Okay. So.
I suck. I’ve been meaning and meaning and meaning to update things, but obviously I have failed. I am sorry.
When last I left you, I was headed to spend the last few days of the first leg of my journey at Disneyland Paris. The day that I left Versailles for the hour-long train journey across the city to the other side of town where the theme park is, I came down with my first illness of the trip. OF COURSE I did.
I had two nights at Sequoia Lodge which also included three days in the parks, and I really struggled to find any joy at all.
I tried to soldier through it and spent a couple hours in the park after arriving, but I went way downhill. I thought I could make it without medicine, but finally I had to inquire with the concierge at the resort about where I could find some acetaminophen or aspirin. It was at that point that I discovered I would only be able to find that by going to the pharmacy in town as the rules on over-the-counter drugs are much more stringent there.
The woman who helped me was so kind, the exact kind of service you expect from cast members with Disney. When I returned from the taxi that she secured for me, I thanked her, and she was so encouraging, telling me she just knew I was going to feel better in the morning.
If only wishing and hoping made things so…
How hysterical is it that the thing I ended up spending the most money on and the thing that could have kept me the most busy ended up being when I got sick for the first time? It was disappointing, but I took it in stride. I did what I could, laughed at the absurdity of it, and didn’t try to push too far. In the end, it was fun and I’m glad I did it, but I do wish I could have experienced it fully.
Oh well.
After a fortuitous built-in day to just chill, I grabbed the Eurostar to head back to London to spend a couple nights before flying back to the States for about a month. When I first made the plans to do this, I didn’t really want to have to come back, but as the date of departure approached, I was thankful for the break that was coming thanks to not being able to make a doctor’s appointment before I left.
I have really gotten into utilizing reward credit cards while planning for and during this adventure, and it was because of those points I accrued that I was able to fly Upper Class with Virgin Atlantic on a direct flight from Heathrow.
I never, ever want to travel any other way.
It was amazing.
The whole experience was incredible. Upon arriving at the airport, I was whisked away to separate area for Upper Class passengers to go through security, and I was done with that process in about five minutes and thus on my way to the Virgin lounge where I spent the three hours before my flight enjoying complimentary food and drink.
Another cool feature of the lounge was the outdoor terrace that looked over the tarmac. If you recall from my time in Nice where I enjoyed watching the planes fly over the Mediterranean for their coastal landing, you won’t be surprised that I loved this… even if the wind was blowing the furniture — and my hair — all over the place.
The route to Tampa features a new Airbus A330neo which only started flying in December. Originally I had booked seat 1A, but when I noticed a few days before the flight that no one had booked either of the seats in “The Retreat” I decided to spend the extra 200 pounds to upgrade, still paying only a quarter of the price of what the ticket would have been when I booked it for only taxes and fees.
It was so spacious with more legroom than I have had on any flight, including any of the private jets I’ve taken with basketball teams heading home from the NCAA tournament. The service was incredible. The 10 hours absolutely flew by.
There was one problem though. There is supposed to be a divider between the two seats in The Retreat if the folks sitting in the seats aren’t together, but it wasn’t working on this flight. The guy next to me was right there, ruining what was supposed to be a private flight, but the crew was awesome, apologizing profusely and telling me that they would put it in their flight report to help me be able to get compensation for the inconvenience. And indeed, I did hear back from Virgin this week that they were crediting me with 10,000 points (which is a great value for Virgin; for reference, the reward flight was about 48,000 points for what is normally a ticket over $4,500).
Jet-lag was nonexistent after arriving back in Florida, and I was quite thankful for that after really struggling with it in December. April has been non-eventful, and I’ve just been resting while hanging out with my parents down in Florida.
But now the period of rest is over, and one of the things I’ve been most looking forward to is right on the doorstep.
On Saturday, I’m heading down to Miami and boarding the Virgin Voyages Valiant Lady for a 15-night cruise to Barcelona. I’ve done three cruises in the past and enjoyed them profusely, so I’m super excited about this extended stay on a ship, especially since my favorite part of cruises have been sea days of which this trip has nine. And how many people can say they’ve been on a transatlantic cruise? And financially, it made tons of sense as it’s way less than my normal budget for two weeks and cancels out the need for airfare.
Just a win-win all the way around.
Being a solo traveler thus far has not been a problem at all. I could see where it might be a challenge on a cruise ship, but Virgin Voyages is an adult-only ship with a focus on fun (but not the “trashy” fun that I think occurs on other cruise lines) so I’m looking forward to meeting some folks and having a good time.
After the cruise — which also calls on Lisbon and a couple other Spanish ports — I’m not sure the direction that I’m going. I’m either going to jet up to the UK to do Scotland before heading to Ireland or I’m going to do Switzerland and the mountains in Austria and Germany before heading to London for a concert.
I only have about 28 days left to spend in the Schengen Area, so I have to be really deliberate with my choices on the continent this go around.
Virgin Voyages advertises free WiFi on board, so with any luck, I’ll provide a couple updates from the high seas as we sail over the next couple of weeks.
Bon voyage to me!
Rails to Ride 