September 18 Pre cruise

   Checking our late afternoon flight from Rome to London Gatwick, I realized that the airline is not British Airways, but its parent company Vueling Airlines and the passengers’ ratings are 90% 1 out of 5. We are going to hope for the best. We will be leaving the ship by 9 a.m. and taking a shuttle bus from the ship to the airport and will be at the airport at least six hours before the flight.

  Barring any COVID-19 or transportation issues, on October 5, we plan to board the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Anthem of the Seas, in Southampton, England.  We plan to fly from Rome airport to London Gatwick airport on October 2, spend the night at a Gatwick hotel and then take a train 92 km to Southampton, spending two nights there until boarding the ship for 24 nights. We may need to find a pharmacy for a COVID antigen test since we have two cruises back to back the Trans Atlantic, has a stop in Halifax, and the Canadian government requires a negative test within 72 hours before boarding the ship, so to cover our bases and not rely on the ship to administer COVID tests for the Trans-Atlantic cruise at the end of the Canary Islands cruise we will get the tests in Southampton.

   On September 16 Reuters news agency reported:

“Britain's rail network suffered major disruption on several days in June and July 

when 40,000 rail workers walked out in the country's biggest railway strike in three 

decades.

"This morning we have been notified by the ASLEF trade union of further days of strike action on Saturday 1 October and Wednesday 5 October. We have suspended ticket bookings for these dates," said David Horne, Managing Director of London North Eastern Railway.”

PA Media reported:

                That October 1 and 5 coincide “with the dates of the Conservative Party conference 

in Manchester.   . . . the union representing train drivers, will not be making a public statement on the strikes until after the Queen’s funeral on Monday,” (September 19)

“The affected companies are understood to be Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, Hull Trains, LNER, London Overground, Northern Trains, Southeastern, TransPennine Express and West Midlands Trains.”    * *  We have reserved seats on a Southern Railway train, which is not on the list of striking train drivers.







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 12 Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Image
      Sunrise this morning was 8:03 a.m. and Anthem of the Seas had been docked for over an hour at Muelle Sur dock, after a short jaunt overnight from Gran Canaria. The geographical location for Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain is 28°28.56’N & 16°14.32’W.  The temperature was 21°C under a cloudy sky but with sunny breaks, however, just as we left to go to breakfast in the Solarium.   There was a brief shower that ended by the time we had climbed the five flights of stairs to Deck 14. Total distance cruised so far, as indicated on the navigation channel, was 2,014 nautical miles.       Today is a national holiday – Columbus Day in all of Spain. The tour group met on the pier for a walking tour of the old part of Santa Cruz de la Palma. The island of Tenerife has one of the largest volcanoes in the world, Mount Teide which is Spain’s highest peak. The city’s official name is Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tenerife.      ...
Read more

October 25 Halifax

Image
    Again overnight the ship’s clocks had been moved back one hour. The ship’s time then agrees with Halifax time. Anthem approached Halifax, Canada before sunrise in a thick fog. The visibility was less than 200 meters. Once awake, about every   two minutes, you could hear the ship’s fog horn blowing as she approached the mouth of Halifax Harbour, right on schedule. We ate breakfast in the Solarium on Deck 14 and could not see anything outside of the ship. If you looked down you could see the white of the ship’s wake. The Norwegian Pearl was in port already when we arrived just after 8 a.m. Approaching Halifax the coordinates were 44°29.65’ N; 63°29.01 W on course 283. As Anthem maneuvered into the harbour and the berth, her course had swung to 162 and coordinates had not changed much (44°38.20’ N; 63°33.82 W) So far the ship has travelled 3,424 nautical miles which is 160 n.m. less than the total distance of the whole Canary Islands cruise. From time we entere...
Read more

October 27 Boston

Image
    Claire was awake around 4 a.m. and looked to see some distant lights on shore and stars in the sky. The fog had finally dissipated. She saw some white things moving against the water and upon a closer look realized there were at least a dozen white gulls “playing” in the slipstream of the ship.   Last time we saw something like it was near the southern tip of Chile on a cruise.    Morning coordinates were 42°20.58’ N and 71°02.03’ W, on course 269° when Anthem had docked It was   sunny, temperature was 15° C and wind about 12 km/hr. Anthem was docked at Pier 4.    Anthem was docked at Boston, Massachusetts by 7:30 a.m. near the container port. We had breakfast at the buffet in Two70° before our time slot for US Immigration. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection boarded shortly after docking and were directed to Deck 3 where the immigration process was held. The American citizens went to Chic dining room and the other passengers went to the Ca...
Read more