We were in our disembarkation port of Southampton, England early this morning. The disembarkation process worked smoothly. We had enough time to grab a fairly leisurely breakfast as our “yellow luggage tags” suggested we would be called to depart around 8:20AM.  We were actually called a few minutes before 8. We had to briefly pass muster with UK immigration personnel who came on board the ship to review our paperwork. It took all of 3 minutes. An aside: all passengers were scheduled to be off the ship by 9AM.  I queried the front desk to see how many of the passengers were staying aboard for the next trip- 10 days circling England & Scotland. Turns out there were 78 people doing that.

Our luggage was waiting for us off ship neatly sorted by color. They were easy to spot. As Southampton is at least an hour from Heathrow airport, Regent offered bus service (free for certain category rooms or $69 if you were in the low rent district. Ours were free).  We were on the road by 9AM and arrived at Heathrow around 10:30; plenty of time as our flight was not until 3:10 PM.

There was very little mask wearing at Heathrow-by workers or flyers. The Delta/Virgin Atlantic desks were chaotic-lines everywhere, even the priority lines for business class  check-in. It took almost 30 minutes to check our luggage and get our boarding passes. And they did ask to see our Covid test results (I had wondered if they would). Although the check-in was agonizingly slow getting through security was rapid- less than 10 minutes.

Delta uses the Virgin Atlantic business class lounge at Heathrow. It was our first visit to one and we were blown away. It is the most modern, futuristic and fun lounge we have ever seen. It certainly reflects its owner- Richard Branson. There is a small gym, a pool table, variety of funky seating chair options, and even a sit down restaurant (besides the usual help yourself buffet). And everything is free. We ended up having a sit down lunch which rivaled those we have had in conventional restaurants.

Boarding of our Delta flight was on time. There was hardly any headwind so our flight time was to be about 9.5 hours, over the pole as is the usual route to Seattle from Europe. Food was pretty mediocre on this flight, certainly not as good as we had going to Paris. Also the plane was an old 767, which has been pretty much retired by now, but it was clean and performed beautifully, so I cannot complain.

Whole we were gone Seattle had tons of rain but today it was sunny and 70 when we landed a bit after 5 PM local time. We got to go through the brand new international arrival terminal. It is big and glitzy. There has also been a change to entering the country. Previously you passed immigration and then collected your baggage; now you are required to collect baggage first. Also the kiosks for global entry are gone; you do a face-to-face with an agent who does a facial recognition scan and clears you to leave. We were the only plane landing so the entry hall was empty and clearance went quickly.

We managed to not have to wait long to catch our ferry home-tired, but safe and sound. I have always been a believer that unless you come home from a vacation tired it was not a good vacation! Opinion:  It was a good vacation!