GregD

Hello all, I'm starting this here because people asked if I would post about our trip to Scotland, and of course I forget who, so I won't tag anyone. Since it's not a "cruise blog" I will post here unless the mods move it. 

This trip has been planned for quite some time now and we are so excited for it to start. I know that cruising is not the only vacation that people take, so I will try to add as many resources as possible here that I looked at or used, so that others can benefit from them as well. One thing I can say is that through the blogs I was able to get in touch with @Rags1 who gave us some great information!

So who is going?

This will be myself, my wife @TheBoss518 and our two freeloaders. D15 and S12. In our typical fashion the freeloaders don't know all the specifics of the trip and there will be a decent surprise for them. 

Where are we headed?

July 19th - JFK-LHR. This is an overnight flight. @Lovetocruise2002 will like what I have to say about these flights. Can we say Delta One?

July 20th - Arrive in London. We will stay here for a few days to see some sights that we missed on our first trip.

July 23rd - Train from London to Edinburgh. We will be here for a few days as well

July 26 - We pick up a rental car and head to Inverness. While here we will have our first "cruise" when we take a trip on Loch Ness and have afternoon tea with the Emo Coos

July 28th - Depart Inverness and head to Skye. This will be "cruise" #2 because we will travel over the sea to Skye. (Outlander fans will catch the phrasing here)

July 30th - Depart Skye and head to Glencoe

August 1st - Depart Glencoe and head further south. On August 2nd we will take our third "cruise" to Islay where I will visit Lagavulin which is my favorite Scotch.

August 3rd - Head back to Edinburgh where we will see The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Aagust 5th - Train back to London

August 6th - Back to reality LHR-JFK. 

Much more to come, but I should probably get dinner started. I'm still figuring out how I will format this whole thing as we get going. We have started packing and the endless Bezos boxes are arriving at my door. I will attempt to organize my thoughts into something intelligent and interesting. 

On 7/13/2025 at 9:01 AM, OCSC Mike said:

Do it! And if you can manage a land portion, especially like @GregD’s (ours was pretty similar in 2018 partly b/c we used the same company), I can’t recommended that more highly. We loved Denali & Seward.

twasn't me. I have not been to Alaska yet, but it's on the short list!

Happy Cruise day!!

3 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Even if you got nothing....this blog seems to be taking a life of it's own tangents? Shall we remind you to pack underwear next?

Are you even blogging right if there aren't tangents?

3 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

At this rate, I could use all the reminders I can get. On top of having routine appointments and other things to do today already scheduled, minor issues keep popping up. Everything got resolved and my wife did fill her packing cubes earlier, but it definitely doesn't feel like the day before a cruise.

If I don't use all my vouchers tomorrow, I never will. I foresee multiple trips to Mason Jar and Pesky Parrot. Unless lunch and unpacking count, I don't think we have any firm plans besides WJ dinner whenever and Aqua80TOO at 8:30.

I just mentioned to @TheBoss518 that we leave for Scotland in 8 days....which was followed up with a look of panic, and a s@#t.....I'm not ready.....(which is code for, we will be funding the next Bezos wedding)

At this rate we will still be packing the morning of departure......

@Lovetocruise2002 can you have hubby let her know his last minute packing tricks?

@asquared17 fear not, I already packed the cup clip

2 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

cruises really sneak up on me at the end

This happens here as well. 

8 hours ago, Jax said:

Test it with an Oh Henry chocolate bar and report back. 
 

and “code brown”  
 

funny story....When I was younger I worked as a lifeguard during summer breaks at an inner city pool. This one was known for being over crowded and rowdy. Parents would drop off their poor behaving freeloaders for the day for us to "babysit." Older kids would just come and go throughout the day. Always busy, always stressful.

If it got too crazy, one of the guards while on their break would go to the restaurant in the park and get a meatball. This would then be dropped in the pool on the way to a guard station for another lifeguard to find.

We would call a code brown, kick everyone out of the pool for an hour so that we can "shock the pool." This usually would have the desired effect of the older kids, who were usually the problems, getting bored and leaving for the rest of the day...

Like I mentioned in your live blog, and now I can see all the people I'm going to upset, but I will repeat here. While I am a fun guy, I found their mushroom soup to be just meh. I do really like the bacon, and will frequently get the crab cake, even though it's mostly bread crumbs.

@OCSC Mike looking forward to following along. This will help distract me from my over excitement about leaving for Scotland here soon. 

I'm excited to see how the dining works out for you. We have the same B2B booked for April, but on Wonder!. We snagged the UDP for both legs for a really good price. I'm debating canceling for the 3 day. I can tell you that I cant wait to try MJ. All of your talk about that restaurant over your past blogs has me so ready to try it. I do plan on doing a brunch and dinner there. 

I have yet to eat at Hooked, so I cant comment there, but I can say that I have never had a bad meal at chops. Like everything RC there are consistently inconsistent. Some meals were better than others, but never bad.

My go to's there are the goat cheese salad, and the filet. The Boss gets the ribeye and usually has no complaints. The bacon is usually good. The crab cake has decent flavor, but has too much bread crumbs (which seems to be the consensus). I've had the lobster bisque which is quite tasty, but usually lacks actual pieces of lobster, and I'm probably going to make a certain neighbor/neighbour? @Lovetocruise2002 amongst other people sad when I say the mushroom soup is just meh......

My favorite of the sides are the gruyere tater tots, because I am a kid at heart and LOVE tots, and when you can add cheese to them, even better. The Mac and cheese is good too. 

I will have to remember to reach out to you before we head out on Wonder to see if your crew friends are on the ship. I would love to meet them and would gladly bring any requested items. 

2 hours ago, DuckHunter said:

am curious whether the wifi situation depends upon location of where you are on the ship.

It absolutely does. Some areas are better than others. It's all based on distance and availability of access points that you are able to connect to, and any local interference between that access point and your device. 

For instance, I was on Allure (pre-amplification) seated in the champagne bar and wifi was not usable. Once I moved into the promenade a bit, it was significantly better. 

54 minutes ago, alan g said:

But quite a bit of the time it was unusable. 

I feel your pain, but unfortunately that is a result of ship construction. All that steel, and other structures absolutely kill WIFI signals. Having starlink won't fix that. Unless they spend gobs of money and time installing additional access points and other infrastructure there will be plenty of areas where the signal and experience will be inconsistent. Speeds though when you are in a good spot are definitely improved with starlink vs the older legacy equipment. 

I think prices are fluctuating already. When they went live the other day for my cruise on wonder 4/6/26 passes were $250, now they are $200, which I still think is too much.

Paired with the DX its $93.00 per day. 

I'll be staying on the empty ship enjoying my vouchers and empty suite sun deck. 

Cabanas are still very expensive 

On 7/3/2025 at 10:35 AM, Lovetocruise2002 said:

No cup clips! 

Just for this and to make @asquared17 happy, I'm going to bring a cup clip to Scotland with me! I'll have to figure out how to blog that for the "pictures or it didn't happen" crowd

31 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I'm sorry, but egg on pizza is just....wrong....

You should see the pizza in France. I saw some with tuna on them amongst other things.....

23 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Yup. Just read that. I think @Matt makes a good point that there is a very specific clientele for this package, I just am not sure how big that clientele is.

I don't think I would fall into that category, especially on these older ships. After sailing Indy in the GS I didn't feel that we needed or would have benefited from having a Genie or the "package"

The Concierge was able to accomplish everything we needed. I think only if the price was just right and I wasn't in a full suite would I look hard at it. At the price @Matt showed in his post, that would have been a hard pass. 

1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

So that’s what I ordered today, avocado toast. I should have already known something was up when they asked if I wanted toast with that. What showed up was exactly that, two slices of toast with a sliced avocado on the side. It was tricky to eat lol. 

13 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

You guys make me laugh!  I have nothing but good intentions here. 

1 hour ago, asquared17 said:

aggressively wash my lions mane

It's been a long day.....I misread this as "aggressively wash my loins...." and thought well that's a little personal, but we are all friends here so who am I to judge....

13 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

See if you can figure it out lol

well..........

Something is amiss here. No flight issues, no luggage issues.....what kind of blog is this? Have I woken up in a different reality???

Super glad you guys have made it just fine and with no issues. I cant wait to live vicariously through you guys for the next few days!

6 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Also trying to also do 3 loads of laundry and fold for the freeloaders before I leave.

 

ummmmmmm, your freeloaders are old enough to do their own laundry!!!! I can send mine up to show them how!

I have been MIA from these blogs for a bit because work has been crazy with my new position and I am in full Scotland planning mode. (21 days to go!) I will do my best to follow along here. It will be fun to read about "the genie experience" I should try to go back and read the other blogs. Its going to be interesting for your genie to escort you to your fabulous "larger balcony room" wah wahhhhhhh

I cant wait to see the La Bamba pictures....I need to get back there.

I'm glad to hear your dad is improving again. 

As I read this, this comes to mind.....

Your room is high enough that the slide really wont be an issue, I wouldn't worry about it and just enjoy the cruise. 

Here is a shot that shows where your room is, you may hear the occasional person going down, but you will hear much more noise from the boardwalk itself. Even if the slide wasn't there, you would still have all the backdrop of the ATS there anyway. 

When we sailed out of Southampton we used Blackberry Cars for the transfer. @Lovetocruise2002 also used them as well. We were on the same cruise to Norway. They are very good and responsive. They meet you right past customs and have nice vehicles.

There are plenty of hotels there. We stayed at the Novotel Southampton. This is a no frills hotel, but was quite nice. It's right by the cruise port and was a 6 minute uber ride that morning. If you read our blog (link in signature) I have photos etc. We walked around the city for the day when we got there before jet lag wiped us out. If you stay at that hotel, there is a McDonalds in the same parking lot for familiar food. There are also plenty of pubs etc around as well. It's not far from the "City Center" where all the original parts of the city, and the stuff you really want to look at. Check out the SeaCity Museum for a neat Titanic Exhibit.