[Worldtrippers home] [2025 Crystal-Viking]
In the brochures, today’s port is London, England. However, it is extremely difficult and rare for a cruise ship to dock in London. The normal port is either Tilbury of Greenwich.
Tilbury is an industrial port, with not much for tourists to see. The rare ship on a rare itinerary is able to dock at Greenwich. Greenwich is the home of the Tudors, including Henry VIII, Mary I “Bloody Mary”) and Elizabeth I (the “Virgin Queen”). Greenwich is also the location of the Greenwich Meridian, or 0° longitude.
The reason it’s hard for a cruise ship to get to Greenwich is it needs to sail through the Thames Barriers. These flood-prevention barriers were built in 1982, and most cruise ships cannot squeeze through them. In fact, Viking ocean ships are the largest ships that are allowed through.
All of this means that a sail-in into Greenwich is a rare opportunity. At 5:30 am, Russell was up in the Explorers Lounge providing scenic commentary. He was scheduled for an hour, but ended up talking for 90 minutes. Despite the early hour, the lounge was full of curious guests with their cameras out.
Today is Monday and a Bank Holiday. In addition, today Britain celebrated the 40th anniversary of VE Day, which ended WWII in the European Theater of Operations. London promised to be a huge mess, so we didn’t bother leaving the ship until mid-afternoon. We were able to see a multi-nation flyover that went up the River Thames, but it was off in the distance on a cloudy day.
We are in Greenwich overnight. Almost on a whim, we decided to see a play tonight at London’s West End. (This is the English equivalent of New York City’s Broadway.) Many theaters are dark on Mondays, but we settled on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” at the Ambassador Theatre. This is a new musical based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (It was also made into a 2008 movie with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.) The story has been drastically changed, with music that sounds like Irish or Halifax folk music.
We took the Uber Thames Clipper boats to and from London. We had dinner at a GDK (German Doner Kebab) fast food restaurant. Boy, was it cold in London! The cold air, especially near the River Thames, would cut right through all of our clothing.
The play was enjoyable, but we didn’t get back to the ship until almost midnight. This was after having been up since 4:00 this morning. And tomorrow morning, we will be up early again to leave the Viking Sky and the world cruise.
