Oceania Marina - Edinburgh

July 15

Our bus ride back to Dover was without incident except for quite a bit of traffic on its way to Sandwich for the British Open which is only about 10 miles from Dover.

Soon spotted our new ship on our way in to Town and had a very painless embarkation.

It  is a beautiful ship and our cabin is quite a bit more spacious than Insignia. Set about exploring her after lunch and found some really beautiful features all around the ship.

Set sail that night and after our hectic time in London needed no rocking to get to sleep.

July 16

Our first Marina sea day and it has been the roughest by far. Not really a drama and it didn’t affect too many people as there were plenty on hand for the Captain’s welcome.

This followed a meet and greet for a function with fellow cruisecritic.com followers a web site that monitors all cruise ships. Over 100 turned up so it gets a good checkout.

There are 23  Aussies on board not nearly as many as on Insignia.

July 17

This morning we arrived in Leith, the port that serves Edinburgh about 30 mins away.

It was raining and quite overcast.

A very strange thing happened early this am. I was awake early as usual at around 5 am when I heard this enormous racket.

Wondering what it could be I stepped out onto the balcony and spotted this massive RAF rescue helicopter hovering over the ship.It was there for a half hour or so.

When we went to breakfast I asked what was going on.

Answer: “ What helicopter?” After several queries it was obvious that the crew was told to keep quiet. No one wants to talk about it. STRANGE !!!

We tendered here and caught a train into Edinburgh where we discovered a beautiful historic City full of tourists, but the nice thing was the sun came out.

Did the usual HOHO which was short and sweet but good.

We then walked the Royal mile that stretches from Edinburgh Castle with lots of beautiful shops but the buildings are really something to see. Amazingly untouched there is hardly any modern buildings amongst them which really stands out.

The castle is all set up for its annual Tattoo next week and they have a huge grandstand set up that unfortunately takes away the look of such a famous landmark.

A most enjoyable trip to Scotland