getting there...

Instead of intriguing boring you with one huge post I have decided to post in instalments ;o)

As we were flying from Heathrow Terminal 5 and our flight was at 10.15 in the morning (you just know that there would have been problems on the M25 otherwise) we decided to stay overnight at a hotel, and as it was connected by a walkway to the terminal it meant that we didnt have to catch a hopper bus either...

So we get to the hotel at about 5pm ish. The bloke on reception books us in and asks when we arrive back, I tell him its on Sunday at 06.25 and he says that he will give us our exit ticket now so we can drive straight back out (which was nice of him) we didnt bother checking the ticket (I can see that you can guess what happens when I get upto the coming home part)...

So we go down and decide to have our dinner at one of the restaurants, we went for Vivre, but was disappointed that the cooking theatres are only during breakfast and lunch - but we could watch the chefs at work ;o)

As we had finished our meals quite early we decided to walk across to T5 (because we could) and get a drink each - I went for a Guinness and James had a cider...

...we then got a few snacks and went back to our room.

The next morning we checked out of our room and lugged our suitcases to check in for our flight...

...because it was a group booking we werent able to pre book our seats and I was told that we would be assigned our seats at check in :o(

So we go to the self check in booths I scan my passport and it gives me my seat (it was a window seat) so I clicked on the button that asks if I want to move seats and there arent any seats left that are together (so I pick an aisle seat and then James could sit in the seat in front of me) I print my boarding pass. Now its James' turn he scans his passport and his seat is the one that was next to mine *sigh* (it didnt tell us that we were already sitting together), so James moves his seat to the aisle one in front of mine.

As I wanted us to sit together we went to the assisted check in queue to see if we could change our seats, the guy says that he will let the boarding gate people know what we have asked and they will see what they can do...

We go through passport control and go and get some breakfast and have a look around.

We then see that the boarding gate is going to open, I go and see the one of the ladies on the gate and explain what happened, she goes to her monitor comes back and says that you have the aisle seat and the window seat (what a result James gets his aisle seat and we dont have anyone sitting next to us ;o)).

So we board the plane and find our seats and unfortunately whilst one of the seats was the window one the other one was the middle seat (James wasnt happy and decided that this was MY fault!), so after we took off James asked the stewardess if there was any spare aisle seats that he could sit in as he doesnt like sitting in the middle seat...

...she moved him - so at least he was happyish...

We finally land at Newark, go through immigration, pick up our luggage come out of departures and expect to see a smiling happy Royal Caribbean Rep, there was no-one, we walked around the terminal in case the rep was hiding somewhere but we couldnt find anyone.

I saw a Costa Rep, who told me to go to ground transportation and they would tell me how to get to the hotel. So we found the ground transportation kiosk spoke to the man on there and he pointed me in the direction of the phones with the direct lines to the hotels and airlines etc, I eventually found the right phone that had the lines to the hotels, found my hotel on the list, rang them and they told me to take the airtrain then you catch the shuttle bus for your hotel and hey presto!

We find the airtrain and work out which station we want to go to, get off and we go down the escalator and I almost fell down the escalator (with my suitcase) it would have been funny if I was watching someone else doing it.

We see the shuttle bus for our hotel (which was full) so we had to wait for the next bus. We finally get to the hotel I go to check in and the bloke asks me if I have a voucher.

I say "what voucher?", and they show me a huge pile of vouchers - I never received any vouchers (and yes these vouchers do come up again), we get the keycards for our room together with an envelope with instructions on what to do the next day.

James was well p1ssed off at this point and was blaming me for everything that went wrong (I think his reasoning was that I booked the holiday therefore it was my fault).

I then had a look around the hotel to see if there was a restaurant so we could get something to eat (there was just a bar with a very limited menu).

flyer with directions to get to New York (the hotel is only 8 miles for the Statue of Liberty), the cheapest option was $15 each way each.

James wasnt impressed so we went back down to the concierge and he asked if there was anywhere nearby that we could get something to eat - he then handed us a flyer for Jersey City Mall Outlet shops, the price was $9 round trip each so we decided to go there...

...so we got on the shuttle bus back to the airtrain station and was waiting for the bus to take us to the stores, a guy asked us what bus we were waiting for and I told him and he told me to see the Marriott Hotel bus driver, he told us that once an hour he goes upto the mall and only charges $2 each way each ;o)

So we got the shuttle bus up there and found a Ruby Tuesday and had some dinner there, we then had a quick look around the mall before catching the shuttle bus back.

The next morning we go down to get some breakfast (James wanted to do the all you can eat buffet), and we saw all of our fellow cruisers.

The instructions in the envelope said that we would be on bus 2 and to leave our suitcases by the door (in our room) before 8am (which we did) and when we came back after our breakfast our suitcases were still there *sigh*, so we lugged our suitcases down in the lift and waited with all of the other people. An elderly lady (she must have been at least 80) with a clipboard came around to take down our names.

The the bus drivers would come in and yell out what bus they were driving.

So an elderly bloke comes in and yells out "bus no 2" so we rush past all of the old dears (it isnt hard to out run someone when they are carrying an oxygen tank) and get on the bus. We were looking on the bus and were struck at how many old people were on there, I kid you not we must have been the only 2 people under 50 (LOL you know your getting old when 50 doesnt sound THAT old).

We get to the ship and were given a number (52) we had to fill out a questionnaire asking if we had had a cold in the past few days (I tried my hardest not to sneeze and cough onto the lady as we were filling out our forms) it also asked if we had had the runs too...

We had to have our photo taken (for ID purposes) so they knew that the right person was getting back on the ship.

Once they had decided that we werent about to infect the whole ship they then directed us to a holding area where we were given coffee & cookies...

...we then had to wait for our number to be called out...

"50 through 56"

to be continued...