Cruises R Fun! - Reviews of Cruise Lines, Cruise Ships, Destinations, Ports And More!
We leave London today and take a train to Harwich England where we are to board the Oosterdam. We were worried about how we were going to get our luggage from the taxi down the stairs to the train station. However, it turned out to be quite easy. The taxi dropped us off in a covered area adjacent to the train station. There were luggage carts right where he dropped us off, and it was below street level and so there were no stairs to worry about.
We were taking what is called the "Boat Train" which only runs when there is a cruise ship departing from Harwich. Later we met people who had taken a bus instead of the train. The train ride was about 1/3 the price of the bus and about 3 times quicker.
We went down to get on the train about 15 minutes before it left, and found that the train was nearly full! Luggage piled up everywhere, especially in the doorways on the train cars.
I was planning on getting some nice photographs of the English country side, but as it turned out the train had fairly dirty windows, and stayed behind trees and burms most of the time. I didn't take any pictures of the country side.
We immediately met a nice couple also headed for the Oosterdam cruise and spent the time chatting. Before we knew it we had pulled into the station which was only a few yards from the ship. A porter took our bags to the ship while we checked in and boarded the ship. The whole process took maybe twenty minutes.
When we saw our room we couldn't believe how big it was. Somehow we ended up with a handicapped room...far bigger than any room we had experienced on any of our other cruises. There was a ton of closet space, a huge bed and a convertible sofa bed, electric powered curtains, a mini bar, and a very large bathroom. The bathroom, being handicapped accessible, did not have the traditional raised threshold as most ship-board bathrooms and a fold-down seat in the shower.
After boarding the ship, we checked out our room, and then went looking for the internet place. It turns out that each room has an internet connection which costs 50 cents per minute to use.
To use the ships facilities for email costs 75 cents per minute unless you purchase blocks of time. If your computer is equipped for wireless operation, you can hook to the internet through the wireless connection on decks 1,2, and 3. We bought a 250 minute block of the wireless time and that ends up costing 40 cents per minute.
To use the internet connection in your room requires loading some software from a CD. I went to the internet lounge and loaded the software while Kathy unpacked the suitcases.
You can rent laptops on the ship for $20.00 per day. We discovered, very quickly, that unlike other cruise lines that we have been on, this ship allows you to buy liquor in the tax free store and take it to you stateroom. That will save us a lot !! Then at dinner, we were told that we could also bring wine on board from our various ports and for a small corkage fee have it for dinner, or have it in our staterooms.