World Cruise Day 137/152 - Tilbury, England - Day 2 in Tilbury and the vibe has changed

Cruise day: 137/152

Ports days: 68
Sea days: 69
Countries: 22
Continents: 5
Ports: 50

We awoke a little late today as we are still in Tilbury with nothing planned.  Friends told us about a ferry that leaves from just behind our ship.  For 4 or five pounds, they take you the 5-10 minutes south across the Thames to Gravesend.  We thought about doing that but then thought that once the Homelands cruise starts, we'll be going, going, going, every day.  Perhaps, just taking a day to throw in a load of laundry, and just relax might be a good idea.  So that's what we did.

This morning, bunkering operations began.  Bunkering is a fancy nautical term for gassing up.  The fuel vessel came alongside with the assistance of a tug.  They tied off to us and were snugged up against our port side.  The tug remained here during the operation, firmly planted on the other side of the fuel vessel, keeping it snug against our hull.

Bunkering takes a long time, especially if we're taking on a full load of nearly 100,000 gallons.  It continued well into the afternoon.

I mentioned that the vibe has changed in the title.  It has.  Why?  This morning, we went from 500+ passengers on the ship to just over 150.  

Most of the folks in this photo are now gone

That situation will remain today and tomorrow, but Wednesday morning, most of that 150 will also depart, leaving just 38 of us from the World Cruise on the ship.  Then, somewhere around 700 new passengers will embark making this much more crowded than we've been used to for the last 137 days.

Another thing that's changed the vibe is the closing of the World Cafe at 8:30AM today.  It will remain closed today, and I suspect tomorrow.  Why?  Here's a look at the port side.

All the carpet on the port side has been removed and the new carpet is already being put down.  We're very excited that we will be among the first that will get to spill on the new carpet. ;-)

England is an interesting place.  Perhaps it is because as a country, it is much older than the US that we find some, let's call them, peculiarities.  I was looking at the map of where we are today.

There we are, docked in Tilbury.  As you can see, we barely fit in the Thames. :-)  If you look at Tilbury, you can see that it seems to have a couple of outer areas call West Tilbury and East Tilbury.  Of course, East Tilbury is nearly due east of Tilbury.  That makes perfect sense.  But...West Tilbury, well that's another story.  West Tilbury, while west of East Tilbury, is actually north and east of Tilbury itself.  Maybe the urban planners drafted the plan after a few too many pints.  Or possibly, the discussion revolved around putting West Tilbury to the east of Tilbury to confuse the Yanks when they come to visit - it will be hilarious!  

About 4:15PM, Cruise Director Kate came on the PA and said that there will be a cocktail gathering in the Explorers' Bar for the sail away from Tilbury today.  Not being ones to avoid a party, we headed up and enjoyed a couple of hours of spirited conversation and spirited beverages while enjoying those panoramic views out the sweeping front windows.

During the soiree, Kate explained the changes for tomorrow's dining.  With the World Cafe closed for revamping, Viking will be preparing breakfast in Manfedi's tomorrow morning.  Kate encouraged everyone to come and enjoy breakfast together.  Dinner will be served in The Restaurant, but it will be served family-style.  Each large table will have a senior officer at it.  We will all gather and dine as a Viking family.  It is things like this that certainly sets Viking apart as a company.  They really do seem to view both crew and passengers as family.

We set sail for the North Sea and Bergen, Norway.  Tomorrow, we will be at sea and will arrive in Bergen, Norway on Wednesday.  We have had such amazing weather on this cruise, I've been waiting for the other shoe to fall, so to speak.  I think it is falling and will hit on Wednesday. Here are the forecasts for Bergen (5/11-5/12), Eidfjord (5/13), and Stavanger (5/14), Norway.

Here's hoping that some of that Viking World Cruise weather magic follows us along and the weather clears and warms a bit.  

World Cruise Day 136/152 - Tilbury, England - London calling

Cruise day: 136/152

Ports days: 67
Sea days: 69
Countries: 22
Continents: 5
Ports: 50

Before we get into today, here's a recap of the first-ever at-sea marathon aboard the Viking Star. As a reminder, the walkers went on May 5 and the runners on May 7. The stats are courtesy of Financial Officer Chris.

Walkers May 5

5K - 64 passengers, 12 crew

10K - 14 passengers

21K - 5 passengers

Runners May 7

5K - 3 passengers, 9 crew

10K - 5 passengers, 13 crew

21K - 4 passengers, 3 crew

To put that all into perspective, the total distance covered by all participating passengers and crew on those two mornings was 1,012 kilometers or 629 miles around deck #2!  That is pretty darn incredible!

This morning, we docked in Tilbury, England, a major port serving London.  With the advent of container ships, London is no longer able to receive ships and therefore moved its ports out to Southhampton, Tilbury, and others. Tilbury became a major port for London in the 1970s.

Green power is all the rage in the UK and Tilbury is no exception

After breakfast, we got off the ship and promptly waited in the terminal.

We docked a few minutes late this morning so that pushed the buses back a bit.  It wasn't more than a five-minute delay and we were loading and on our way to London.  Once again, this is a bus-centric tour, so apologies for many of the through-the-glass photos from a moving bus.

We were concerned when we got on our bus and saw the temperature display.  For the non-Celcius folks, 85C is 185F.  Lucky for us, it was a malfunctioning display and we all didn't roast. :-)

One thing that has remained consistent throughout the cruise is that weather has been very favorable.  Today was no different.  Rain was predicted but we wound up with temps in the mid-60s and unrestricted sunshine.

Our guide was one of the best we've had on this journey.  Knowledgeable, excited about her locality, and eager to share what she knows, it made for a terrific day.

She started explaining that all of England is excited right now as London is preparing for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee honoring her 70 years on the throne. Unfortunately for us, that meant that our planned pass-by of Buckingham Palace was not going to happen as they are heavily into preparations.

London was founded in 43AD by the Romans as Londinium.  The Tower of London was built in the 1060s by William the Conquerer and the Normans.  We passed by the Tower of London walls on our way into the city.

We proceeded south across the Thames to our first stop.

The Shard - the tallest building in Western Europe, as we pass over the Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge

HMS Belfast - participated in the D-Day landing and the Korean War

Who knew Uber has boats?

The White Tower at the Tower of London

We got back on the bus and headed for our second stop at St. Paul's Cathedral.

St. Paul's - England's national church

Tulips out front of St. Paul's

It appears that someone added some bubble bath to the fountain

This is directly across the street from St. Paul's

A war memorial honoring firefighters in action at the height of the blitz attack on London during WWII

London cabs

We left St. Paul's and were off to our final stop, Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey.

We drove past Trafalgar Square.

The Queen's horse guards - unfortunately, I couldn't get a usable photo of the horses, but the guards on horseback are in the two small houses out front

I'm not exactly sure how our guide breathed.  She was talking non-stop with, "out the right side of the bus...out the left side of the bus..." because London simply has a non-stop array of historical sights as you're driving around.  It was way too much to document, so enjoy the photos.

Foreign & Commonwealth building

Westminster Abbey

Our first look at Big Ben - actually, it is now called Elizabeth Tower - Big Ben is the name of the largest of five bells in the tower - but for the sake of ease of writing - it's Big Ben

Westminster Abbey gate

Martyrs on Westminster Abbey's facade

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

The Methodist Central Hall

More of Westminster

Westminster School

Lots of famous folks' remains are entombed in Westminster Abbey including Sir Issac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, George Frideric Handel, and Charles Darwin.

We crossed the street to Parliament Square.

We had some free time so we walked over to the Thames to get some photos of the London Eye and photos of Big Ben in better lighting.

Really ornate lampposts

Arlona and an iconic phone booth

Remnants embedded in the sidewalk from the previous Jubilees honoring Queen Elizabeth's tenure on the throne.

We spotted this large group walking

We think it must be either a national basketball or volleyball team from China

London does look out for its tourists

Westminster Church

Hmm...planet-friendly and called the "Toot" bus - perhaps it runs on natural gas and makes regular stops at Taco Bell?

When our time was up, we boarded the bus for more sightseeing before heading back to the ship.

An unusual war memorial with a figure of a deceased soldier

Picadilly Circus

Back at Trafalgar Square and a look at some temporary art on display.  It is supposed to represent the current state of society. Ice cream, a cherry, a fly, and a drone.  I don't get it. 

Admiralty Arch

The South African embassy

The Black Friar Pub

Every entrance into the City of London is marked with these silver dragons - the City of London refers to a one square mile area

We grabbed lunch on the ship and then attended a presentation in the Star Theater by none other than Viking's Chairman and owner, Torstein Hagan.

L-R, Joost Ouendag - VP Product Marketing, Karina Hagan, Captain Lars

We had hoped that Tor would address some of the ongoing issues we faced with this World Cruise including maintenance on Viking's oldest ocean vessel, horrific Wi-Fi, and so on. It turned out to be more of a marketing presentation about Viking's successes and new itineraries like the following two new vertical World Cruises.  These will be made available to past Viking guests before being offered openly starting in June 2022.

Tor promoted that Viking will be adopting hydrogen fuel cell technology starting with their 11th ocean vessel.

We had our final dinner with friends that will be going home tomorrow.  We reflected on a terrific cruise with a touch of sadness that our time together is coming to an end.

With many folks disembarking tomorrow, Chef Thomas took one more swing at the collective waistlines with these amazing chocolate-covered peanut butter and caramel cakes.

Bags were in the hallways, waiting for the cabin stewards to take them away to prepare for disembarkation tomorrow morning.  For us, we get to relax and hang out.  Tomorrow starts the two-day World Cruise extension for us to move the ship to Bergen Norway. We are still trying to determine how we will spend the day tomorrow in Tilbury. Check back again tomorrow to see what we decided.