So, this could have bombed and been a terrible waste of money. Instead, the 70 minute Thames RIB experience was as awesome as I had hoped. And it almost didn't happen for us.
Skipping back two days to when we landed in London on Tuesday, there were urgent texts and voicemails from the company asking me to call. Before I even got a chance to call back, they called again to say that Carol and I were the only two who registered for that time. Did I want to cancel, change to an earlier time, or keep the reservation in case more people signed up for that time slot.
Well, they offered to change our time to one at the same time we'd be in the Churchill War Rooms. So I said, well, keep our reservations and let's hope more people sign up. By the end of the day Wednesday, only one more person had signed up. Thursday at lunch, during all the cricket international match excitement, I got the call that enough people had signed up, and the ride was a go.
If you go to their website, it looks pretty darn cool It starts out with pretty tame tour of the Thames, heading west of Parliament, turning around, and going below Tower Bridge. The tour was interesting, although, between our guide's accent and the loud motor, it was hard to hear everything he was saying. I'm sure those are the two reasons, and my being 60 years old has nothing to do with my difficulty hearing him.
However, once below the Tower Bridge, we were outside the speed restrictions on the Thames, and our pilot cut loose. We were flying. Zigging, zagging, flying over wakes, zipping, moving at incredibly high rates of speed. The guide stopped talking, and the pilot was flying. It was massive fun.
The website boasts that they are the fastest boats on the Thames, and I don't doubt it. They also tout their 14 years of experience. It's not quite as exhilarating as the Shotover Jet Boat experience in Queenstown, New Zealand, but the risk of death seems infinitely lower on the Thames than the cliffs of the narrower Shotover River.
The only times we slowed down south of Tower Bridge was when we came to Greenwich, which we made it to in a mean time, and going through the Thames River barrier (to stop flooding), which I had never seen before. We also saw the gondola constructed for the Olympics. The other cool part of the trip, besides going very, very fast was seeing all of the development in East London/the docks. I didn't realize that part of London (and environs) was as vibrant as it is.
Again, it was quite fun buzzing through the water at high speed, bouncing off waves and enjoying the views. Highly recommend!
After the thoroughly satisfied RIB experience, we rushed back to the hotel to shower and wolf down dinner before I had a Zoom presentation with a potential statewide candidate.
So, just to recap, the day started at the Churchill War Rooms, moved to "Cleopatra's" Needle, then the London Eye, the Tower of London, and the Thames RIB adventure. Pretty good day covering a lot of ground in London.
If you can't tell, we would HIGHLY RECOMMEND doing the 70 minute Thames RIB Experience next time you go to London.
1 comment:
Aaaaaagghhhhh. Not the Thames rib experience! In that shot of you with Tower Bridge in the background you are going past my apartment.
The **%##* Thames Rib experience does my head in - a vibrant but otherwise quiet view is ruined by the motors of that thing every five minutes and bunches of moronic tourists going ‘Ooooh’ and ‘Aaaah’ every time they cross the wake of another boat (I’m sure you didn’t do that Glen).
I do realise I sound like a privileged idiot in this comment. Sorry. Just that next time maybe you could check out the Thames rowing experience or the Thames sailing experience. Or maybe just swim it?
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