung on basically until the last minute in their room. They started calling out luggage tags a little late (around 8:15ish), and I had gotten a message from one of the 2 drivers that he was enroute to the pickup. We targeted leaving the boat by 8:45, which is essentially what we did. Although some people are unhappy with the lack of porters in Southampton, having self-service luggage carts worked for us. We loaded up two separate carts, and easily walked out through customs.
The smaller of the 2 cars had already arrived at the port, interestingly enough that WASN’T the one that had said he was en route. I packed up DS2’s family into that one, and they headed toward London. I ended up contacting
booking.com customer support to track down the 2nd driver, who had gone to the wrong terminal.
Here’s my sidebar about the
booking.com difficulties in London. I had booked this apartment about 6 months before the trip, and there was no address provided. From the reviews, I was able to determine that it was very close to the Edgware Rd tube station, and the listing description said it was “near Marble Arch”. As I got a couple of months out, I started to lock down transportation, and saw an option in my lodging booking to attach transportation directly to it. So I did, and it actually pulled up a street address along with that transportation booking. Unfortunatey, I have no idea what that address was because it wasn’t the apartment. It also wasn’t the location we had to go pick up the one set of keys, and this error created a LOT of problems for us. I actually messaged my drivers, and
booking.com during the trip to try to correct it (you’ll see on the last day that failed miserably), and tried to follow up with
booking.com several times on my return. I did put that inforation in my online review of the apartment, but this sidebar is kind of a “pro-tip” to always double check addresses. Side-bar over.
We finally got our driver to the right terminal about a half hour after the others had departed. By this time, I’d gotten a revised address for the apartment and the key-pick up which I texted DDIL, and told our driver. As we headed into London, the impact of the transport strike provided it’s first indication. What was supposed to be a 90 minute ride ended up taking 3 hours. We were literally crawling through back neighborhoods for the last hour, with the GPS trying all kinds of alternative routings. The driver was really mad about it, telling me “well, I just had to hand off my next job which is costing me a lot of money”. By this time, DS2’s family had picked up the key, and DDIL was trying to get the first set of luggage into the apartment. I asked our driver to take us there instead of the key pick up, and he refused, so I had DS2 meet us to help move the luggage and the wheelchair over.
Once at the apartment, although they gave us the keys it was still not ready for occupancy, with a non-English speaking cleaning crew still working. We were splitting up 3 ways for this first day. DS1 and DS1S were going to the London Zoo (they ended up just walking which was about a mile and half trip). DM, DA, and I had planned on hitting up the Windsor Castle area, with a hop on bus, afternoon tour of the castle, and potentially a side journey to the Abbey Road cross-walk. DS2 and family were going to decide what elements of their London Pass worked with the weather once they got off the ship. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get good internet coverage, and couldn’t connect to the apartment wifi, creating a bit of a challenge.
DM, DA, and I went over to the Marks and Spencer food court to pick up a light lunch of sandwiches while DS2 tried to get internet access. I eventually sent them to the Starbuck’s which was across the street and the settled on the Zoo as well. But they took the city bus over. Meanwhile, when I mapped out public transit, it was going to take 2 hours + due to the transit impact. So I booked a Bolt (like an Uber), which was operating at surge pricing rates, but got us where we were going. It cost us almost 90 pounds for the trip, which was more than double what we paid for the return. We got to Windsor Castle around 1:30, and I again battled the cobblestones and steep hills. In the main portion of the castle, the staff was extremely helpful about identifying the wheelchair accessible pathways. Below are some of the external pictures, because no photos are allowed inside. We were able to see Queen Mary’s dollhouse, as well as the historical rooms of state and the armory. It took us probably 90 minutes to cover the 2nd floor, and we headed down to see the chapel, which is where Queen Elizabeth 2 and Prince Phillip are buried.
For anyone who has a mobility challenge, this portion of Windsor is EXTREMELY challenging. I went in and found a docent, who took us all the way around to the back side entrance (where the priests enter). Once inside, literally every location required them to bring out a temporary wheelchair ramp. Unlike the other historical locations we visited, there wasn’t professional staff in the chapel, only docents who were primarily focused on other things. But by the time we realized this, we were halfway through. So at least 4 separate times, we had to wait about 15 minutes to get the ramp so we could move on. And in several places, that meant we were blocking access for anyone behind us given the narrowness of the passageways.
By this time, it was about 4:30, so we left Windsor Palace, did a little shopping at the tourist places nearby, and found a quieter area to pick up a return Bolt back to the apartment. By this time, DS1 was back (he had taken the single set of keys since they weren’t planning to be out too long), and he and I went back over to Mark and Spensers (M&S) to get something quick for dinner. This is where the oddities of our apartment came to light.
The apartment had 4 bedrooms (one of which had two queen sized beds), 2 baths and was advertised as sleeping 10. Yep, that checked. But the kitchen was truly strange. It had 2 sinks, 2 stoves, 2 washing units all in one room. Then in the hallway by one of the bathrooms, there were 2 refrigerators, which were half filled with leftover food from who knows how long? The bathrooms had no trash cans, no place to hang towels, the one with a shower had the soap on the floor, and the one with a bath literally had no place to set down a toothbrush. The neighborhood was a little skeevy. When we were dropping the luggage we literally had to step over a homeless guy sleeping on the step. And the worst part was that despite being billed as “ground floor”, there were 5 steps to get to the outside entrance, 2 steps in the entrance, and 2 more steps up to the actual apartment door. Thankfully, DM could handle this, but again it became a 3 person exercise, with one person handling the wheelchair, a 2nd providing stability for mom, and the 3rd holding open the doors.
Once we had gotten something quick to eat (it was probably nearly 8pm by this time), I checked in with DS2’s family. They were eating near the zoo, then going to take a return bus to the apartment. Again, the transit strike affected them. They had to wait through 4-5 busses in order to get on one. DDIL said that people were literally shoving the kids in order to get on board. I had to wait up because I needed to let them in. Thankfully, the homeless guy had moved on sometime in the afternoon, and they were able to safely return about 9:30.
Up next – London Day 2: Tower of London, St. Pauls Cathedral, Globe Theater (or do they?), and “how long were you on that bus?
