Travel tip!
Flying on a Thursday will likely be less crowded than on a Friday. Our plane was only about a third full and because my folks were "special assistance" passengers they blocked the "middle" seats in the 3-3-3 configuration for us.
I took the window, mom and dad enjoyed the aisle seats and British Airways kept us well-fed and entertained for the five-ish hour flight to Heathrow. The safety video was cute and featured cameos of cinema hotties like Thandie Newton, Gillian Anderson and Sir Ian McKellen. ROWR!
Mom watched old episodes of Fawlty Towers and Mr. Bean and I relished in all sorts of French-Saunders-Lumley pursuits from a compilation called 300 years of French and Saunders to classic AbFab and a cute documentary called Absolutely Champers where Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley visit the Champagne region of France to learn all about bubbly.
A chicken curry, a cup of proper tea, a bacon butty and boom we've made it to England.
I disembarked ahead of my folks and waited for the crew to assist them up the jetway but then they said "please wait here," and took away the airport wheelchair my dad used. Since my mom had her own wheelchair, she was fine but my poor dad was stranded. We talked to an official-looking lady who had a walkie-talkie and we thought she called the electric car to get us but after 15 minutes my dad just decided to hoof it. It was a bit of a schlep for him but at least I pushed mom. Just as we made it to the customs and immigration area, some special assistance agents found us and guided us to the wheelchair lane where there were chairs and no queuing.
This is where I began to mutter snarky retorts in response to mom's constant chattering in order to amuse my father. He has gotten really good at ignoring her but I have yet to develop this kind of prophylactic selective hearing loss to preserve my sanity.
"I wonder what E.U. means..." she exclaimed as she noticed the signs routing people with U.K. or E.U. passports. My response: "Extremely Unintelligent".
Of course this passed over her head because she was already making goo-goo eyes at some little kid or somebody's flashy bracelet or asking someone with a turban if they are Sikh. Oy.
A porter helped to get our luggage at the baggage claim and we met the driver that my dad had pre-arranged to take us to the cruise ship terminal an hour and a half away.
Philip was an extremely tall and dapper man wearing a three-piece suit. Fancy schmancy. Not a hair was out of place and he expertly loaded all of our gear into his comfortable Mercedes van. There were bottles of water, foofy soft blankets and little hard candies waiting for us. We really liked Philip a lot. He was so personable and he quickly clued in that we were animal lovers as my mom made sure to loudly announce the species of every beastie in every green field we passed.
Of course we were tired but excitement kept a steady flow of adrenaline maintaining our eyes in the open position as we pulled into the embarkation area and handed over our suitcases to the Norwegian Cruise staff. Then we got my mom's Lambo! A bright red electric scooter with a jaunty basket and a bumper sticker that says "born to bingo." Ok, it didn't say that but knowing the demographic of its target customer, the hire company might do well to add one.
We said goodbye to Philip and he promised to take us on a longer tour for the trip back to the airport. My mom asked if he could bring along his seven dogs. *sigh* Chatty mom flurfy floofs words which make no sense but I'm the only one irritated by it.
Check-in went relatively smoothly but as we snaked slowly up the inclined gangway to board, the scooter kept conking out. We weren't sure if it wasn't thoroughly charged or if it was the steep angle or some kind of defect but the little red engine just literally could not even. We threw momma from the scooter and back into her own chair and left the scooter with a terminal employee who somehow got it onboard. With a great deal of stress we figured out that if the speed setting was reduced to its lowest, we could use it but with all the throngs of passengers that wasn't ideal so we found a lovely place to settle until our stateroom was ready: O'Sheehan's pub!
Norwegian Cruise line has a winner with this idea. It's a 24-hour dining option with a full menu of snacks and pub-fare like hot dogs, hamburgers, sandwiches, salads and shepherd's pie. Other cruise ships have insufferable "food doldrums" where it's too early for the dining room and too late for the buffet and you have to order room service which is a crap-shoot. The servers and hostesses were wonderful and let us hang out for as long as we wanted. My poor daddy's adrenaline reserves were totally depleted and he narcolepsied sitting upright.
Thankfully, we got the go-ahead to find our stateroom but I screwed up. For some reason, I thought our room number was 10513 and I "incorrected" my dad telling him he was going to the wrong side. Whoops. He knew exactly where to go to find our actual room 10153 starboard aft but he trusted and followed me all over hell's half acre. Sorry daddy. This became a recurring theme. My lesson has been learned. I'm a smart-ass know-it-all kid that doesn't have anywhere near the life and travel experience that my dad does. If I don't end up incarcerated for bullying my mother, I'll be happy to let my dad lead on the next adventure!
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