While stopped at an overlook of the beach and sea (with cannons) we saw an osprey fly up and hover looking for prey. Amazing shots of it hanging there. It took me a little while to get my long lens swapped in (I have a set of not very good shots from the landscape lens I had been using) but I got more than enough frames.
Category Archives: Disney Cruise 2016
Items related to out Disney UK cruise in 2016.
Guernsey Bike Riding
A wonderful bicycle ride around Guernsey. Beautiful scenery, narrow roads, very pastoral with occasional bunkers.
Our guides were great and it was very nice to be out in the air riding bikes and not in a tour bus sitting. I carried my big camera slung on my side/back. It was a bit of a nuisance, but the pictures were worth the hassle.
We stopped at a little tea house and grabbed a snack, a very tasty slice of apple pie in my case.
Guernsey Town
Coming into the harbor and on the short bus ride to the other side of the island I grabbed some shots of the areas we passed through. Beautiful old houses and interesting building (and lots of walls).
Around the Ship
Shots from around the ship during the day and at night. The lighting on the Disney ships at night is wonderful.
I think this gallery software may suffice. Open the article to see the thumbnail images and click on the images to see the full size version.
A batch of shots from Guernsey
This is just the first set containing images from the Magic looking over the harbor…more to come from the excursion.
The day started overcast with occasional patches of sun shining through the clouds. By the time we headed over for our bike ride, it was a gloriously sunny day.
Home again…
We got home last night at about 10 PM. The trip back was a bit stressful, messy and unexpectedly expensive, but in the end everything worked out and we’re here in Hudson, NH with all of our stuff and relatively well rested. The economy plus makes a huge difference to the flight (given the six plus hour transit time).
I’m in the process of unpacking, checking for any last images on camera chips and such and getting the LightRoom database connected to my desktop system here with the good monitors (my current laptop stinks for viewing images). I expect to get a few interesting shots up today or tomorrow with a continuing series from throughout the trip as time permits. I’m going to try to keep putting a few up day on day if I can.
Lots to do, lots to catch up on and a bunch of technical bits that I need to dig deeper into. I was reading the OpenGL 3D documentation on the flight home and I really want to try some things with that API before Monday.
Keep in mind that the blog entries since the first were written on my phone to capture my thoughts in the moment and are a bit rough and spotty.
Going to avoid British Air
In the future.
We moved our flight by one day and changed to economy plus two weeks ago. At that time, the agent told us that everythung was set.
Surprise at heathrow, after several lines and two hours on our feet we are informed that it will cost us 1000 pounds and we likely still have to wait in another line to check our bags
Since the change was already made weeks ago, it would actually cost us more to change back to economy…
And now it has taken at least half an hour to get permission to check our bags a bit early. We may very well be standing here when the bag check window for our flight actually opens in anothet 45 minutes. Wow…I have seldom seen this level of confusion and inefficiency!
Docked back in dover
Hanging out, waiting for our breakfast slot. Everything is now out of the room and our main luggage is in Disney hands.
We weren’t able to do online check in (the app gave a cryptic message indicating that something prevented online) so we’ll see when we get to the airport what’s up. Worst case we end up on our original time frame and fly out tomorrow. I expect it is just an issue with their systems as we got the confirmation emails for the flight change.
On the bus and soon headed for heathrow
Thinking it may make sense to revive my never really used twitter account. I feel like I ought to at least try the platform and see what it can so
The end of the end
Last night on board, heading for the airport I’m the morning and flying home shortly thereafter.
Sad to see the vacation end. Happy to be heading back to other challenges. Tired but not yet giving in to it. Currently on the top deck with my camera for one last walk around. A few last pictures, mostly redundant but holding onto vacation for a little bit longer while I can.
Been reading opengl 3d rendering docs today. Lots of things have changed since last time I looked at 3d programming. Mostly for the better, but it is clear that getting anything at all working is now more complex that it was.
Have had interesting history discussions at the dinner table for much of this cruise. Hoping that some of that may continue over digital connections having exchanged contact information. I was already planning to get more use out of this blog so I am hoping that may help. With the commenting capability, it should be possible to hold a slow motion conversation here.
Last excursion soon
Going bicycling on Guernsey in a bit. Last excursion and mostly packed up (thanks to Lorna staying on top of things). Sad to see this trip ending, but it leaves me wanting another 🙂 Hoping for exciting things to come.
Got to keep blogging after I get home and clean up the site (particularly the landing page) to make the sites work better. I’ve got a basic idea for what I’ll do. Also need to stay focused on interesting projects and not waste time.
Lots to be done, lots can be done. Looking to let my creative side loose more.
Going to read some more opengl docs on the flight home. Things have changed a lot since last time I looked at 3d. Much more programmable pipelines and less fixed function triangle meshes. Add in some sqlite and I’ve got a few things to play with.
Currently at Heathrow going through British Airways musical help desks. It appears that when we changed our day and upgraded to economy plus over the phone (because their system didn’t permit the change to be made electronically) they messed something up. The eticket associated with the original flight didn’t get registered properly with the new flight. Now they seem to be terribly understaffed on their phone lines (and their local software seems very limited). They say that the only way to fix it is on the phone with a remote staffer. Seems as if they have a small fraction if the folks they need on that end.
Still standing here and two people in total have made it to the desk. The British air agents behind the desk seem to be spending as much time consulting with each other (inadequate training I’d guess) as they do resolving actual issues.
At the rate this is moving, they need chairs (or perhaps cots) on the queue.