Thursday to Friday mid-day - 6 ,7 June 2013 - Boulder to London
My friend and cruise agent extraordinaire Jim has mentioned that he is finding that it's the air travel that has become the strongest negative to luxury cruise marketing. Cost saving efforts by the cruise lines make booking the flight arrangements through them difficult due to awkward routing and forced last minute arrivals to the port of embarkation. But one way open jaw itineraries, especially to distant end points, require that the special fares available to the cruise lines are often necessary. The airlines have added to the difficulties because their increased load factors make flexibility because of weather or maintenance delays impossible.
Barbara and I have increased our "luck" traveling overseas by being defensive. (That means expensive.) We book multi-hour layovers to change planes and usually leave one or two days at the destination before our ships sail. Of course, such luck is expensive and usually boring. When it comes to flying commercially, luck isn't what it used to be.
Neither is United Airlines. The friendly skies have been replaced with the sullen skies and the gloomy delay congested gate areas. The Economy Plus seats are now filled with paid upgrades as only the highest status flyers get automatic seating in the better seas. And all aircraft seem to be "every full" (sometimes as bad as "extremely full") as the flight attendant say numerous times when you are lucky enough to finally board.
As reported in my Facebook posts in great frustrated detail, our ten hour, twenty-five minute flight times from Denver to London was closer to eighteen hours, for a record twenty-six hours total home to our Southampton hotel. United's crack maintenance delays were the cause, with the overseas flight's almost five hour delay coming in 10 minute increments with threats to cancel the flight with each new "decision time".
They didn't cancel the flight as it happened, but United Airlines somehow did destroy our booking from Copenhagen to Denver at the end of the cruise to add injury to insult. All was fixed due to my almost fifty years of flight experience and a bunch of iPhone apps and purchasing Internet access at the Southampton hotel and having the couple of hours to spare on the phone with United and SAS to re-establish the lost flight details. Thanks be to Skype Out.
Friday afternoon through Saturday -7, 8 June 2013 – Southampton, UK
After an almost four month "shore excursion" back in Colorado, preparation for another cruise proceeded apace. Despite the lengthy and stress ridden flights to London, we were most happy to see that English weather, at least in West Sussex, had changed from cold and wet to cloudless skies and 70 degree plus temperatures. I mentioned this to the Brits at our hotel in Southampton, and they agreed that we should come frequently to the UK and not bring any rain protection, certainly not ever needing to pack an umbrella again. They even smiled when they gave this advice. Most unusual for English folks.
We actually enjoyed our planned 2½ day stay in Southampton quite a bit, the weather certainly contributing to our getting the most of the reduced time and enhanced jet lag due to the stress of modern travel afforded by United Airlines most gracious efforts to ruin the trip. Southampton is a large modern city but with a marvelous history going back hundreds of years. There are many remnants of the city walls, each carefully documented with neat (highly over documented to tell the truth) signs, and the sea-faring past hangs over the city. The old White Star Headquarters building radiates anxiety to this day as the site where relatives of the rich and famous lost on the Titantic waited for word of the fate of their inheritances—I mean relatives.
We took a ferry ride to make a short visit to nearby Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. The brand spanking new Royal Princess cruise ship was docked awaiting the Duchess of York to officially christen this floating emporium of climbing walls and inside atrium balcony facing rooms, and the Queen Mary 2, the new but last ocean liner called during our stay. As did about a half dozen other cruise ships. Elderly, shopping bagged couples wandered the streets and the shopping centers and came and went throughout the day. But Southampton is really a glorified but pleasant cruise port. To tell the truth, we liked Southampton quite a bit and some day hope to spend less time there.
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