Four countries in one day!

England, France, Brussels and The Netherlands all in one day!

Our ship docked in Southampton, England, this morning and after breakfast we disembarked the ship. We took a cab to the airport where we picked up our rental car. Now remember we're in England and they drive on the left side of the road and their steering wheel is on the right and it's a standard transmission and because the steering wheel is on the right that means the gear shift is on the left. It's all very strange.

Once Jim figured it out off we went...but we didn't really know where we were going but stopped and picked up a map! We drove to the eastern side of England to Folkestone where we were to pick up the Euro Tunnel and go to Calais, France. We got there and went to check in and discovered we made a mistake on the ticket and booked it for the wrong direction. Oh no! And on top of that there was an electrical problem in the tunnel and the trains were running 3 hours late!  Oh no, now what?!?

Well my wonderful husband had booked the Flexiplus Fare which was totally refundable and after waiting in the line of mostly crabby individuals we were given a new ticket, for the correct direction, we drove right up and onto a train and off we went! I can't even tell you how thankful we were. The extra 100 Euros really made the difference for us.

It was a 35 minute ride under the English Channel and then it was amazing how the train cars opened up and everyone drove straight off the train.  
Our car on the train.


Jim in the driver's seat.


The car in front of us was first and directly in front is a roll up door and the two doors on either side let you move from train car to train car.


This picture is of the roll up door up and the other doors flat. It was really cool.


And down and out we went.

We drove from Calais, France, through Belgium and into the Netherlands to Amsterdam. It was a long day and we're exhausted. It's after midnight here but I wanted to post to let you know that we were all good.

I'm going to update the post from last night with the pictures so be sure to check it out.

Tomorrow morning we have tickets to the Anne Frank House and then we're going to see some friends that live about 45 minutes south of here.

Good to be off the road... until tomorrow.

Le Havre France

Our final stop on this cruise. Tomorrow we disembark and head out on our road adventure.

Today we docked in Le Havre, France and disembarked at 9:00 to a cold, rainy day. We pressed on however and saw some neat things.

The internet is slow tonight and I'm having problems getting things to load so I'll finish this up tomorrow night in Amsterdam.

Final Day at Sea

A great day at sea today and we were busy with several different activities.

A fun event was Top Chef at Sea and Jim was chosen to be a judge for the competition.


The contestants shredded cheese, squeezed oranges and whipped egg whites to win the first round of competition. Then the winners were paired with a Chef and picked ingredients for the cooking challenge.


The initial contestants.


The activity director talking with Jim.


The first dish and their score.


The second dish and the score.

Jim said that both dishes were wonderful but the steak on the second dish was fabulous.

Next we went to the auction of the glass pieces made at the Corning Glass Show on the top deck.


These are just a few of the pieces they made during the cruise. The money made from the auction goes for scholarships.

We also went to the Celebrity's Got Talent show. They had three contestants in a singing competition and then a choir made up of 90 cruise guests.The singers were great and the choir was awesome. They had rehearsals while we've been at sea and today was the performance.

Then tonight was our last formal night on the ship, now known at Chic Night. We took lots of pictures and had a great meal in the dining room.


Appetizer - Scallop Rockefeller


Beef Wellington with vegetables. Yummy


My dessert on the left.... Jim's double cheesecake on the right.


We met some wonderful people from Edinburgh, Scotland, at the Chef's Table dinner the other night and sat and visited with them tonight for awhile. We're looking forward to visiting them in Scotland someday.

We're back in the room now and ready for bed. We're getting close to Le Havre, France, and will dock there in the morning. We're half packed, as we get off the ship on Sunday morning and begin the next part of our adventure.

Here is our position tonight.


Until tomorrow.

Another day at sea

Not to much to report. We had a nice day at sea today. It was cloudy and cool all day so no one was outside.

We got some new entertainment on the ship when we were in port yesterday, Ukebox. They are five young men from Liverpool...not the Beatles, but they sang some Beatles' songs, and they play ukuleles. Different types of ukuleles and they were funny and sang well.

Great talk today by MickeyLive on The Last Great Adventure. He was talking about several places he thinks everyone should visit in their travels. Some of them we're going to see while on this trip.

We had dinner tonight at Tuscan Grille with a couple we met on the first day while waiting to board in Miami. We had a good meal and watched lots of ships around us. We surmised that we were in a shipping channel.

Only one picture today.



Our position. We're coming up around the Northern part of Spain heading to Le Havre, France.

Tomorrow is another day at sea and I'll get some interesting pictures for you.

Until tomorrow.

Lisbon, Portugal

We are in the beautiful city of Lisbon, Portugal today. What a beautiful cruise into the port.

We cruised under this bridge. What does this bridge look like?

It was really neat.

Our selfie!

Everybody wants off.... Including us!

Our ship.

Chocolate ducks in a pastry shop.

Some really old liquor.

The Arch of Augusta Street

You know how we love stairs!

A view from the top

After climbing the clock tower we found a tuk-tuk driver and he took us all around the city. What a wonderful afternoon with a wonderful driver.

The oldest house in Lisbon

Church of St. Vincent

He took us to the highest point in the city for a wonderful view, to the oldest part of the city and even though we didn't see everything we wanted to we had a fabulous time.


Beautiful tiled buildings and festive streets.



Interesting doorways


Small walking streets


and interesting stores


A laundry facility in the old part of town.  I appreciate my washer and dryer.


Hand painting tiles


And a man who walks the streets playing his tambourine.


And finally Pedro our wonderful tuk-tuk driver.

We came back to the ship at 8 pm, tired and happy. Some dinner and now in our cabin happy to have had such a wonderful experience.



We're at sea tomorrow traveling to Le Harve, France.

Until then.