A London Extension

June 8

The phone range at 5:45 and they wanted our bags - I thought it was 6:50, but that was when the bus left. My grandson hadn't bothered to get undressed - he slept in his clothes. So he put the bags out, and we went on down to breakfast. I asked about the internet charge to pay it, and the guy couldn't understand what I was talking about. Apparently in exasperation, he said he'd take it off the bill.

We ate, and this time not only were the scrambled eggs runny, but the fried potatoes were limp and greasy.

Runny eggs and greasy chips

We were to be out on the bus by 6:50, but Matt had to come after us at 7.

When he dropped us off at the airport, I got off the bus so quickly that I left my fanny pack on the bus. It had $22.00 and about €45, plus a spare camera battery, and my notebook with all the receipts in it. My grandson ran back but the bus had gone. We went to the CIE desk, and they phoned Matt and he said he would look for it and send it to the hotel in London. I also phoned the hotel to see if it was in the restaurant, but they said no. [Note - none of our vouchers or credit cards or my passport were in the fanny pack, and neither was the majority of my cash]

Grandson in the airport

Grandson with a Coke in another airport

We got our boarding passes (we got 2A and 2b), and went to the gate to wait. The plane was late in from Amsterdam, so it didn't even get there before it was supposed to take off. My grandson got his € changed to £, and I charged some £ on my credit card. We knew that Aer Lingus would charge us for food, and my grandson bought a coke in Dublin. He had two €s left, so I got two little shortbread cookies, and he got a big Twix.

The gate lady let us board first. We got to Heathrow in due course, and there actually was a wheelchair for me there. We went to the Hotel-Link desk which was where the transfer was to take place.

Long story short - we were at the Radisson on Cromwell Rd, and the hotel HAD mailed my charger to me here with the battery that was in it. So I now have three batteries and a way to charge them.

Front of the hotel

This hotel (and also the last hotel) have a system where you have to insert your room key to have any electricity. This hotel also has that system for the elevator. There are no baggage racks which is a PITA, and the room fronts on the street which is noisy with the windows open.

Bay window of the room

Grandson at the desk

I'm not too happy about the location of this hotel. There are not many bus routes near here and it is out in the boondocks from the main area

We walked around the corner and ate at Burger King. I didn't think it was that good.

I had bought tickets to three shows in London. The first one was We Will Rock You because my grandson plays rock guitar.

We took the tube to the theatre. This was not too good - while the first station (Gloucester Rd) had a lift down, I had to walk down more stairs and then when we transferred I had to walk up and down a lot more stairs, and the final station was a LOT more stairs. We emerged at the top and I had to rest for some time.

Building opposite the theatre

We Will Rock You marquee

I did enjoy the show, and I think my grandson did too, but it was way too loud and I forgot my earplugs so I spent most of the show with my fingers in my ears.

There were so many steps that I was too exhausted to go back on the tube so we got a cab. The fare was £17.40, and I accidentally tipped him only the 60p. But he was talking on the phone the whole time.

My grandson insisted that I not do the internet and go right to bed.

June 9

I woke up about 6 and got up nearer to 7 and woke him up about 8:30 and we went to breakfast. Then we got an all day bus/tube pass at the tube station, and got on the 74 bus and went to Harrods. We found the music instrument department and he tried out some guitars.

Then we took the bus out to Regent Park, and then got a cab for the short ride in to the ticket office which was about £4. We were way early for the 2:30 performance, but I had forgotten the printout which said what the reservation number was. Fortunately we didn't need it, although she couldn't find the ticket until I remembered to tell her that it was Ticketmaster.

We went back to the Garden Cafe for lunch. I had spinach soup, but it wasn't exactly like mom used to make. My grandson had a coke and a cookie. We were still early for the performance, so we sat on the lawn and waited for the gate to open. It was partly cloudy, but it did get hot during the show which was a Midsummer Night's Dream but it didn't rain. He said he knew the story so he didn't really listen, but I thought it was funny and interesting.

They said no pictures, but I had already taken one or two.

Afterwards, I had to walk out to the road (lots of ducks and swans and paddle boats on the lake) where we got a cab back to the hotel. My grandson went down to the gym and worked out and got a shower and by that time I'd figured out how to get a bus to the theatre to see The Mousetrap. (My mother had taken his father -my son - to The Mousetrap on his trip with his grandmother) The initial bus was going the wrong way, so we got off and crossed the street, and got a 74 going the other way. Then we changed to a 14 bus, and got off at Cambridge Circle.

Here we had a problem in that I couldn't see the street names. A nice looking blonde girl showed us where to go. We got to the theatre about 10 of 8, and picked up the tickets. When I asked where our seats were they told us to go outside and go in another door and up the stairs. I was carrying the cane, and this seems to make people think I'm disabled and to give me priority. So the usher told me to wait a minute and they gave us seats on the entry level instead!! Better seats.

Before the Curtain when up

My grandson was hungry and we hadn't had time for dinner so he bought gummy babies and a coke. He made me eat the licorice ones because he didn't like them, but neither do I.

He didn't guess who done it.

My grandson after seeing The Mousetrap

Afterwards, the scene outside the theatre was wild.

We took the bus back, but when we got to the stop, we walked the wrong way on the street for about 4 blocks so we hailed a cab and took that back to the hotel. It was now after 11 pm. We stopped at the bar and ordered sandwiches. He got a ham and cheese, and I got chicken. They called up to the room to say they were out of chicken, so I got a plain cheese sandwich which turned out to have grated cheese. It was very good though.

June 10 -We had been given the Original Bus Tour vouchers by the CIE tour company, and there was a stop just around the corner from the hotel. After breakfast and sending email, we walked around to the stop.

IMHO this bus tour company, even though it was "original' was far inferior to the Big Bus that we were on before. I was quite disgusted with it in the end. The Big Bus had three routes - red, yellow and blue, and there were significant transfer points. The Original had red. yellow and blue allright, but they also had a little green route and a grey route and it was most confusing.

Anyway, as I wanted to show my grandson the Tower of London, we bought tickets to that, and also to Madame Tussaud's which I had not been to in some time, but which had been recommended to me. That saved us some time.

We were on the blue route which stopped running (according to the ticket seller) at 6, although the other lines did not stop until 8 or 10. So we rode the blue route around until we could transfer to the yellow route which was listed as the 'original' route and was the only one with a live guide. My grandson had his digital camera with him and was taking pictures again. He had stopped (burned out with photography) after we visited the Waterford factory, and didn't take any photos at all in Dublin or on the flight to Heathrow, or on the first day in London.

He got to see the London Eye (from the ground level) which was one of the things he wanted to see, but we didn't have time to ride on it. We rode the bus from noon to 3 - the yellow bus tour guide was quite good. We got off at Westminster then to do the boat trip up to the Tower. Apparently we could have gone all the way down to Greenwich had we so desired, but I thought we'd get off at the Tower and do the tour there. They didn't ask to see our tickets at all on the boat.

We walked from the boat landing up to the Tower entrance, and they said that the last Beefeater's tour was at 1530, and it was already almost 1600. So we climbed up to Tower Bridge on my daughter's recommendation, and took that tour which was quite interesting.

The Dixie Belle which is a recreation of a paddlewheel river boat (what it is doing on the Thames I have no idea), went through the bridge while we were up on the upper catwalks, and they had to open for her. She was due to come back under at 1730 and I thought it might be good to see the bridge open, so we walked around to the downstream side, and watched for it. It turns out that this boat can go no farther up the river than this bridge and goes back and forth several times a day.

We tried to find a place to eat, but my grandson doesn't like cheddar on his cheeseburgers, so we eventually chased down an Original Tour red route bus and rode it as close to the hotel as we could, and then got a taxi back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel - a very expensive dinner (our desserts-which were very good-were 5.5 lbs each), and we each filled out an evaluation form. I found out that he didn't know that he could turn the shower head so that it would be different strengths so I did that next time I took a shower.

Bathroom

June 11 - Monday. We did a lot today, but under some duress. I thought we'd be out at 8 am for the first blue bus. My grandson left a 6:30 wakeup call and answered the phone and then went back to bed - he was sleeping heavily that he did not remember answering the phone, so I didn't make him get up.

I thought I should check with the Hotelink people about our transfer back to the airport the next day, so I tried to call and no one was there, and when I tried to email it bounced. I also realized that my Morgan Stanley card had been in my fanny pack and when I tried to call them collect as it said to on the card, the operator said he could not place that call. Eventually I did get through to Hotelink and they said they'd pick us up between 10:30 and 11.

Waked my grandson and we went to breakfast and walked out to the bus stop for the blue route about 0900. Lo and Behold - the street was closed and the bus stop was not operative. I saw some Big Buses, but no Original Buses (we always saw two or three Big Buses for each Original Bus), and I did not have enough energy to walk to the next stop which I knew was Lord Baden Powell's house. So we took a taxi to Buckingham Palace which I knew my grandson wanted to see and which you can't really see too much of from either tour. He let us off at about 0945

My photo and my grandson's photo of the monument

Two sides of the lion

Police guarding the palace

Buckingham Palace with my grandson on the right

Park gates opposite the Palace

He found the Palace to be disappointingly ordinary looking with no big lawns and imposing towers like the palaces and castles he had seen in Ireland, but we walked around and took pictures. They did not have the guards in red with the bearskin hats there. Then we wanted to get on the red line tour, so we walked out to where the yellow bus had stopped, but we had to go across the street to get the red bus. While we were waiting we had to get up on the steps of a government building as a little sidewalk washing machine (a miniature version of a street cleaner) came by and got everything in its path all wet.

When the bus finally came, it stopped for about 10 minutes at Victoria Station. By the time it was close to 12 when our tour was to end, we'd only ridden the bus for about a hour including that stop. So out of the 24 hours advertised (which is actually really only about 12 hours when you consider that they stop at night), we rode the bus for about 4.5 hours and did a short boat trip. The ticket sellers and bus drivers also seemed kind of indifferent. I tried to ask about an extension because of the bus stop being closed, but they either didn't understand or didn't want to understand.

We got off at Madame Tussaud's. I asked for a wheelchair, but this was probably a mistake, as the crowds (and the guide said it was an uncrowded day) refused to let the wheelchair through. He said he couldn't really see anything, and neither could I. I was also disappointed in the figures that I did see because I didn't see people that I expected to see and he said none of his music people were in the music section. He didn't want to do the live actor horror section which you pay extra for, and I wasn't interested in that at all. There was a tram ride through London history that was interesting and my grandson liked the little film at the end.

It was lunch time now, so we went down to McDonalds and ate, and then bought a one-day bus pass and took the bus to Trafalgar Square where my grandson wanted to see if he would see anyone he knew. Then we took another bus to the Tower, and got there just in time for the next to last Beefeater Tour. He seemed a little taken aback by the graphic descriptions of the executions, but I found the tour interesting. When we went to see the Crown Jewels, he wanted to know why they weren't worn all the time.

Now it was time to get a bus back to the hotel. I thought I could get a #15 and transfer to a #74 which runs in front of the hotel, but the bus drivers of the #15 all said we couldn't do that. Finally on the third one we took it anyway and transferred at Marble Arch. With a cane, someone almost always offers me a seat, but my grandson stood.

The restaurant was too expensive to eat there again, so I had the cheese part of his ham and cheese (he didn't like the cheddar which was on it) from the previous night, and two rolls that I had taken from breakfast for dinner and he walked down to Burger King and got himself something.

The hotel had not gotten any mail for me, so my fanny pack did not make it back to me.