Flying on the shoulders of giants

---

---

The most common question Roisin and I get asked before we start off on one of our jaunts is: 'Going anywhere nice?' A very strange question. I'm sure they don't realise how absurd that question is. What do they expect us to say? ‘Not really, we've been to all the best places. There is only the rubbish ones left!!'

Alternatively I could say ‘Just look around you. Everywhere is nice compared to this!!'

AI suppose I could tell people that we're going to Aleppo to which I'm bound to get supplementary questions:

‘Where's that?'

'Syria!'

‘But isn't that where ISIS have their HQ.'

'Oh, Shit! That's why the travel agent looked at me funny. I thought she said IBIS!!'

The second most popular question we get asked is: 'Have you packed yet?' To which the most common response from Roisin is ‘Behave! We're not going until tomorrow!!'

This journey will see us touch down in Miami, picking up a hire car then driving the 30 odd miles to the Hyatt Place in Fort Lauderdale for two nights. From there we will pick up the magnificent Royal Princess (remember the infamous documentary and Deputy Dan??) where we sail around the Caribbean, taking in the islands of Antigua, Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts & Nevis, St Thomas (part of the U.S. Virgin Islands) and then finally, Princess's own island amongst the archipelago of Bahamas, call Princess Cays before returning to Fort Lauderdale. To round the trip off we intend to hire another car and drive to the small town of Naples on Florida's West coast where we will stay for a few days.

Our trip started in the Premier Inn, Manchester airport. The shuttle that would fly us down to London Heathrow departed at 8am so rather than leave the house at ‘stupid o'clock AM', we spent the night in the shadows of terminal 3.

Our flight to London was uneventful apart from, as seemingly is tradition these days, a sports personality was sharing the flight with us. Following in the footsteps of Kelly Holmes, Sergio Aguero and David Moyes, Phil Thompson, ex Liverpool and England Centre Half was making his way down to the Sky Sports studio, where he is employed as a soccer pundit and no doubt would be commenting on one of this afternoons games.

We had over five hours to kill in Heathrow. By the time we had transferred from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 we still had over five hours to kill!! We saw a notice for a business lounge that was open to non-business class travellers provided they paid a fee. We were happy to pay an extra £20 each for the added comfort but when we were told that the cost is £35 each for 3 hours we both felt that it was a little pretentious just for a cup of coffee, a muffin and free wi-fi!!!

We were booked on a British Airways airbus A-380. These are the aviation equivalent to the double decker bus. They are huge. The capacity under its current configuration is 525. The flight was full. No spare seats to be had anywhere. I was intrigued as to how they load the passengers. I have been many times on a Boing 747 where there is a stairway to the upper deck. However, for half the passengers to be seated on the upper deck, I could only imagine gridlock in passengers' attempts to get to their seat. This, however, was not the case. The passenger embarkation went smoothly. It was like two separate flights in one with the upper level passengers entering a gate to the right and the lower deck passengers a gate to the left.

Taking off on time at 13:50, BA flight 209 laboured down the runway before the 3000 tonne monolith, somehow, lifted off the ground although for the first ten minutes of ascent, it felt like the pilot was battling to keep this beast in the air. The vessel was shuddering, with the occasional sudden dip in altitude. The flight deck did a sterling job of battling against the headwind and soon we were cruising at 34998 feet. Not too sure why we didn't climb an extra 24 inches and made it a round 35,000!!

The flight to Miami lasted 9 ½ hours. It felt like 9 ½ hours as well. Unlike night flights where, once fed, the lights go down and everyone goes sleepy byes, with a day flight, the cabin is well illuminated, due to the natural day light it's very difficult to take a nap.

Once we were settled in to the flight I remembered we were on the upper deck. I couldn't see a way down to the lower deck although I did observe that lots of people coming out of the toilet but not many going in!! It was only when I went to use the facilities that I was followed in by an elderly lady and in a broad Scottish accent she said: ‘Room for a little one??!'

I turned around with a shocked expression and in that split second; that slo-mo, fraction of time, my eyes flickered around the confined space noticing the lack of amenities. In the same instance the lady pressed the down button!! Yes, I was in an elevator, with Mrs Doubtfire, bursting to go the toilet on my way to the lower deck for no reason at all!!

Immigration in to the USA can be painfully slow but this is only to be expected. We walked the twenty minutes from the stand to the first immigration gate where we had to make a choice. US Citizens, Canadian Citizens or ESTA through one channel, Visitors or Visas through another channel. We were visitors but we also held an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) so we took the first channel. We snaked our way through to an automated passport control. There were twenty or so machines that looked not unlike fancy ATMs, lined up against the wall but no-one to guide the next in line. This meant you had to be extra vigilant in waiting for the next ATM to become free. If you delayed by a nano second, you could be sure that someone further down the line would shout, ‘That ones free!' There wasn't even an automated voice to say: ‘machine number 5 please!!' We finally made it to one of these touch screen machines then, after pressing for the relative language, the machines asked for passenger no. 1 (Roisin) to scan the photo page of her passport. It also requested a scan of her finger prints and took a photo before asking a series of questions. The whole process lasted only a few minutes before, a printout of the results was produced.

I repeated the process but the machine had difficulty reading my fingerprints. (It must have been all that liquid latex I used at Halloween!!) Having taken longer than usual and increasingly aware of the ever increasing queue behind me, I was relieved when a printout was finally produced. I almost broke in to a skip on my way to the exit. My joy was short lived as, on showing our printouts at an intermediate check point, we were directed to the manual passport checks. The reason was that my printout had a large ‘X' across the text. I explained to the official that I thought this was just the end of the roll!! The Border Guard didn't flinch, remaining straight faced with a stretched out arm directing us away from the exit and toward another huge queue. Looking around me, this queue seemed to have the same faces as the automated passport control. In fact, there were very few people who actually made it to the exit first time (little Miss Perfect Roisin being one of them!!) but as she was with me, so was her fate!!!). The automated passport control has only been introduced in the past twelve months. I doubt the Immigration Authorities have yet carried out a Post Implementation Review on this new system as no doubt they would then realise the benefits of reverting back to the way it used to be!

Once that stamp hit my passport I knew I could start thinking about sun and tropical beaches instead of wet, windy windswept Britain. I don't know if my sanity could have withstood another 9 ½ hour flight so soon after the last!!

We walked to a shuttle train known as the MIA people mover, took this and walked some more. One elevator later we were at the Budget car hire desk!! It is now almost 2 hours since we disembarked the plane, 8:20pm local time or 1:20am UK time.

The journey took slightly over 45 minutes from Miami airport to the Hyatt Place, Fort Lauderdale. We were immediately greeted by the hotel receptionist, who, after asking for our name told us to wait while he called for the manager. This didn't bode well. Apparently our hotel booking had been cancelled!! Booking.com at the time of the booking, took payment for the hotel incorrectly. They soon realised their mistake so refunded us stating we need to pay when we get there. In their infinite wisdom, they cancelled the original booking and there seemed to be some confusion over the new booking. But in true American style, nothing was too much for the hotel staff. Neither of us had time to get in to confrontational mode. Whether this was just the travel taking its toll but we were expecting a battle, some shouting and even the odd attempt at sarcasm!! No fuss was made, no excuses as to why we don't have a reservation. A few click of the keyboard and our key cards were handed to us with a very sincere:' Have a nice day' or as it was 10pm local time and there wasn't much of the day left, he may have said: ‘Have a nice stay!!' It was 4am UK time. We had been on the road for 23 hours…and it felt like it.

29. November 2015

At 08:30, the hotel room phone rang: ‘Is that Chris?'

‘Yes'

‘It's Don here. We're in reception'

Our friends Donny & Marie (not them, the other two!!) who we met on one of our early trips from San Francisco to Sydney were coming to the end of a four week vacation and had disembarked from the Royal's sister ship, the Regal Princess this morning. They hadn't just called in to a hotel at random hoping we would be there!! We had arranged to meet up with them prior to this trip. They were staying in a town called West Palm Beach, about an hour's drive away so had agreed to ‘pop in' and say ‘hello' en route. It was great to catch up on each other's adventures. We told them about our next year's plans to visit Vienna, Iceland and a cruise from Cape Town to Venice. Don and Marie will be visiting Mt Everest base camp, Australia and the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Beijing!! OK! You win!! This is still very much a case of being the Pupil in the presence of the Master!!

Don told a few funny anecdotes from their vacation. Marie caught me making notes on a discarded napkin so I had to come clean. I will probably weave one or two of these in to my blog on a slow news day!! Anatole France who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921 once wrote about plagiarism: ‘When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it!!' Now I can't argue with a Nobel Prize winner, can I?

It was soon for Donny and Marie to hit the road and make the way to their hotel where they planned to chill out for the rest of the day. That sounded like a great idea so that's what we did also.

We spent most of the day by the small terrace pool in 80 degree heat listening to Christmas songs being piped through the hotel's PA systems. Not the usual, Slade, Wizard, Shakey et al but smooth Christmas swing including ‘ol Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra with a rendition of ‘Santa Claus is coming to Town', ‘Bing Crosby's ‘God rest ye Merry Gentlemen',‘Let it snow' by Dean Martin; all proper classics. Even Sammy Davies Junior was in on the act with a very melancholy ‘Jingle Bells'. Not the most difficult melody to master and it certainly wouldn't win him the X-factor but at least it all added to the atmosphere!

A friend on Facebook had commented about the weather back in the UK: ‘Batten down the hatches and staying in today…it's biblical out there!! Well I can tell you the weather is biblical here as well as when we ventured on to the terrace, Roisin exclaimed: ‘Jesus, its hot!!!'

---

Comments

[Ragnhild Sorin]

Nice to read a new blog. Have fun and enjoy the sunshine!!

[chris-roisin]

Thanks Ragnhild. Fun goes without saying. Sunshine is compulsory!!