October 2 Flying to London, Gatwick

  We departed our eight day cruise on Celebrity Edge which docked at Civitavecchia this morning. It was an uncrowded cruise with less than half its cabins occupied. This next cruise on Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas which has capacity for 4,168 passengers in double cabins and could have another 657 people if there are third and fourth passengers in a stateroom.  The Edge was at less than 50% capacity with only 1,200 guests. These next two 12 day cruises will seem more crowded, one of the cruises is full capacity.

    The ship supplied a shuttle bus to Rome Fiumicino / Leonardo da Vinci airport for our flight to London Gatwick on British Airways/Vueling.  We arrived before 11 a.m. for our 5:30 p.m. flight. The shuttle dropped everyone at terminal 3. It was a short five minute walk to terminal 1. There was a nice water feature with the airport’s name between terminal 1 and 3. We wandered in sections A and E, both sections have over 80 gates.  When we arrived, the departure board just showed that our flight would be in Section E and the gate number shown after 16:35. We had a small lunch – half a bagel sandwich and coffee around noon. We could not find any water stations to fill our water bottles. A 750 ml bottle of plain water was about $3.40 Canadian.  To enter section E, which we did after 2 p.m., there is a passport control area where your passport is stamped for exiting Italy. Today we had walked 13,311 steps at this point. 

    Canada ended the need for visitors and returning Canadians to have tested negative for COVID-19 before entering Canada or to have to go into quarantine if testing positive upon arrival. Also face masks are no longer required on planes flying in Canada, a requirement that the U.S. dropped in early June.

   There is no requirement to wear face masks in this airport. Just a few people wore them. You do need to wear face masks on Italian trains and public transport. At 4:35 p.m., there was no plane at our gate to board but one arrived shortly after. Boarding started after 5 and then the line into the passenger bridge stopped moving for over ten minutes before moving slowly again. Crossing the bridge at 5:45, we noticed that the luggage was just being loaded. It was another 30 minutes before the push off from the gate. Our steps to this point were 15,377. The plane was an Airbus 320 without TV or USB charging ports. Being a discount airline, the seats had very little legroom, and all food had a price. The flight to London Gatwick was 2.5 hours. We flew west and enjoyed a long sunset with the horizon a deep orange colour. 

   The plane landed a few minutes before 8 p.m. (9 p.m. in Rome). We adjusted our watches to Greenwich Mean Time, but for the next cruise the time will revert to western Europe time except for Lisbon, Portugal. We followed others down several long corridors to get to passport control. We just had to slip our passport onto a reader to open a gate and get our picture taken to get to baggage claim along more long corridors. We waited about ten minutes for our luggage and then found a corridor to exit passport control then another long corridor to exit the building. The taxi stand was easy to find, you just needed to give your destination and name. The agent told you how much the fee would be for the ride. When taxis arrived the drivers went to agent who called the next name and you were off to your destination. It was a short drive to the hotel costing just £15 with tip. Tomorrow there is a shuttle bus to go back to the airport for the train to Southampton. The shuttle costs £3.50 per person. We already have the train tickets booked. The train workers had a strike on October 1 and plan another on October 5. Tomorrow should be fine. The train ticket machine by the taxi stand was not issuing tickets and directed people to buy tickets at the train station.

    We checked in to hotel just after 8:30 p.m. The restaurant was open until 9:15 so we dropped off our things in the room and walked over to the restaurant in the next hallway. Larry had pizza and I had chicken kebabs and salad.

 

Total steps 18,111 = 10.6 km