The Trip of a Lifetime: July 26 to 28, 2022 - Southampton

July 26, 2022: Captain’s log: star-date 100; Southampton, England
We had a driver take us to Southampton this morning. It was only a two hour trip, but half of that was spent getting through London Traffic. When we got here we walked to the water and then had lunch at a Turkish restaurant.
One thing that I will not miss when we get home is the pumped-in music everywhere we go. From the time we set foot on the ship in Fort Lauderdale we have been blasted with techno, dance, and modern pop music. The Turkish restaurant today even had it. Isn’t there Turkish music? Why couldn’t we hear that?
You can’t sit in the hotel lobby and work on something, because the music is ever-present. It’s not the soundtrack of my life, so I don’t want to hear it. It’s like when you go to the doctor and there is a TV playing in the waiting room. During this trip we have not had the TV on once. I’m proud of that. It allows you to hear other things, like since Amsterdam, seagulls have become more present every day, calling us to the sea and eventually our home. Now that is a soundtrack I want to listen to.
We grabbed Chinese street food, went back to the room, ate and crashed.
Cheers!

July 27, 2023: Captain’s log: star-date 101; Southampton, England
I jogged over to the port this morning to try and find out where we are leaving from on Friday and to see if there is a Cunard office that can answer our questions about COVID-19 testing and printing out luggage tags (which we can’t do online) . We are leaving from Gate 10 Mayflower. How cool is that? Not only did Henry V sail from here before the Battle of Agincourt, but so did the Mayflower, on its way to Plymouth Rock.
The Titanic also sailed from here, but we are going to memory hole that… I wasn’t allowed to jog all the way to the terminal. The guard told me there is no office there anyway. When I returned from the run I went on Google Maps and found the corporate offices of Carnival UK/Cunard. We walked over there with our list of questions and concerns.
The employees were very helpful. Self-testing for COVID-19 is on the honors system and they will print luggage tags for us when we get to the terminal. With all the “COVID is back” rhetoric in the air these days, we wanted to make sure there will be no glitches on Friday, when we reach the boat. We got our assurances.
After that, we went shopping for the last of our boat things in very chilly Southampton. This has been a trip with temperature pendulum swings; sometimes very hot, but mostly chilly. Roz can’t wait to get back to 90+ degree JAX Beach, but I’m relishing the chill…
We may do one more tourist trip tomorrow, It’s a couple hours away. Epic place, but we are starting to wind this thing down. Don’t want to kill ourselves getting to the finish line.
Cheers!

July 28, 2022: Captain’s log: star-date 102; Southampton, England
I went for a short hike this morning, because I just didn’t have a run in my engine. That’s a shame because it’s great running weather here; chilly and usually overcast. We took our pre cruise COVID-19 tests today and tested negative. We were going to go to Stonehenge today, but decided to do more second hand clothes shopping so we aren’t washing out many things on the boat.
That meant having to do one last laundry run and then iron everything. No problem. This has been the trip of a lifetime and it is going to be capped off by the boat ride of a lifetime, so I would rather be well prepared for the boat than to have seen Stonehenge.
Between buying stuff at flea markets, vintage stores, second hand shops and regular mall stores, I now have two blazers, two dress pants, seven dress shirts, five ties and four casual shirts. I have also collected seven Jeff caps. That is my new go to hat. This blog will change over the next seven days. On the boat I will be reflecting back more and narrating less. When we get to New York, it will be go, go, go.
And then, when we reach JAX Beach, it will morph into something else completely. But more about that later.
Cheers!