According to today’s Currents, the daily newsletter Oceania prints, Rain showers are predicted, but as you can see from the photo above taken at 1:00pm, the rain never materialized. This was a wonderful gift for everyone as there are important events beginning at 2pm today in Edinburgh.
The planning of activities today depends completely on what transportation arrangements are available. Cruise Director Julie James keeps us informed of the changing situation. What finally comes about is a near miracle. Shuttle buses will run every half hour from the ship to Edinburgh all day and into the evening.
That still isn’t enough to entice us to venture into the city. We are so grateful to have spent three days here back in 2016, and we are scheduled to come back in 2023 on another Oceania cruise, so we opt to stay on the ship. From what we hear from Dining Room Manager Gorica, we are very much in the minority as around 370 of our fellow passengers do take the plunge.
Around 9:00am, there is an announcement on the television that we are losing the signal, and, sure enough, off it goes. Huge disappointment, as we have plans to watch the procession from Holyrood Palace to St. Giles as well as the Thanksgiving Service to be held there.
We hope that the problem will be resolved, and head for Horizons to spend the morning. There is a lively crowd there playing Baggo Bean, but after they finished, the place became super quiet as practically everyone else had left. At 11:30, Cathy left and Steve followed a half hour later.
Lunch at GDR was equally quiet. Those who remained behind must have preferred the Terrace Café, because there couldn’t have been more than ten tables filled. It was a very pleasant experience, because the staff was super relaxed.
When we returned to the room, we watched the last third of the latest Downton Abbey movie, the conclusion of which was the death of the family matriarch. Having watched every episode of the series – over and over, we might add – as well as the movies, it had always been a very moving scene to watch, but it had added emotion given what we were witnessing for real on BBC television right then and there.
After the movie, Cathy turned on the BBC in the hope that things had improved. Well, it had! But it still kept cutting in and out … until right before 2pm. Miraculous! Congratulations to whatever techie spent the last several hours getting the signal back. Just in time.
We spent the next three hours “glued to the tube.” No people on earth do pageantry and pomp and circumstance better that the people of the United Kingdom, and they carried off the Royal Procession and the moving service at St. Giles Cathedral brilliantly and flawlessly. We felt honored to be able to watch on the BBC. Their production was awesome.
The ship sailed at 10pm from Rosyth. We were sound asleep, but around 10:30, bright lights woke Steve up. He looked out the veranda window, and the ship right then is traveling under the three bridges we have been seeing from our stateroom. The new Forth Road Bridge that the Queen’s cortege had traveled over the afternoon before was lit up, as was the Forth Bridge – the famous railway bridge. Steve grabbed his iPhone and was able to photograph that bridge.
An odd ending to a very unusual visit to Edinburgh, Scotland.
