NOTE:  This is a long post with no photos.

TUESDAY 13 August 2024 — International/overseas travel planning and HH/ACI CPP update

Next April and May (2025) we are booked on a 24-day cruise on the Regal Princess (Princess Cruise Line), followed, but not immediately, by a 16-day Rick Steve’s land tour of England and Wales.

The cruise starts in Ft. Lauderdale (Port Hollywood), Florida and ends in Southampton, England; twice, actually.  The repositioning part of the cruise is Ft. Lauderdale to Southampton, with ports-of-call in the Azores (Portugal), France, Belgium, and The Netherlands.  On our first visit to Southampton, some passengers will disembark, some new ones will embark, and the rest (like us) will remain aboard.  The ship will then continue for another 10 days, going around the southern end of England and stopping in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (several locations) before returning to Southampton, where we will finally debark (disembark).  Our Rick Steve’s tour begins in Bath, England six (6) days (5 nights) after we debark the ship, and we will be on our own for that time.

Having spent considerable time over the weekend booking shore excursions for our Virgin Voyages cruise this December, we were in a frame of mind to deal with those aspects of our cruise/tour trip that were still undecided.  We had itineraries for the cruise and tour, so we knew where those would take us and what we would/could see/do in each place.  We also have several Rick Steve’s travel guides, maps (including the London “tube” system), and our most valuable resource, Kate, our friend who has been to the British Isles many times.  The Rick Steve’s tour ends in London, but we will only have a couple of days there as part of the tour.

Our initial thought was to get off the ship and go explore places in England that are not part of the tour itinerary.  The more we thought about it, however, the more the idea of moving around constantly, luggage in hand, did not seem to be the right approach.  The easier, and more productive, approach would be to stay in one place, within easy distance of many things, including public transportation, and avoid having to rent a car.  In other words, stay in London.  Coming to that conclusion provided focus and clarity to what was starting to feel like an overwhelming task.

We studied our map(s) of London and compared them to the map of the tube system (subway, underground, etc.).  We would also likely need to use the train system, to get to Cambridge for instance, but less so than if we were trying to travel great distances across the countryside.  We knew what hotel the Rick Steve’s tour was using, so we concentrated on that part of London to see what was there.  It turned out to be an area with a lot of things to see and do, good access to the “tube,” and a good selection of restaurants for lunch and/or dinner.  Linda started looking seriously at hotel options, and found one in that area that looked nice enough, and was reasonably priced (by London standards).  We ran this past Kate to get her perspective, and got a “thumbs up,” so Linda booked it.  We paid a small premium to have the ability to cancel the reservation, and an additional amount to have (continental) breakfast included each day.  (The various restaurants in that area do not serve breakfast an we wanted more choice than a typical coffee shop.)

With that piece of our travel puzzle now in place, we turned our attention to our return trip to Detroit.  Ideally we would have taken the Queen Mary 2 to New York City, but we would miss its westbound departure by a week.  Besides, having been away from home for almost seven (7) weeks by this point, we though it best to fly back.  We usually fly DELTA; their main hub in the USA is DTW (Detroit Metropolitan Airport) which is also THE main airfield in southeast Michigan.

Delta only had one non-stop flight from Heathrow (or Gatwick, not sure which) to Detroit, and it was eye-wateringly expensive just for economy seating.  Ugh.  So, Linda looked at other airlines.  What she found was that we could fly Iceland Airlines (Icelandair, IcelandicUS, IcelandicCA, IcelandicUK, etc.) from London to Reykjavik to Detroit for HALF of the cost of the Delta flight.  AND … wait for it … we could do up to a 7-day layover in Iceland, and explore at least some of yet another country.  Wait … does this sound familiar?  Why, yes it does!  This is exactly what our son and his family were doing, right now.  We just hadn’t realized that Iceland Air does this with many other countries in Europe.

We did not book a flight at this time, but we almost certainly will, and do so well ahead of time.  My guess is that we will make it a 5-night layover and see as much of Iceland as we reasonably can in that time.  We have Rick Steve’s guide to Iceland, so we already know what he (his company) thinks is the best way to use that amount of time.  Before booking this flight, we need to make one last decision, how much time do we want between the end of the Rick Steve’s tour and getting on the airplane for Reykjavik?  I think the ideal arrangement would be to spend a minimum of one more night in the final tour hotel, allowing us to get up the next morning at whatever time we need to, and make our way to the airport without being rushed.

We received an update e-mail today from the Airstream Club International (ACI) about the joint venture with Harvest Hosts (HH) to move the ACI Courtesy Parking Program (CPP) from the ACI Membership Directory to the HH platform.  We think this is a good move, as they will apparently add an icon for ACI/CPP to the existing map function.  People who are ACI members, by not HH/BW members, will only see the ACI/CPP icon, but will not have to pay to use the site.  HH members who do not belong to ACI, will not see the ACI/CPP icon, but will see it if they are ACI members.  I’ve been told that, as a BW host who has also signed up to be an ACI/CPP host, ACI/CPP stay requests will be integrated with the BW stay requests.  As such, nothing will really change for us, which will be great.  We have had a fair amount of BW traffic this year, and all of the last few years except 2022 when we were traveling eastern Canada.  (We don’t accept stay requests when we are traveling.)  So, it’s not that we need more visitors, but it would be nice (for us) if fellow ACI members stopped here and we could discuss “Airstreaming.”

Mike & Sheila came over again around 5:30 PM and we had a second night of interesting and lively conversation.  We always ask guests to bring their own beverage of choice.  They brought two bottles of red wine, and insisted on sharing.  Well, okay, if we have to, I suppose.  🙂  We have always made ourselves available to guests, and many have spent time chatting with us over the years, but this year has been different.  We think it has been a confluence of factors, namely; temperature (either hot or chilly), rain, mosquitos, short (1-night) stays, or people just being busy with their own affairs.  Whatever the reason, it’s fine; we do not expect guests to spend time with us, but we enjoy and appreciate it when they do.

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