Jul. 1st, 2011 | 03:15 pm
We were only too happy to head back to the airport to meet our Princess bus for the two and a half hour drive for the drive to Southhampton to meet our ship in the port. I was already losing track of the date/time and my mentality was simply "keep moving." I already had the patch behind my ear to handle the motion sickness but it didn't keep me from chewing on grovel each morning. I found non-drowsy chewable tablets before I left and they were a god-send. I had already been on a plane, train and was going for the tri-fecta aka, the bus. I was pretty impressed with myself considering my travel plans for the last eighteen years have been limited to taking Buddy to Mom's place for a weekend. I've battled some serious anxiety issues, so part of the reason I opted for this trip was to conquer the beast. So far, so good.
Mom and I were both lookiing forward to a good meal onboard. We were over the cold shoulder treatment and tired of scraping together crappy meals at the twilight zone B and B. Both of us had read this place's reviews and we were still scratching our heads over it all. We hardly saw the women during our visit but she mysteriously appeared as we were leaving. We joked that we got more attention as we were departing than we had over the two days we'd been there. Goodbye bad B and B hello luxurious ship, or maybe not.
Had I bothered to pull up pictures of the ship's interior, I would have been very unimpressed. Even as we drove closer, it looked tired and dated. I felt my heart sink for a moment but quickly brightened at the idea of a nice meal. We made it to our rooms with minimual fuss, but we should have known that was too easy. Cue problem number one.
As Mom slipped the plastic card into the lock, the light flashed red. "Don't worry about it" she said. "The cards de-magnetize easily.." Okay, if she said so. After five minutes of fiddling around, we called our steward over, he was in the hallway, frantically sorting out the lugguage for each room. He came over, looked at the cards, tried them in the slot, with the same result. Finally, he used his master key and we were in.
The first thing we saw was the open bags. Three small bags sitting at the end of one of the beds. Not a good sign. We looked at the steward in confusion. We had booked the room months before, it was a disabled unit, twice the size of other cabins with wider doors and a walk in shower. It also had a large storage cabinet with three doors and a large vanity with a mirror so we could spread ourselves out. What was going on?
It was obvious that the steward didn't know what to say, the look on his face when he saw the open lugguage, probably mirrored my own shock and he quickly stuttered out. "I'll get my manager." Good idea.
Soon we had a manager in the room studing our room key and looking perplexed. He was the first one to notice the number, 327. That wasn't our original room number. I had memorized it months ago, and a quick check outside the door confirmed it. Our names were on the door, we were in the correct room, E304.
The manager called it in and quickly discovered the error. "You've been upgraded." He announced with great joy. Ummm...well, it only works if the upgrade is as large as this room and equipped with a modified shower. He looked at us like we had lost our minds when I brought this up. "Why not look at the room?" He suggested not so helpfully. Mom went up to have a look and came back shaking her head "It's got a beautiful balcony but it's small up there, not even sure the chair will go through the door." I agreed to go up with her again, and she was absolutely right, the chair didn't fit through the door. I thought that ended it, I really did. The manager had seen the struggle to even get me into the room surely he knew it wasn't even a possibility ...
"Most people are happy to be upgraded, you could put the chair out in the hallway." Mom and I both looked at the guy like he had lost his mind. Mom nixed that idea right away and still he pushed "your travel agent accepted on your behalf, technically you have to take it."
Now, our travel agent was my brother in law's aunt, she knew my circumstances, she knew why we needed that room. I don't believe she would ever do that, of course, we had no way to contact her at this point so I knew we had to fight for our own cause. The gloves came off. I told him point blank that we weren't taking the upgrade, that I needed the room for a reason and unless the woman who had taken over our room was disabled, and had booked before we had, we were taking our room back. That's when he realized I was serious and done with all of this. You could tell he was annoyed, but he played his part well. "Of course Madame, I'm sure SHE will appreciate the upgrade." I heard the dig but didn't rise to the bait. Problem solved. The woman took the upgrade and we never heard about it again. I felt bad she had to move, but that's the way it goes. We hit the diningroom, she moved up to her balcony.
The ironic part was, the minute we settled into the room we saw a notice on our side tables.
"All wheelchairs/scooters must be kept in the rooms when not in use so as not to present a danger to other passangers." Apparently, the manager didn't get the memo.
Mom loved the first meal up on the top deck. It was clear they were trying to impress. She happily cracked her lobster into bits (revolting) while I watched. We laughed about it and I took the picture you see in the album. There was a time after her surgery that she couldn't hope to eat anything like that again, so, seeing her dig in, seeing her enjoy herself, makes me happy. She earned it.
I, on the other hand, was less than impressed. My ceasar salad was overdressed and everything seemed kind of blah. I enjoyed the fruit though, it's nice when someone else does all the cutting/sorting of the fruit isn't it? I've just never been a big food person. I eat because I have to and you definitely won't see me chow down all day long, unlike some of the people I had the misfortune to watch practically inhale their food like it was an olympic event.
Anyway, we ate and felt better about things. It was time to mentally prepare myself for the first tour on the itinerary, Rouen, France. I was excited about France, I mean come on, it's France and a stamp on the passport. But as it turns out, there was no stamp because England and France have an agreement much like Canada and the US do, we don't get a stamp when we cross because the countries like to swap workers/allow employment so even though there is a border between them, the usual rules don't apply, ergo, no stamp. Booooo.
Mom and I were both lookiing forward to a good meal onboard. We were over the cold shoulder treatment and tired of scraping together crappy meals at the twilight zone B and B. Both of us had read this place's reviews and we were still scratching our heads over it all. We hardly saw the women during our visit but she mysteriously appeared as we were leaving. We joked that we got more attention as we were departing than we had over the two days we'd been there. Goodbye bad B and B hello luxurious ship, or maybe not.
Had I bothered to pull up pictures of the ship's interior, I would have been very unimpressed. Even as we drove closer, it looked tired and dated. I felt my heart sink for a moment but quickly brightened at the idea of a nice meal. We made it to our rooms with minimual fuss, but we should have known that was too easy. Cue problem number one.
As Mom slipped the plastic card into the lock, the light flashed red. "Don't worry about it" she said. "The cards de-magnetize easily.." Okay, if she said so. After five minutes of fiddling around, we called our steward over, he was in the hallway, frantically sorting out the lugguage for each room. He came over, looked at the cards, tried them in the slot, with the same result. Finally, he used his master key and we were in.
The first thing we saw was the open bags. Three small bags sitting at the end of one of the beds. Not a good sign. We looked at the steward in confusion. We had booked the room months before, it was a disabled unit, twice the size of other cabins with wider doors and a walk in shower. It also had a large storage cabinet with three doors and a large vanity with a mirror so we could spread ourselves out. What was going on?
It was obvious that the steward didn't know what to say, the look on his face when he saw the open lugguage, probably mirrored my own shock and he quickly stuttered out. "I'll get my manager." Good idea.
Soon we had a manager in the room studing our room key and looking perplexed. He was the first one to notice the number, 327. That wasn't our original room number. I had memorized it months ago, and a quick check outside the door confirmed it. Our names were on the door, we were in the correct room, E304.
The manager called it in and quickly discovered the error. "You've been upgraded." He announced with great joy. Ummm...well, it only works if the upgrade is as large as this room and equipped with a modified shower. He looked at us like we had lost our minds when I brought this up. "Why not look at the room?" He suggested not so helpfully. Mom went up to have a look and came back shaking her head "It's got a beautiful balcony but it's small up there, not even sure the chair will go through the door." I agreed to go up with her again, and she was absolutely right, the chair didn't fit through the door. I thought that ended it, I really did. The manager had seen the struggle to even get me into the room surely he knew it wasn't even a possibility ...
"Most people are happy to be upgraded, you could put the chair out in the hallway." Mom and I both looked at the guy like he had lost his mind. Mom nixed that idea right away and still he pushed "your travel agent accepted on your behalf, technically you have to take it."
Now, our travel agent was my brother in law's aunt, she knew my circumstances, she knew why we needed that room. I don't believe she would ever do that, of course, we had no way to contact her at this point so I knew we had to fight for our own cause. The gloves came off. I told him point blank that we weren't taking the upgrade, that I needed the room for a reason and unless the woman who had taken over our room was disabled, and had booked before we had, we were taking our room back. That's when he realized I was serious and done with all of this. You could tell he was annoyed, but he played his part well. "Of course Madame, I'm sure SHE will appreciate the upgrade." I heard the dig but didn't rise to the bait. Problem solved. The woman took the upgrade and we never heard about it again. I felt bad she had to move, but that's the way it goes. We hit the diningroom, she moved up to her balcony.
The ironic part was, the minute we settled into the room we saw a notice on our side tables.
"All wheelchairs/scooters must be kept in the rooms when not in use so as not to present a danger to other passangers." Apparently, the manager didn't get the memo.
Mom loved the first meal up on the top deck. It was clear they were trying to impress. She happily cracked her lobster into bits (revolting) while I watched. We laughed about it and I took the picture you see in the album. There was a time after her surgery that she couldn't hope to eat anything like that again, so, seeing her dig in, seeing her enjoy herself, makes me happy. She earned it.
I, on the other hand, was less than impressed. My ceasar salad was overdressed and everything seemed kind of blah. I enjoyed the fruit though, it's nice when someone else does all the cutting/sorting of the fruit isn't it? I've just never been a big food person. I eat because I have to and you definitely won't see me chow down all day long, unlike some of the people I had the misfortune to watch practically inhale their food like it was an olympic event.
Anyway, we ate and felt better about things. It was time to mentally prepare myself for the first tour on the itinerary, Rouen, France. I was excited about France, I mean come on, it's France and a stamp on the passport. But as it turns out, there was no stamp because England and France have an agreement much like Canada and the US do, we don't get a stamp when we cross because the countries like to swap workers/allow employment so even though there is a border between them, the usual rules don't apply, ergo, no stamp. Booooo.
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