A Port Call to Weymouth, UK

Today we woke to find the ship docking at the cruise ship terminal in Portland Port, near the city of Weymouth, part of Dorchester County.

Holland America had organized shuttle buses, double-decker buses, for the passengers to get to Weymouth.  Portland Port is a commercial port you see, and you can't just wander about lost.  Kudos to HA, not only were there plenty of buses, but the wait at stops was less than 5 minutes.

Once dropped off near the Town Center, we meandered our way to the Promenade next to Weymouth Beach.  The city had volunteers handing out maps to guide us clueless tourists.

Some of the sites we saw as we wandered.  Martha delighted in finding crocheted figures on the way to the town center:

The following three crochet figures, along the Despicable Me motif, were mounted on street side barrier poles.

I found Weymouth more picturesque than Falmouth, perhaps it was the more "open" feel to the town, especially in the esplanade area.

Today's moto content: A Pretty Airhead

There was a short rest period for hydration at the William Henry Pub:

Just one "then and now" pair of pictures:

We also visited the Castle Town D-Day Center.  A small but well layed out interactive museum with many military artifacts and equipment.  A lot of it you can climb onto, pick up and get a feel for it (The German Army's MP40 Machine Gun was surprisingly heavy) and many signs detailing the bio and accomplishments of individual soldiers, sailors and airmen.  Of course, the contributions of women were also detailed.

There were several young men walking about in uniform, to give the exhibits a "live" feel...a nice touch.

I liked the museum, small as it was, because you could touch and examine stuff.  Unlike most museums which limit you to just looking at items.

Martha looks like a natural behind this M2 .50 Caliber MG eh?

Touristed out, we found our way to the shuttle bus stop and shortly returned to the cruise ship with no issues.

They were still cleaning the balconies and outside structures of the ship when we returned:

After a sumptuous lunch in the Lido Market, we wandered to the stern of the ship by the Seaview Pool.  We wanted to get a look at a couple of British Naval vessels.

We walked over 10,000 steps today...my feet feel a bit sore.

Tomorrow, a port call to LeHavre, near Paris, France.  We're taking a bus excursion to the D-Day Landing Beaches.  More to follow.

Update: Adding pics of the small band that showed up in the evening after I'd blogged.  They're apparently the Weymouth Brass Band and they were serenading us while the ship prepared to leave.  Pretty cool and a nice touch!

Our last view of the port, the Portland Fort:

Sea Day Shenanigans and a Port Call at Falmouth, UK

Here's some of the activities of the last few sea days designed to keep the passengers entertained.

Cake Day:

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

Towel Animal Day, where one could learn how to craft said creatures.  We didn't attend, just viewed the results.

Picture by Martha

Design and build your ship day, Martha attended the showing:

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

I know, I know, pretty exciting stuff right.  But given the Gray Tsunami demographics for this cruise line....it's what you get.  Much more preferable to the frenetic fun seeking action on Carnival Cruise Lines I'm sure.

Today, Wednesday, April 16

Our first port call in the UK, and the only one where one has to take a ship's tender to get to shore.  Falmouth's harbor, while the third deepest in the world would not accommodate our ship.  Probably due to her large size.

Pendennis Castle from our ship cabin

Ship's Tenders

Immigration checks by the UK Border Force progressed quite smoothly under the ship's management as was the shuttling of passengers onto the ship's tenders.  I believe the ship launched at least five of its tenders and hired a couple more commercial ones to ferry people to/from the ship.

The immigration checks were only for passengers, not the crew.

I was feeling a bit crabby due to an annoying passenger we were next to while awaiting immigration, so Martha steered us to a pub soon after we got off the shuttle bus from the port.

It also probably didn't help we were packed into the ship tenders like sardines for the 30 minute ride to the city from the ship.

Re-centering my Qi

Yep, I was day drinking but I checked with 

the bartender and he said it was fine.  :)

Picture by Martha

Though there was public wifi provided by the city of Falmouth, it was a bit spotty.  So we used the wifi at the pub to catch up on texts and resolve some banking glitches we'd experienced aboard ship.

We wandered about the city's main or High Street.  Some of the things that caught our eyes:

This Landing Ship Dock "Cardigan Bay"

We ate lunch (Fish and Chips) by the water

Picture by Martha

Picture by Martha

We checked out the Parish Church.  Martha spotted this print on cloth picture of the church from back in the day.  

Then we went and found the same view:

I mentioned we had Fish and Chips for lunch, the shop we got it at claimed Best in the Country honors for their Fish and Chips.  We found the fish good but couldn't eat more than say half of the enormous amount of fries or "chips" that were included!

After lunch and some light shopping by Martha, we returned to the dock where we caught a returning tender with minimal waiting.

Inside Tender #20

A look under the pier....

One more view of the Pendennis Castle from the window of the ship's tender that returned us back to the ship:

 

I'm happy to report the return trip back to the ship was in a barely half filled ship's tender.  

We spent the rest of the afternoon resting up.  The city had gotten quite crowded with people in the later morning.  It was apparently a school break week so there were families out enjoying the sunny weather.  Add them to the crowds from the cruise ship and I'm sure we got on the nerves of the locals.

Tomorrow, we have a port call in Weymouth, UK.

Note:  Took me a while but finally connected the fact that so many English towns' name end in mouth because they are sited at the mouth of a river.  The river Fal runs into the bay at Falmouth, Weymouth is at the mouth of the Wey River and so on.