[Worldtrippers home] [2025 Crystal-Viking]
On May 19, after one last morning visit, we said good-bye to our hosts Suzy-Jane and Ken. Suzy-Jane walked us down to the station, and we took the train to London’s Gatwick Airport.
Originally, Gail had booked a flight from London’s Heathrow Airport to our next destination of Bergen, Norway. This flight had a layover in Oslo. A few days ago, Gail learned that if you fly out of Gatwick instead of Heathrow, you can get a direct flight to Bergen. Fortunately, she had booked a fully refundable flight. So she changed our flight from Scandinavian Airlines to Norwegian Airlines, and she changed our last night’s hotel from Heathrow to Gatwick.
Since we had a morning flight, Gail decided we should already be at the airport the night before. She booked the Hilton at Gatwick, only a five-minute walk from the southern terminal. Very convenient!
For our last dinner in the UK, we got together with our friends Gordon and Angela Taylor. Angela is the bridge instructor on the Viking World Cruise. Like us, she and Gord were off the ship between London and Bergen. Like us, they decided to stay in the UK during the two-week break. And like us, they would be flying to Bergen in the morning.
Gord and Angie still had their rental car, so they picked us up and drove us to the nearby town of Clapham. We arbitrarily picked a dinner pub and ended up at Toby Carvery. As it turns out, this is not a traditional pub. It is a chain restaurant similar to “Carrows” in the USA.
On May 20, we had an uneventful flight from London to Bergen, where we re-embarked the Viking Sky. Of the original 800+ guests who sailed on the World Cruise, almost 600 departed in London. There are 220 world cruisers who are remaining aboard all the way until New York a month from now. They were joined by 700 new guests between London and Bergen. There will be 700 new guests between Bergen and Reykjavik. And there will be 700 new guests between Reykjavik and New York. Needless to say, the entire culture aboard ship has changed.
Nevertheless, we were warmly welcomed back aboard ship by familiar crew and guests. Many thought we had departed for good in London, and they were thrilled to see us back again. We are back in a normal lecturer’s stateroom on Deck 1. The luggage we had stored aboard ship was already waiting for us in our new stateroom.
Between Bergen and New York, Russell will present completely different lectures. Gail will shift from Genealogy Workshops to Craft Workshops, as she teaches her unique (and popular) art of 3D needle felting.
We will have one more day in Bergen before we set sail on our next two-week itinerary, “Iceland & Norway’s Arctic Explorer.” We originally boarded the Viking Sky in Cape Town, at the southern tip of Africa. We are going to sail above the arctic circle to Honningsvag, at the northern tip of Europe!
