Day 18 - London, Aug 12th 2006
Posted by Max Dunn Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:52:00 GMT
Today we had to get off the ship (sniff). We went to breakfast and I had my smoked salmon and scrambled eggs one last time, before we got off the ship. We then spent the rest of the day in London.
(Max) After getting off the ship about 8:30 (we were the last ones in our section to leave), we took a taxi to the Dover, Priory train station and caught the train that left a few minutes later to Charring Cross. This was a different route than when we came down from Victoria Station, and it took only about an hour and a half. At Charring Cross, we were able to leave our bags with a service, so we were free to spend the rest of the day in London.
Suzanne has been dying to see a play, in particular “The Lion King”, so we headed up to Leicester Square to search for tickets. Unfortunately, there were no half price tickets for this show and there were only two available for the 2:00pm show, so Suzanne and Claire went. Maxie and I we went souvenir shopping and then wandered down to the National Museum. I really enjoyed taking him around the museum talking about the art, but didn’t spend very long at any one piece so he wouldn’t get bored. We saw some of the old masters, but I enjoyed the impressionist area the most because I was able to give him more information about them. Maxie then decided that out of all the movies playing, he wanted to see Garfield 2, so I shelled out $35 for the movie and $8 for the popcorn. I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but it was actually pretty entertaining and was set in England, so it was fun when they showed the London sights that we had already seen.
(Suzanne) I’ll admit it, I was dying to see something once we started this vacation. How can you go to London and not see a show? So the kids didn’t want to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard. If I couldn’t take them to see all of London’s history at least I can expose them to London theatre! After getting vetoed during our first 3 days in London, I was more determined than ever to get there at the end. Besides, England’s weather had gotten back to normal – it was raining once we hit the White Cliffs of Dover this morning.
Well, after hiking to Leicester Square from the Charring Cross Station (our London stop from the Dover Priory Station), we got tickets to see The Lion King. Unfortunately the lady said she only had 3 tickets, one of them being by itself on another level. So I ended up taking Claire and we really enjoyed it. I was amazed at how they made it (with the sets and costumes). And from where we sat (nose bleed section) we could see the stage move as well with all of its trap doors, moving walks, props, etc.
It was unfortunate that Max and Maxie didn’t go to the show. There were definitely plenty of seats – the two rows behind us were almost completely empty. I’m assuming that all of the independent ticket offices are allotted so many tickets to sell. If we had gone to the theatre ticket office, I’m sure we would have had no problem getting four. Sounds like they had fun though while we were gone!
(Max) I had a slight meltdown after waiting for Suzanne and Claire (I was a little jealous they got to see the Lion King while I saw Garfield 2, and also my blood sugar had gotten too low), but we then had a nice dinner at an outside, and windy, table at Garfunkel’s. We then collected our bags, rode the Underground (which was mostly above-the-ground) to Heathrow and caught the Hotel Hoppa shuttle to our hotel.