World Tour 2020 Tilbury

Day 006 Tilbury Departure

So we go down to the hotel restaurant and have our complimentary breakfast. A plus for what we have experienced so far.

A basically uneventful day with the exception that we had a ride to the ship on our own. It turns out that the ship sent a bus (several buses actually) to our hotel to pick us all up and we were able to cancel our private transportation and get a 70% refund. So we are out $30-40 USD. But we are with our ship’s tour. A good thing! We bring all our baggage down and get it loaded on the bus and we board. Seems we sit here for too long, but eventually we start moving. It’s all good because we are with our group and we are all together.

90 minutes or so later we arrive in Tilbury at the ship terminal and we disembark the bus and our luggage is unloaded for us. Wait, one of our bags is missing a tag! Elee breaks away and deals with the situation and soon the bag is tagged and we are good to go. Except there is now most of a two hour line to check in. (Picture waiting for Space Mountain at Disneyland on a Saturday on Christmas Break!) But it’s all good as we visit with like travelers in line that will be sequestered with us for the next four months!

A couple of passengers stand out and we call fun insults across the lines. Everybody is having fun for the most part and we eventually get to the check in tables where we have to produce out documents from Passports to Visas (8 countries) to Immunization Cards and such. We finally produce all necessary documents and are told to go to the right and follow the line. Through this building and on to the next, we are handed complimentary champagne and mimosas and we move along and we find ourselves walking onto the ship!

So we find our cabin and two of our four bags are already there! We pull them into our room and realize we are hungry. We start exploring the ship and find the Buffet Line and get ourselves a meal around 3 PM. A glass of wine? Of course! Back to our rooms and we are told we need to report to our Muster Stations for a Lifeboat Drill. If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you know this happens before the ship leaves port! We are delayed and the Muster Drill happens around 8 PM. We have been able to grab a bite to eat at Dinner right before Muster Drill and all is good.

After we go back to our room and unpack and “Move In” to our room. Then we go back on deck and meet up with other passengers that we have met along with new ones and we watch a show and play a trivia game with 4 other people on our team! We lose horrendously and all laugh and high five out teammates because none of us really cared anyway!

Elee goes back to the room to relax for the night and I proceed off, barhopping with a guy named “Rick” in search of good times and music. I am easily entertained, not like Rick, who wants ‘Rock n Roll’ and we soon part ways for the evening. Back in the room to write this up.

We will arrive in Rotterdam around noon tomorrow and it’s time to get some sleep for we want to visit the famous Windmills tomorrow!

See you then!