ARRIVAL DAY WINDSOR, Thames River Cruise

 We arrived at Castle Hotel Windsor too early to check in, but they held our luggage for us and when the appropriate time came would deliver our luggage to our room.  This is not a picture I took, but one from their website.  Our room was not in this section of the building, but in a building behind it.  The 2nd building is a much newer portion.  We spent 2 nights here.

Just out the door were lots of shops, and yes...Windsor Castle is right there!

We stopped for a drink to pass some time, right across the street from The Thames River.

A nice outside patio with views of The River.

We had booked a 2 hour river cruise which was very relaxing after our over night flight and gave us a view of the castle.  We scheduled with French Brothers .  We had rain off and on, but still found the cruise enjoyable.  We went through Boveney Lock.  I understood the basic concept of going through a dock when water levels changed; but have never done it and found it very interesting.  We had views of Eton College as well as the castle.

The ship was pretty basic with plastic chairs.

Walking alone the Thames after our cruise also proved to be enjoyable.  You see lots of house boats.

The first of many Fish N Chips meals.  This was excellent.  Followed by a nice Irish Coffee

In a very nice outside patio right on the River.

Windsor is an easy place to get around with lots to see, places to eat and shop.

Back in our hotel to relax for the night we enjoyed Crown Royal Black.  Our "offical tour" was scheduled to start the following day at 2 pm.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

The UK in Fourteen Days

I am recently back from a 14 day 13 night tour of The UK with CIE Tour Company.  CIE Tour Company has it's office in Cedarknolls, NJ and has been in business for 90 years.  I've taken tours before with Insight Vacations and would rate their tours (Ireland and Scotland, and Italy) over CIE.  The accommodations and meals were substandard, IMHO.  I did a review of the tour on yelp, and wish I had seen the reviews before booking.  There are 22 reviews counting mine and the average rating is only a 2.5 out of 5.  There were 7 people who gave the company a rating of 5, and 10 people who gave it a rating of 1.  My rating was a 2.  Interestingly CIE's webpage indicates they have a 95% satisfaction rate which seems not to match the reviews on yelp.

My friend and I choose this tour, as it's one of a few that included Wales.  We choose the month of August in order to attend the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh.  We covered a lot of miles as you can see.  One of the pluses of the tour was only having a single night once, and the bulk of the time spending two consecutive nights in the same lodging.  

The tour started in Windsor, which I really enjoyed.  The tour ended in London.

We added an extra night at the front of the tour to give us time to adjust a bit to the 5 hour difference, and to give us a buffer should there be any problems with flights etc.  You really just never know.  Travel nowadays can present some difficulties.

Here I am with my Prosecco on board Delta in business class.

AND my friend, Jane.  The flight was very nice, with excellent meal service and we managed to get a few hours sleep once the meal service was over and we were able to lay our seats flat.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.