THE OPTIONALS

DAY 3. Wednesday June 23rd, 2004

Today we had to be at the Royal National Hotel at 6:45 where we had to check in with our tour manager Jeff and then board the coach for our departure towards the ferry at the Cliffs of Dover. Since we were staying at the Imperial we had a bit of a walk, but luckily it wasn’t raining. After weighing in (they weren’t joking about the 20 kgs in the bag), checking in and boarding the bus, Jeff spent most of the time to Dover briefing us on the “rules”. Keep the bus clean- if you bring it on, you bring it off. No heads on the windows. No feet on the furniture. Switch seats from day to day (Although note to the motion sickness- people- the front few rows are the best). Do ask questions. Use the washroom only in emergencies- and only for #1s. We will be stopping every few hours. Also Jeff enlightened us on tipping etiquette (indicating the average is from 30-45 Euro each for the driver and for him) for the 16 days of touring (~3 Euro per day). The Contiki book indicated tipping is optional, however it sounds like it’s a pretty substantial reason for the driver/ manager to stay on tour. Jeff didn’t mention tipping again until the end of the tour. (When he handed out envelopes- which we were able to give to both him and PK personally). We also got the background on him (a New Zealander) and PK (an Australian). Both were experienced Contiki employees. Today we also got enlightened about the “optionals”. Refer to my link above for more discussion on these. We did stop for a break, learning for the first time the nast-y-ness of pay for bathrooms. Usually somewhere around .2 to .5 Euro. We would soon get used to this, however this first time was a shock. The day was largely a travel day, as with the ferry and weather we didn’t end up at our hotel in Edam until around 7:30. Meals for the first day included Yummy soup, a buffet of chicken, fish, salad/veggies, fries, rice and ice cream. No complains about this meal… Due to having enough of the sea, and not wanting to blow my budget so early in the trip I didn’t sign up for the optional cruise, although I would have liked to. It would have been a nice opportunity to meet people early on. My evening reflection: Our travels took us from London through France and Belgium finally stopping in the Netherlands. This means I have now been through 5 countries in my lifetime, 4 of them today. WOW.

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