Falmouth, UK

Today started out very early with the ship’s thrusters vibrating the ship for a good 45 minutes. I have no idea what the Captain was doing but it seemed to go on forever!


I had thought we were going to dock at the pier in Falmouth, Cornwall UK (which would have placed us close to the city center) but it was decided that we were going to anchor instead and use tenders to get to shore.

Knowing that we weren’t taking any shore excursions and that those people had preference in using the tenders we took our jolly time to exit the ship. We got our tender ticket and got right on the tender for our sail to the harbor. I had great plans for a walk to the beach, sit on the warm sand and just enjoy a day at the beach while munching on a Cornish pasty.

There are always pros and cons to an inside cabin. The pro is that it is very dark when the lights are off and you don’t know if it is morning or night and one could sleep right through breakfast, lunch and dinner if you weren’t careful.

The con is that because it is windowless you tend to rely on the ships monitors to let you know if it is cold or hot, wet or dry. Jim dressed like we were going to the beach, shorts and T-shirt. I dressed the same. They had told us it was going to be a nice warm day in Falmouth.

Once we arrived at the tender we knew we were way underdressed. It was a very gray, hazy day and everyone had on rain coats, long pants and jackets. We, on the other hand, looked like a typical Arizona resident; shorts and T-shirts! Oh well-- we are tough and surely the haze and cold would burn off soon.

We boarded our tender at 10:00 AM to head off and once we got within distance of the pier we sat and sat and sat. Other tenders were ahead of us and we had to wait for them to unload their passengers. We probably spent 30 minutes going the distance of one mile by the time we finally got off the tender. Then there was a gangway that was packed with the other passengers and no one was moving. It looked like an airport security line!

Finally we got to the top of the gang plank and there were lines and lines of passengers waiting to get on one of only 3 shuttle buses to take us to town. Two of the buses were small (like an oversized van) and one was a large bus but still there were hundreds of passengers waiting in line to board one of the 3 buses! And still more tenders were coming in and dropping off passengers!! Unbelievable!

Since you are not allowed to walk out of the dock and seeing that there were hundreds of passengers trying to get on one of only 3 busses we turned around a got back on the tender for the ship. As we sailed away we could still see those hundreds of passengers standing in a Disneyland line, waiting and waiting for the elusive city bus to take them to town. We got back at 11:30 AM…..1 ½ hours just to go a mile back and forth!

It is 1:30 PM, we leave in 2 hours and the haze is starting to burn off and we can see sailboat races in the harbor from the comfort of our ship. All in all it turned out to be a pleasant and relaxing day. Print this post