Sunday, November 14, 2010

13th November- Things were going so well before we docked

We awoke early, around 0600 as we wished to go upstairs and watch the morning sunrise over New York and then watch our approach to The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island next door.
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 Hoboken (the birthplace of Frank Sinatra) for dinner at Arthur’s Steak House, the food was excellent as usual, it is not the most salubrious place in the world but it is good food and a good price.
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.