Our Final Days

Casa Grande, Arizona



The Royal Yacht was on our agenda for our final day in Edinburgh.  This was my favorite place we visited while in Scotland.

The Royal Yacht Britannia sailed over 1,000,000 miles around the world.  Probably the most famous use of the the yacht was for the honeymoon of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

I realize I've forgotten a lot of the details but this was where the guards slept.  

Her Majesty, the Queen had many gifts given to the Royal Family.

There was a lot of lavish entertaining on the yacht.

While the rooms were very functional, I was surprised that they were so modest.  The Queen actually has a single twin bed.

You would see a nice cozy room.

Right next to a very nice modest room, you'd see a grand ballroom style. Modesty to elegance.

This is the Queen's office where she worked while she was at sea.

We had headsets for this tour.  Some of the group had  enough time to have tea in the Royal Deck Tea Room.  I'm sorry to say, we were still looking at rooms and didn't have enough time.

The laundry was amazing and I wish I could remember the facts and figures about how much they did.  It was said that some of the personnel changed uniforms up to 9 times a day.

The Royal Family went to shore in this craft.







I have more photos of the Royal Yacht, but I promised myself I'd finish this blog.

Our second tour included a visit to Palace of Holyrood House.

"It's carefully designed addition over the centuries have made it one of the most admired buildings in the British Isles.

The palace was completed in 1501 and was the site of the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley in 1565, and of much subsequent intrigue.  Less than a year later, the jealous Darnley had Mary's private secretary murdered here in her presence."  

We arrived back to our hotel in time to pack our luggage before our farewell dinner.  This was the best farewell dinner in all the 10 trips we've taken with this company.

Of course we couldn't leave Scotland with hearing a piper play the bagpipes.

This wasn't just any piper.  John told us he was a member of the Royal Guard and also the police department.




He answered all kinds of questions about the plaid, the hats, and badges.  No one asked what was under the kilt.

Virginia assisted John, the Piper, for bringing in the Haggis ceremony.  If there was one thing we learned on this trip it was to like Haggis.  

This trip wouldn't have been nearly as good, without our excellent program director, Anita Mclaughlin.

The evening lasted much later than the usual farewell dinners.  I think there was a lot of wine consumed.  Some of the group had to leave the hotel as early as 3 am for their flights home.  We were lucky that we didn't leave until 7:30.  Hurricane Florence was expected to have 80 mph winds just as everyone's flights were leaving.  

We were about an hour late leaving Edinburgh as the planes were having trouble with the winds landing in Heathrow.  Our flight was quite rough taking off and landing but other than that no problems.  We had to change terminals in Heathrow but everything went smoothly.  In all of our travels, it was the first time we've ever had to go through customs in Phoenix.  The Global Entry card is worth every penny.

We are now less than a month before our next journey.  I hope it's as great as this trip was.

Turtle Safely......