British Isles Explorer Ocean Cruise
Day 5: Saturday, April 11, 2026 - Travel London to Tilbury, England
The day's statistics:
⛅ Weather: upper 50s, light rain
👟 Steps: Linda 5,075; Steve 8,663
The breakfast room was much less crowded today than yesterday.
Our self-guided extension was complete, and today we headed to the ship in Tilbury.
We scheduled a ride with Mini Cab to pick us
up at the hotel at 11:00 to take us to the ship.
After breakfast, we hung out in the room until 10:30, and then headed to the lobby.
I got a text from our driver Ilio to say he was almost at the hotel.
He arrived, the luggage was loaded, and we began the drive to the ship.
Ilio told us that tomorrow was going to be a challenging day for him as the London Marathon was taking place.
£1.569 per liter equates to $7.85 per gallon. I eventually figured out that 3.75 liters per gallon, times 1.33
for the dollar to pound conversion, is 5. So just take the price per liter in pounds and multiply it by 5 to get the
USD equivalent.
We even saw a Porsche Carrera something-or-other on the way too.
It was just over a half-hour drive to the port.
The Viking Neptune staff gathered our luggage to load it onboard.
We headed to security and check-in.
We were at agent 6, that was next to agent 7...
We had to temporarily surrender our passports as they were needed for entry into Ireland in a couple days - we were given a claim
ticket for them that we stored. Somewhere...<
After being given our key cards, we embarked.
We were directed to the Star Theater to watch the minute-long safety video about (in the case of an emergency)
where to gather and how to put on our life jackets.
Not that there ever feels like there are a lot of people on the ship, it was especially poignant as we were
aboard comparatively early and the masses hadn't arrived yet.
We took advantage of the opportunity to get some pictures of what we missed on our first Ocean cruise in order
to complete the River versus Ocean comparison.
These included the Living Room bar, Pool bar, and the World Café bar.
This was only our second ocean cruise. The first was on the Vesta (the previous ship we were on) and was a little larger
than the Neptune (this ship), and one of the places the space seem to have been added is the World Café.
On the Vesta, generally, the two sides of four sections were the same, desserts - frozen and non - were in their own
separate section, and the end of the buffet section along the back had the Asian station, and the pizza and bread.
On the Neptune, the non-frozen desserts were at the forth section along with the pizza, the frozen desserts were on the
other side of the buffet, while the Asian station was along the back (generally in the same place as on the Vesta).
While we were in the World Café, we stayed a little and had lunch.
Linda had the shrimp salad croissant sandwich.
I had some buffet items that included shrimp salad, calamari with lemon aioli, and a piece of chicken cordon bleu.
Each lunch I usually collected the desserts - I'd stack two plates, grab two forks and or a spoon, and plate.
I'd get Linda a fruit tart - about the size of an Eisenhower dollar coin.
I had the cherry strudel, three chocolate cake, and Paris brest. I usually only have two, but I just couldn't decide.
And no one was stopping me but me.
We topped off our glasses of wine and headed to the Explorer's Lounge.
From the lounge, we got a bird's-eye view of the terminal building.
The port had four large wind turbines too.
And then there was the other side of the river.
And then there was the Explorer's Lounge bar too.
The lounge was still fairly empty.
We decided to get some coffee.
At 1:30, a ship-wide broadcast was made announcing that the cabins were ready. This was an hour and a half early, but
we certainly weren't complaining.
We made our way to our cabin, 3051.
The in-room safety video was required, and we had to watch it before using any of the other functionality on the TV.
It had additional information about safety, and the ship, and other key information.
As we unpacked and settled in, we met our room stewards Sam and Putu.
The ocean ships have free-use washers and dryers.
At times there can be a line to use the machines, but on the first day? Not so much...
At six, we decided it was dinner time.
The route to the World Café from the cabin is either up to the 7th deck and over, or over and then
up to the 7th deck. Going over then up requires passing through the atrium. Tonight, as every night, the
classical duo of Alina and Marina were playing.
On the last cruise, we ate in The Restaurant. But when I went about taking pictures last time, I saw that there was
crab legs and shrimp on the buffet. I told Linda that I wanted to investigate the World Café this time before
going to The Restaurant in case it was to be repeated here.
And it was. And it was good.
Of course, there was dessert too.
After dinner, we took our wine glasses to the atrium to hear a little more music.
The classical duo ladies were replaced by pianist Sergey
Upon returning to the cabin, we were greeted with a small cake and a bottle of champagne for our anniversary.
It was a little early, though. And if we knew, we would have skipped dessert at dinner.
But thanks to Viking for the acknowledgement.
No, we didn't eat the cake or drink the champagne. Tonight.
But I did put the champagne in the mini-fridge.
We relaxed a bit, with something on the TV, and read the Viking Daily - the two page folded document that contains a
decent amount of information including the schedule for the next day, and most importantly, the excursion meeting times.
The first page of this one is a little different as it has the full cruise schedule.
Then we washed up and went to bed.
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