Four go wild north of the border UPDATED 6/23 About This Page:

[chezp]

Four go wild north of the border

Pre-trip report – part one: how this all started….

Dates: Friday 9 – Saturday 24 June
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (44) and DH Mark (51)
Destinations: Lake District, England and all around Scotland!
Resorts: Too many to list here… it’s almost a new place every night…
Meets: our friends Mari and Raleigh from California
Celebration: spending time with our friends and celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary on 10 June

Let’s go back in time to the summer of 2007. That was when the Disney Magic made her first sailing across the Transatlantic and we were fortunate enough to be booked on the inaugural Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona. We met Bruce (zazu) on the boards virtually, and ended up sitting with him, his wife Marta and some of their friends during the cruise. It was lovely to have a group of people to share dinner with, rather than being on our own. However, there was also a true moment of serendipity, which started so much else…

We were in one of the inside staterooms on deck 7 – 7627 to be precise. It was an inside stateroom, but it was all we could afford, given it was an inaugural cruise, and we booked quite late on, as we came into some money that we put to good use on the cruise. Anyway, one day we were just coming out of our room, and I looked up and was amazed at who I saw… I’ll let the trip report from back then do the talking at this point:

As we came out of our room, I saw someone who I thought looked familiar. “Deb” It was Deb Wills from All Ears Net and she was about four doors down the hall from us. I’d only said to Mark a day or two earlier that she was on board and perhaps we’d run into her. How funny to find out she was nearby – running into her during the cruise would be inevitable now!

We stood there and chatting for probably a good half hour and were joined by lots of other people, including Becky from Mouse Fan Travel and her DH Chris, Linda and Sandy, all of whom were staying in rooms in our area. How cool! We sort of all realised that it might be a noisy cruise and let’s just say that when we saw other people from our corridor while we were standing there, apologies were made in advance, just in case! It even turned out that we were all on the same dining rotation, so we’d be seeing plenty of them during the next 11 nights.

It turned out that Mari and Raleigh were there as well, as they’re good friends with Deb and Linda and Beci and Chris, and tend to travel a lot with them. It’s interesting, as I looked through the trip report, and couldn’t actually find one mention of the two of them, which is really funny, given we’ve probably seen more of them in the intervening years since than anyone else, just because every time we head to California, we always let them know our plans and then meet up.

That’s meant reunions at Disneyland in October 2008, August 2011, December 2012, and September 2015. When we told them that we were looking to book a cruise out of Venice in July 2014 on the Magic, they were instantly in, and when we went on to mention that we were planning on doing a road trip around Northern Italy when the cruise was over, they asked if we wanted some company. Hell

We always have an absolute ball with them. They’re just so much fun. Mari is definitely more the Disney fan than Raleigh, but like many of you out there, he happily goes along with Disney. However, I must admit I really enjoyed the Italy road trip, perhaps more than any other of our trips, as everyone was really in their element. It was just so relaxing, and so much fun. I planned the whole thing, and they happily went along with everything I planned, which worked perfectly for me.

During that trip, talk started to turn to perhaps doing another road trip. Mari and Raleigh said they really wanted to tour Scotland, and we said that we’d barely seen anything of the country. We were heading back there mere weeks later for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but prior to that, we’d literally only spent a day in Edinburgh, and we knew there was so much more to see there. Since then, we’ve been back for two New Year celebrations, both with Hazel and her family and have certainly seen a bit more of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the surrounding areas, but despite that, I know Scotland is a huge country, with much more to see.

There was also the not-so-small matter of the Scottish referendum on whether to remain as part of the United Kingdom later on in 2014. I had said to myself that if the Scots chose to remain with us, we’d ensure we got up there to explore of their country on a road trip. However, if they chose to go down the independence route, that would present us with all sorts of potential issues, particularly border controls, which wouldn’t make a visit quite so simple. It was a close vote, but thankfully the remain camp won. A great shame the same couldn’t be said in summer 2016 when we got to the EU referendum.

So, after the result was known, we were set. Our Scotland road trip was on. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that when we started to make their plans back in 2014, we already had ideas for a few vacations… In 2015, we would be heading out on the Wonder for Mark’s 50th birthday to visit Alaska for a second time, and we already had a spring visit to Disney World booked. My long time friend threw a bit of a wrench in our plans by deciding to get married in September in Harvard, so we ended up with three trips to the States in a little over six months, and in fact came home in between the two September trips for just 10 days.

In 2016, I finally wanted to make it to eastern Canada, having wanted to visit Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec City for the best part of 20 years. That was originally planned for November time, but another wrench in our plans was the tragic death of our friend Bill (LizardCop) and the wonderful idea of a meet to honour his memory a year on from his death in September. By this point, we also had a Baltic cruise booked, albeit not with Disney, much as we’d have loved to have gone on the inaugural UK itinerary. It was just too crazy expensive though.

So 2017 it was… we knew we wanted to go out of school holiday season, which over here is the last week in May, then six weeks from mid-July until early September. It was either September or June. However, I wanted to get back to the States for Christmas, so June made much more sense in terms of spacing our vacations throughout the year.

It was about this point that I realised it would be my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. As an only child, I knew we’d need to call in and see them either before or after the day, but when I checked the calendar, I found out that it fell on a Saturday. Ok, that works then, and as they’re in Cheshire in North West England, about halfway between where we live and Scotland, we can go and see them on the way up there. So that’s how our dates were set.

We would take two weeks, starting from Sunday 11 June, the day after my parents’ wedding anniversary, and tour as much of Scotland as we could. I did have a first itinerary that I went back and reviewed in the summer of 2016, and some of it didn’t work as well as I wanted. There was a lot more driving for Mark than I thought was fair. I loved the idea of visiting John O’Groats, which is the most northerly point of the mainland UK, having been to Lands’ End at the southernmost point already, but it was a stupidly long drive from the Loch Ness area, and I figured it would be overly commercial there.

If I was going to knock that out, it also meant that the short ferry ride to Orkney from that part of Scotland would be out of the window, but then again, we could also fly there from other parts of Scotland. Now if we could do that, that would open up the option of flying either there or to Shetland. Decisions, decisions….

So now you know how this vacation started out, and have the rough idea of the itinerary. From here on in, I’ll be capturing my thoughts and progress on putting this together using my diary system, so you’ll read things as they happened. Things may change (I have no idea as I’m writing this), but it’ll be interesting to see what does happen over the next few months…

Next: “you’re so much more knowledgeable than me”.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start! Can't wait to read all about it!

[cattailmarsh]

A new PTR and I joined in at the beginning - how much fun.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[clio]

I can't wait to read more about your plans.
Liz

[pamcarey]

Great start! I can't wait to read all about this!

[Cam22]

Great start! Excited to read more details!

[Pris]

A great start to your trip! I can't wait to follow along. When you leave I'll be living in Tennessee and when you return home, we will have transitioned to Nebraska and be just a couple of days before taking possession of our new home.

[manticorjenn]

I can't wait to read all about this trip. This is one of the places on my bucket list that keeps getting longer and longer. Oh well, I am getting to knock one off next summer with our Alaska cruise. So, I can't say Scotland won't happen, it may just take a while to get there.

[abubbles77]

Great start. Can't wait to follow along

[SuperDave]

This is going to be quite a trip with a couple of your great traveling friends, which you have some nice experiences already on some of your cruises! I remember Mara and Raleigh from your TRs! That's quite a background on how this trip came to fruition and looking forward to how this PTR transpires over the next few weeks! That was pretty cool running into Deb Wills and the others back in 2007 and you must have been blown away as she was staying so close to your room! I love Allearsnet and been using it for many years now!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Pris

A great start to your trip! I can't wait to follow along. When you leave I'll be living in Tennessee and when you return home, we will have transitioned to Nebraska and be just a couple of days before taking possession of our new home.

Oh wow, big changes ahead for you then! Hope the move goes smoothly.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by manticorjenn

I can't wait to read all about this trip. This is one of the places on my bucket list that keeps getting longer and longer.

Oh tell me about it! I have that problem too...

Oh well, I am getting to knock one off next summer with our Alaska cruise. So, I can't say Scotland won't happen, it may just take a while to get there.

Oh you will love the Alaskan cruise - it's the only place we've gone back and cruised again (apart from the Bahamas and we've only done that a number of times with Disney to get the number of cruises up to reach platinum status with the Castaway Club).

[chezp]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

This is going to be quite a trip with a couple of your great traveling friends, which you have some nice experiences already on some of your cruises! I remember Mara and Raleigh from your TRs!

Yes, they've had some guest starring roles in quite a few over the years.

That's quite a background on how this trip came to fruition and looking forward to how this PTR transpires over the next few weeks! That was pretty cool running into Deb Wills and the others back in 2007 and you must have been blown away as she was staying so close to your room! I love Allearsnet and been using it for many years now!

It was just unbelievable. It just goes to show how fate sometimes work. Had either of us left our rooms just a few minutes earlier or later that day, we may never have met.

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part two: “you’re so much more knowledgeable than me”.

Saturday 22 October 2016

I feel it’s finally time to start moving into planning gear for this trip. I’d warned Mari a while ago that I wouldn’t be looking to buy anything for this vacation until we were back from our September trip, and until we were past that credit card month, as oddly there was a lot to pay for from that. By the time we got to 20 October, that was the end of the credit card month, and I could start thinking about this trip, and budgeting how much we could afford to spend on it each month.

I worked it out, and then worked out what I wanted to spend the money on. Normally, I’d start with flights, but at this stage, we hadn’t really decided whether to go to Orkney or Shetland, so that wasn’t an option. I figured it made sense to concentrate on the hotels located in places that didn’t have many places to stay instead. Where we were staying in cities or towns, and had a good few options, then we could wait a bit longer to book something. I picked out three and emailed Mari with the details…

Elsewhere, I found this adorable set of photos on Facebook:



Oh wow, wouldn’t it be cool if we saw a scene like this during our trip?

Sunday 23 October 2016

I heard back from Mari, as I’d suggested I book everything and she Paypal me the money over. That’s fine, except they’re going to charge her $30 for the privilege of doing that. I really didn’t know what to suggest when she mentioned it to me. I did a Google search and could find ways of sending money free of charge from the UK to the US, but not the other way. I suggested she did a Google search or the only other way to do it was for us to book separately, but of course that takes a fair bit of coordination. She’s going to speak to her bank and see if they can suggest anything..

The other problem was that she was getting totally different prices to me. I was seeing £214 for a two bedroom suite, total price, and I checked three times, and that’s definitely what it said, but she was seeing £120 per person for the same thing. Ok, bit confusing. We could only think that they were charging a lot more to American travellers, which if they are, is frankly appalling…

Tuesday 25 October 2016

I heard back from Mari, and the bank option frankly isn’t an option, as it costs even more! This is getting silly. Just when I think we were both on the verge of giving up, she found Xoom, which is apparently part of Paypal. When she told me that, I wasn’t holding out much hope, but my goodness, it turned out be just what she needed. They charge $3 to send £100 and something like $4.50 for up to $1,000. Wow, that’s a huge improvement on the Paypal charges.

So… the money sent through, I was ready to get to work on booking some things for this trip!

Wednesday 26 October 2016

So as I mentioned, I wasn’t going to go for flights, but some of our accommodation. I did mention to Mari about Shetland and Orkney, and she first off told me she was going to leave it to me, as “you’re so much more knowledgeable than me”. I had to tell her that the only parts of Scotland we’ve seen are Glasgow and Edinburgh, and the surrounding areas. The rest would all be completely new to us. She’s going to read the guidebook, and let me have her thoughts…

Anyway, back to what I did purchase. The first thing was a night at the Lodge on Loch Lomond. Now we had seen a little of Loch Lomond on our 2014 trip to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and it looked beautiful, but the bit we visited was very commercialised. I wanted to see some more of the natural beauty of it. I found the Lodge, and it looked as if it was in a very unspoilt part of the loch. The images on the front page of their website when I was originally planning this were exceptionally attractive, looking out across the loch. As I write this, they’re focusing more on the rooms, which is decidedly less attractive, but never mind.

We ended up going for the Cuillin Suite, which is a two bedroom suite, where both bedrooms have double beds, wall mounted LCD TVs and complimentary bathrobes (I was sold at this point! ) with en suite bathroom and toilet for each room – one has a bath, the other doesn’t. The living space has a leather sofa, living flame fire, 42” Plasma TV, surround sound speakers, DVD players, and you also get views of the Loch. It sounds perfect. Interestingly, this was also the one where Mari got a horrendous price. I want to say £120 per person. I booked the whole thing for £214. Now that’s a huge difference!

The next place I went for is a traditional bed and breakfast called Aslaich that’s got good reviews. It’s at Drumnadrochit along Loch Ness. It doesn’t have views of the loch, but then again, most places don’t. I can’t wait to see Loch Ness. Of course I want to spot Nessie, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.

The third and final accommodation, for the moment, is the Lodge on the Loch of Aboyne. If you’re thinking that this bears a remarkable resemblance to the first place, you’d be right. Yes, it’s another hotel on a loch. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, as it’s home to a spa and golf centre, and they even have an osprey viewing deck.

But what sold it to me were the rooms. Mari opted for the ordinary spa double room, but I sprung for the spa suite with hamam. You get a large king size bed and lounge area, but the big draw is the bathroom. It’s got a hammam en-suite with sauna, a Japanese deep soak tub and steam spa shower unit. I cannot wait to enjoy that!

And that’s it for this month’s purchases, but I’m very happy with those as a starting point…

Saturday 29 October 2016

I’d mentioned that I was still on the fence about Shetland and Orkney. Well, at the moment, we can’t actually book anything, as when I went to check on flights, they’re only on sale until the end of March, so it’ll be a while yet before we can get them. However, something did occur to me… I was anticipating flying from Aberdeen out to one of those destinations, but there are also flights from Edinburgh. Ok, that would work too, and from what I’m seeing from the winter prices, it may be a cheaper option. Something to keep in mind.

I’ll just ensure that, until the flights are available, we don’t book anything at the tail end of our road trip, as I could easily move things around, but I don’t want to be tied to accommodation I’ve booked.

Monday 14 November 2016

Nothing much has happened the last couple of weeks, although today I did double check whether the flights to Shetland and Orkney are out for next June yet. No joy. Ok, I guess I’m no further forward then…

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Today was a very important day for Mari. It was her 65th birthday (gosh, I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing that… I’m sure not, as heck she doesn’t look it! ) and that also marks her retirement. She posted something on Facebook saying about it was time for new adventures, and I couldn’t resist saying “Scotland anyone?”

Next: I guess I’ll be driving that day then….

[purplegal]

Sounds like a great trip with good friends. The hotel accommodations seem ideal for giving you a chance to see Nessie.