The sun was very bright with the sky wall to wall blue and just right for photographs, We slowly made our way up the Hudson River and finally went around a couple of bends and tied up alongside the Museum where there is the ‘Intrepid’ Aircraft carrier and also an ex British Airways Concord parked. As we were watching a lady behind us said “I don’t know how they get that aircraft to fly with so little space????”
We docked and the ship was about 10 feet away from the quay side against large rubber balls to protect the side of the ship, however the ramps for the bags and suitcases were too short and would not reach the land. Brilliant, so after 45 minutes when no doubt the Unions were discussing money they brought in a fork lift to take one small cage containing about 20 bags per time from the ship and drop it on the quay where another fork lift took it in to the terminal. Our disembarkation time should have been around 1020 which suited us but finally we got off around midday , four bloody hours to unload some suitcases.
We finally located our driver whose English was appalling, I suppose with a name like Mohamed … you would expect it and he was waiting upstairs at the drop off zone and not the pick up zone although the Port staff told us we have to cross the main road to find a hired car. This Terminal is a complete and utter nightmare and is not capable of handling ships of this size. They can fly men to the moon but to unload a ship they haven’t a clue.
We arrived at the Hyatt Jersey City and after a short while went down to the local mall using the light railway and then on to Then we picked up some bits and pieces of shopping and then back to the Hotel for a nice nights sleep. We hope they have the Abu Dhabi Formula One GP on tomorrow morning as it the final race when the Championship will be finally decided.
