Friday, January 20th, 2023 Queen Victoria, docked in Manhattan, New York City, USA
Updated: Jun 19, 2023
We woke up early this morning and Sandra did a covid test, we were waiting for the result when the swab nurse arrived to do the official ship’s covid test. Our test was negative and about an hour later the medical center called to say they also had a negative result – to say we were overjoyed would be an understatement! A few people in the Facebook group that we belong to for this cruise have reported testing positive in the last few days – so we plan to continue to be vigilant when out and about the ship.
A few days ago, in anticipation of getting out of isolation, I made a lunch reservation at Cipriani’s – what can I say, we are creatures of habit. So our plan for today was to maybe check out a museum, do a bit of tourist shopping and then get lunch. All-aboard for the departure from New York is at 4:30PM. By the time we got off the ship it was already after 10:30AM; we had a bit of a bust up with the security guys at the gangway when they refused to let Sandra off because the medical center had not released her in the system. It eventually got sorted out with a promise that it would not happen again. We decided to go to the Museum of Broadway, so I ordered an Uber as we exited the terminal building. There are two levels for vehicles to enter the Manhattan Cruise Terminal and this was very difficult to specify in the Uber app, and so of course we waited downstairs and the car arrived upstairs – the driver was kind enough to wait for us to walk back upstairs and off we went. Or not. The traffic getting out of the terminal was horrendous, it would have been quicker to walk a block from the terminal and then call the Uber (lesson learned). It took us about 15 minutes to finally hit the streets of Manhattan, and so with this delay we decided to postpone the museum visit until we are back in New York at the very end of this trip. We are not huge fans of Time Square as it is a gigantic tourist trap, in the same way as Fisherman’s Wharf back in San Francisco – these are places to you visit once or twice, but then avoid. However we needed to buy some touristy gifts and of course Time Square is the ideal place to do this – in fact we managed to get all the gifts in one store! You do see some strange sights in time Square. With the shopping done, we took a slow walk over to Grand Central Terminal and had a fantastic lunch at Cipriani’s. Every time I come to New York I’m always amazed at the extent of construction that is taking place right in the heart of Manhattan; you would be hard pressed to find a few blocks length of the city that does not have scaffolding built over the sidewalks. Then every now and again you come across a major construction site where a gigantic build is rising from the street level and the site is surrounded by other gigantic buildings on all four sides; the logistics and engineering processes to enable these projects must be quite amazing. We made another stop at a liquor store and then took an Uber back to the ship. Once again, we had an argument with the ship’s security officers as they tried to deny Sandra entry – the medical center had still not made the necessary updates. The security guards let us board but then told us that we had to contact the medical center to get things sorted out. Back at the cabin, Sandra called the purser and let rip – it’s best that I don’t repeat what she had to say, as children might someday read this blog.
The sail away from New York was fantastic, this was the first time we’d sailed out of the Manhattan side of the city, and it affords amazing views of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. The weather had turned very cold and so we were well wrapped as wandered the upper decks looking for the best spots to take photos – it was spectacular. We were reunited with our friends and table mates that night for dinner and enjoyed their company immensely. Sandra was feeling great to finally be free, in fact it felt like were starting the cruise all over again.
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