No Hop-On Hop-Off

Not Fun Day

The plan didn't work; so disappointing. Don and Ellen, and John and Joyce were scheduled to spend the day in Edinburgh as part of a 11-day cruise they are on around the United Kingdom. Rather than the city excursion offered by the cruise line, they opted for a "first class" personalized city tour unavailable to the general public; we were going to show them around "our" city. As a convenience, we were going to ride on the Hop-On Hop-Off sightseeing bus (see photo).

Well, their cruise did make it to Edinburgh as scheduled. However, they could not disembark. Their ship anchored a bit offshore; passengers were supposed to use a tender (small shuttle boat) to get onshore. Their ship is too big to actually dock at the Edinburgh port. They emailed early in the morning to say the ship's captain decided that the wind was too strong to allow anyone to tender to shore. They spent the day on the ship in the harbor. Sure hope they enjoy the rest of their cruise.

Side note. They graciously agreed to carry over a couple of items for us from the US that can't be found over here. They had a new pair of exercise walking shoes for Mike and some Benefiber nutritional supplement (the same stuff that got us unwanted attention from TSA when we departed Roanoke to fly here). Not smuggling or black market; more like import-export. Hope we can pick up those items from them when we get back to Roanoke.