Europe Trip Day 1 Sept 4

Today was pretty uneventful. We spent the entire day in airports and on planes. Not very exciting. Our first flight from SLC to Atlanta was delayed. No one would tell us why it was delayed. The plane was at the gate and we could watch it out the window. It was making me a bit nervous to watch what appeared to be an in depth engine check. A group of a few guys seemed to be checking the engines very carefully. It didn't exactly calm my nerves to watch them.

We ended up taking off from SLC about 45 minutes late. Not a good way to start out the trip. Because of our late take off, we had very little time to make our connecting flight in Atlanta. The flight wasn't too bad actually. About 4 hours in the air.

The funny thing was that we didn't realize how little time we had between flights. We got off the plane and then thought we had plenty of time before the next flight boarded. We even went to the food court and picked up pizza for lunch. We made it to our gate and sat down to eat our pizza. It was then that we noticed that there wasn't anyone hanging out by the gate waiting to board. That seemed a little weird to us, but not too alarming. A few seconds later they made the announcement for the final boarding call for our flight. We barely made it. We spent the rest of the day on the plane headed for London.

Day 2 Sept 5

We finally arrived at Gatwick Airport in London England. That was the longest flight that I have ever been on. About 9 hours. It was weird to have it feel like night, but to see the sunrise out the window. London is 7 hours ahead of SLC.

Gatwick Airport - London

After we landed I noticed a voicemail message on my phone. When I checked it I found out that my travel agency was notifying us that the cruise ship was delayed. Evidently they have bad weather and would be arriving in Southampton about 5 hours late.

This was not a good thing. It was 6:10am and they were now telling us that we couldn't board the ship until 5pm. We had arranged for shuttle transfers through Princess to get us from London to Southampton where we were to board the ship. Princess arranged to send us all to hotels to wait until they could shuttle us to Southampton.

Princess did not handle the situation very well. We were picked up at the airport and taken to the local Hilton hotel. Princess arranged for all of us to have the buffet breakfast there at the hotel. That was about all they arranged. We were left there in the hotel lobby and conference room to wait for the shuttle to leave at 3:15pm. They didn't offer lunch or any kind of snacks after the buffet breakfast. I think if the shuttle hadn't arrived when it did they would have had a mutiny on their hands. Several of the passengers were starting to get very upset. I wish they could have at least arranged for the shuttle to drive us around to see some sights or something. Everyone was suffering from lack of sleep and left to wait for hours. It was starting to get pretty ugly by the time the shuttles arrived. We spent a lot of our time in the lobby talking to a couple from Vancouver Canada. Ok so my mom talked while I dozed in my chair for an hour or two. What did I care, I figured the odds were that I wouldn't see these people again.

After a 2 hour drive to Southampton things only got worse. Princess was trying to get everyone to stay on the buses and unload them one at a time to allow them time to check passengers in. Something went wrong though and somehow all of the buses unloaded at the same time causing a major line up. It took almost 2 hours of waiting for us to finally board.

Everyone waiting to board the cruise ship

I did find it funny when the cruise staff insisted that each group pose for a picture upon boarding the ship. Everyone had been sitting around for hours and most were seriously suffering from lack of sleep. No one looked very nice, but they still insisted that every group's picture was taken.
We finally made it to our room just in time for the life jacket drill. The sirens started and everyone was required to get their life jackets and head to their designated location to sit through the safety procedure run down. Talk about boring. Maybe it was just that I had been up for over 30 hours.
After the drill we were heading back to our room and discovered that the Canadians from the hotel lobby were in the rooms next to ours. This was just the second of several run ins with this couple and their friends. I couldn't believe how small the cabins were. Actually they weren't really that bad but they did contain a lot of unnecessary furniture. It would have been nice to have the extra room to move in instead of 2 extra chairs. Oh well, we didn't spend much time in the cabin.

Day 3 Sept 6 - Rotterdam, Netherlands

We were a little disappointed this morning. We had original signed up for a tour to Amsterdam today. Unfortunately, with the delay in boarding yesterday we were late arriving in Rotterdam and all of the Amsterdam tours were cancelled. The situation caused quite a stir at the Purser's Desk. Everyone was mad about Amsterdam and desperately trying to get alternative tours. Things turned out all right for us in the end. We were able to join a tour for Rotterdam. It was called Rotterdam by Land & Sea. The tour included a panoramic guided tour of the city sites followed by a tour of the world's largest port from the water. (that was from the tour order form)
Here are some pictures as we pulled into port.

Windmills - definitely a sign that we are entering the Netherlands

This bridge is nicknamed the "Swan"

As we got closer to the docks we saw that they were having a festival or something. We later found out that is was their Harbor Day celebration.

It was kind of cool to have everyone on the docks waving as we pulled up. They even had a band playing and singing sailor songs as we were waiting to get off the ship.

House Boats

This building is called the White House. It was the highest building in Europe when completed in 1898. It was also one of the few buildings to survive the 1940 bombing.

They even have the old traditional windmills still in the city.

This picture is the Euromast.

It seems to be similar to the Space Needle in Seattle. It is over 600 feet tall.

We even got to see people repelling down the building from the top.

The city of Rotterdam had some pretty unique architecture. Here are a few examples.

They call these the cube houses. Each cube is a separate residence.

Our tour guide said that the average occupant stays less than one year. I guess they get tired of not having flat walls. He also said that the top floor of the cube is the master bedroom and that the ceiling is glass so that you can see outside.

Sounded kind of cool, but how could you hang a shelf or picture?

This was the ship we went on for our tour of the port.

My mom like this one. He carried his car and boat on top of his ship.

Day 4 Sept 7 - Bruges, Belgium

Today we arrived in the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium. We arranged for a walking tour/canal cruise in Bruges. According to the brochures, Bruges is one of Europe's best-preserved medieval cities. They call the city the "Venice of the North"

The little frog here on the statue is actually the sculptors signature.

He added a little frog to all of his pieces.

A sample of the roads in Bruges. Not all had this design but they were made out of similar stone.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood

The Provinciaal hof

Church of Our Lady Tower (it was hard to get much of it to fit in the picture)

Inside the Church of Our Lady (a 13th century church)

The pulpit that the priest would use to preach to the congregation

Michelangelo's white marble "Madonna and Child" in the Church of Our Lady

I liked seeing all of the different gargoyles. There will be more pictures from other cities

The city had started a renovation project to clean up the surface of this church.

typical Bruges street

I couldn't believe how they would let people walk right through the construction site as if it wasn't there. It was as crowded with people as every other street.

Canal cruise. These little boats were the boats we rode in up the canal.

A little too small for my comfort. It was awesome to get the view of the city from the canal.

You can't tell from this picture but this dog's window is overhanging the canal.

As we passed by he just picked up his head, looked at us, and then just put his head back on his pillow.

I know I shouldn't include this picture, but I found it funny. We were sitting here in the shade taking a break and kept seeing all of these people heading to the public restrooms. They would go in and then end up coming out and searching for money. You actually had to pay .30 Euros to use the public restrooms. They had an attendant there to take your money before they would let you in.

This is were we got our Belgium waffles. I couldn't resist getting Belgium waffles in Belgium.

We actually got some chocolate while we were shopping as well.