Our alarm went off at 8:30am. We had to get up early to return our rental car at ten. At least, Davin thought we had to return the car at 10am, because it was the time in our original rental car agreement. However, since we were late to rent the car in the first place (we didn’t get it until noon), and yet we still paid for a full 15 days, I think we have until noon to turn it in. Regardless, we decided not to take any chances.
Unfortunately, neither of us slept well last night. Our room at the Premier Inn Dover was way too hot! It was still hot after we turned the heater off (there was no AC) and opened the window. Davin’s tossing and turning kept me awake, and he says that he heard me tossing and turning violently as well! Anyway, when the alarm went off neither of us really wanted to get up. Well, Davin was technically already up. He traded restless sleep for time in a warm bath in the dark. D said we should ‘sleep’ an extra half hour after the alarm went off. In the end, we got up at 9am.
I finally rolled out of bed, threw open the drapes, and there she was: the Norwegian Sun. I think the Sun is a much prettier ship than the Queen Mary, because she has a huge orange and yellow sun painted across her side. I turned back to the task at hand: packing. I quickly threw all our things in our bags, while harassing Davin to get out of the tub and get ready (he has very little get up and go, so he isn’t much help to me in the morning). I called the rental car place and they said that if any staff were free they could give us a ride to our cruise ship. I decided we should still drop our heavy luggage off at the cruise terminal before returning the rental car just in case we decided to walk anyway. We were checked out, and had the car loaded up by 9:30am.
At the cruise terminal, we dropped off our four big bags. Davin and I noticed that very few people seemed to be going on this cruise compared to the Queen Mary. At least, the entrance was much less crowded, and there wasn’t the same build up of luggage waiting to be loaded. I guess it’s also possible that the terminal workers at Dover are just a lot more efficient!
Next, we drove to the rental car return. Here we were led astray by Google yet again. Davin and I still haven’t lost enough faith in technology! We took a wrong turn at the ferry terminal because we trusted Google’s directions over a sign saying ‘Hired Car Return’. Stupid, I know, but since the ‘Hired Car Return’ took us into a ticketed parking structure that was clearly for regular long term parking, we wanted to be absolutely sure it was the right place before we ended up paying X amount of Pounds to “park”. The sign also didn’t indicate specific car companies. If it had had the Avis logo on it, then it would have been a no brainer. Anyway, we verified that Google was wrong (yet again), and the result of this ‘verification’ was that we took a wrong turn back to the ‘Hired Car Return’ location, and ended up on a freeway headed north out of the city. So we had to do a five mile loop to get turned around and back to the Ferry Terminal! *Sigh*
At this point, it was already past ten. Since we were “late” in returning the car, we decided there wasn’t a rush to get back. So we returned to the gas station to top off the gas tank. (Our drive to the cruise terminal, and our subsequent wrong direction adventure used enough gas to move the fuel indicator off of FULL.) We then returned to the Ferry Terminal and entered the parking structure indicated by the ‘Hired Car Return’ signs. It was, of course, the right place.
We turned in the car. The man who inspected the car didn’t find any more damage than we had started with. Yay! I was waiting downstairs with our bags (backpack and laptop case), but Davin said this guy wasn’t as anal about checking for damage as the woman in London was. I said the guy probably took one look at the damage record sheet, saw the car was already totally f*&ked up, and decided it wasn’t worth his time to find one or two more new chips. Not that there was anything to find necessarily! Davin managed to get through the 15 days with zero incidents. There were one or two close calls, (Mostly from the car’s tendency to buck forward when the ignition is turned but the clutch isn’t in. Not a good thing to happen when you’re parked in front of another car or... a brick wall!), but we had no actual accidents.
It was around 10:40am at this point. Check-in for the cruise wasn’t until noon so we had some time to kill. We decided therefore, that we would walk to the cruise terminal from the car return. The walk gave us some views of the white cliffs of Dover, and of the Norwegian Sun. Not spectacular views though. The day was a bit overcast. Mostly the walk was something to do. Plus, I figure that strenuous (heavy bags) exercise is the prefect thing to do before embarking on an 11 day a$$ sitting! Unlike the hectic past two weeks, the cruise will be a refreshing, relaxing period of doing nothing. Nothing but eating, watching TV, and using our computers.
Actually, despite the availability of food, I plan to lose weight on this cruise, not to gain it. Somehow I already managed to gain weight during the active part of my trip (Must be from the soda and Kit-Kats... and, of course, our attempts to eat all our food without letting any of it go to waste!). Anyway, since I gained weight during the active phase of the trip, it would only be fitting to lose weight during the lazy phase. I love being contrary!
While walking to the cruise ship, Davin and I discussed how much more accessible the Dover cruise terminal is for pedestrians than the Brooklyn, NY terminal is. When we had driven to the terminal in the morning, we noticed that a lot of disembarking passengers left the terminal by walking. The people in Europe just walk places so much more than in the US. So, it makes sense that the cruise terminals over here are a lot more accessible. People just expect to be able to walk. Granted, this is just an assumption since we have only seen one US cruise terminal. The San Diego terminal is probably pretty accessible. The Cape Canaveral one sure isn’t though! It isn’t convenient to get to even by car! But that’s a story for another day (like October 16th when we arrive there).
We made it to the cruise terminal at 11:30am. We took some pictures of the ship, and were amused by a ‘No Fishing’ sign that was directly below a man fishing. He obviously worked at the cruise terminal, and none of his buddies were going to report him. We checked in and were aboard the ship by 12:30pm. Unfortunately, the rooms weren’t going to be ready until 2pm. We grabbed some pasta for lunch. We noticed that this cruise, unlike the Queen Mary, only supplies iced tea for free, no juice or lemonade. We don’t mind though because we like iced tea, and it has no sugar.
When we finished eating, we moved to the observation deck. There we started watching a Star Trek Voyager. We only got a few minutes in when it was announced the rooms were ready. We packed my computer up again, and went to our room.
We were pleasantly surprised by the size of the room. It is bigger than the one we had on the Queen Mary. In addition to the beds, it has a sofa. Otherwise, the amenities are pretty much the same (desk, closets, small table). Still, it’s nice
to have a bigger room to hang out in. We left our bags in the room and then looked around the ship some more.
In the afternoon, three out of four of our heavy bags arrived. We set up Davin’s computer so we could watch a Voyager. Then we received a phone call that security was holding our fourth bag. This wasn’t really a surprise to us. The fourth bag had all our kitchen goods in it, including a nice chopping knife! We went down to guest services and opened our bag for security. In addition to the knife, they weren’t too pleased to see the toaster and burner either. I think their first thought was that we were planning to cook in our room on the ship! When I explained that it was just the tools we had been using to cook with in Britain, and that we just wanted to take the stuff home, not use them on the ship, they seemed to relax a bit. In the end, security confiscated the knife and can opener (?) as sharp objects. Davin and I got a laugh out of that. Davin said that if someone came at him with a can opener he wouldn’t be all that concerned. It is a pretty funny image. We were allowed to take a few things out, like the tea and laundry detergent. The bag and the rest of its contents are being stored for us by housekeeping. It was a nice surprise to us that all our items (including the knife) will be returned to us the night before the cruise ends.
Back in our room, Davin and I watched a Voyager. In the middle of the show, our purser arrived to introduce himself. We asked him if he could split our bed (it was in double bed formation by default). Davin and I went out briefly so he could do his work. We wandered outside and ended up playing ping pong together. I turned out to be much better at it than Davin. It has been years since I played that game!
We returned to our room and finished our Voyager episode. Then I took a shower and did some laundry in a bucket. I’m afraid our experience on the QM2 led us astray. On the Queen Mary, there were self service laundry rooms for the passengers. On the Sun, you can only pay (ridiculous prices) to have your clothes laundered for you! So we shot ourselves in the foot by waiting to do our laundry on the cruise ship. But since we have our own liquid laundry detergent, we can wash our own clothes in our bathroom. Using our metal trash can as a bucket, I washed four pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear while I was in the shower. This is the old school navy man’s way of doing laundry. We learned about that when we visited the HMS Belfast. Now we get to experience it first hand! So far I’ve determined that washing boards (for scrubbing) were invented for a reason. There is no way I’m going to actually get our clothes entirely clean. Cleaner is clean enough for me though!
Davin took a shower after I did. I worked on the blog updates. Then at 10pm we went to dinner. We ate at the buffet again. It is just much more convenient than going to a sit down venue. Back in our room we watched one more Voyager, and went to bed at midnight.
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