June 27 – Lisbon, Portugal to Windsor, UK

Weather – 29º in Lisbon, 27º in Windsor

Steps – 14,196

Humidity – 79% in Windsor

The 42 days on the ship were over today. We left the ship at 730 and were at The Christopher Wren hotel in Windsor by 3PM.

so many swans

Typically, we would have taken a taxi or Uber to the airport, but as we are now big deals, having travelled more than 400 nights with Regent, we receive a private transfer to the airport – no looking for an Uber, no piling onto a coach with a million other people. This was delightful.

lawn bowling

  We left the ship, found our luggage in the terminal, someone pointed to where our car was waiting with the driver holding a sign with our names.

The ride to the Lisbon airport is only 20 minutes, so it would only have been about $20-$25 – not a huge savings having the ride, but the convenience was a huge saving.

where to next?

Once we got to the airport, the ride didn’t stop there. We were handed over to a guy who took our bags and us to the check in area. At first we thought this was overkill, but it turned out we were dropped off a distance from check in and it wasn’t all that well marked. We could absolutely have done it ourselves, but this was nice.

no exciting chips, but BILTONG!

The woman who checked us in, said the line for immigration would be long, expect about an hour – what??? She couldn’t be serious. Just as we were told, it did indeed take an hour – just in time to board the flight, well, not a flight, but a bus to our flight.

Security was a breeze – maybe 5 minutes, totally normal - it was immigration that took so long.This whole immigration ordeal was incredible! There seemed to be no reason for the line to be as long as it was. Thankfully, it was very civilized – no pushing or shoving, it wasn’t hot, and we weren’t stressed. We were so thankful that we were told. Other people were not so lucky. We were shocked there was no kind of notification or sign that it would be so long. Some people came to the line and had no idea it would be this long. We’ve been in plenty of immigration lines, and I’d have to say this one was BY FAR the longest.

Castle and Queen Victoria

Some people tried to appeal to the workers saying their flights were soon, but they were basically told that, everyone is in the same boat. There were a few times when a worker would try to find people who were going to a flight leaving right now, but otherwise, it was just wait your turn.

The 3-hr flight was nice, uneventful. Actually, I had one of the best airplane meals I’ve every had. It didn’t sound like anything special…stewed lamb and potatoes, but yum!

We took a cab for the 20 min ride to Windsor - £45 – not cheep, but OK. The hotel is on a pedestrian street, so we had a small walk with our luggage, but it was fine. The cab driver helped us until we saw where we were going, and we said we were fine.

back of Windsor church

The hotel is in an ideal location. We are here to see Windsor Castle.

front of Windsor church

It would have been nice to be home today, but it’s tricky getting a flight home from Lisbon to Calgary on the same day as the cruise ended. There are no direct flights, and 2 flights wasn’t going to work on the same day.

This is why we are in Windsor - it is close to Heathrow airport and seems good for tourists. We’ve been to London before, so didn’t see the need to go all the way there for only one day.

We checked in, unpacked a little and headed out to wander. Windsor is very touristy –
kind of like Banff. The Thames River is super close to our hotel, so we walked along it for a bit, watched the enormous swans, wandered some more, watched lawn bowling, and found a pub. We had wished the lawn bowling had a pub - it was interesting to watch.

Then we picked up some snacks and water and went back for some hotel down time.

In the evening, we wandered again and found some Italian for dinner.