TouchstoneFeste

If you pick up your tickets at the station kiosk, be sure you have the credit card you used to purchase them (I use American Express to purchase things online, but don't always carry it with me overseas because it's not as widely accepted). You can still see the agent with your confirmation number, but that can take longer (depending on how many confused tourists are ahead of you in line).

Is that an Old World convention? In the U.S. .org just means "not commercial" and there's no implication it's government-related, per se. Most of the government departments use a .gov extension. (Our postal service even uses a .com).

Very much appreciate your help (and that of @gumshoe958).

We'll be travelling from Southampton to Bath, then from Bath to London a few days later. From searching this forum, I see that first class train tickets (at least on the first leg) don't confer much of an advantage. Would that also be true for the Bath-Paddington leg? We won't have much luggage, just carry-ons. Both legs would be on weekdays - the first after disembarkation, the second probably late morning or early afternoon. And ... embarrassing to admit, but the last time we took longer train trips around southen England, we had a lot of trouble finding the first class section, sometimes just giving up and travelling in regular seating. How are they marked?

I recall one day when all the game tables were full, but generally you are correct. I prefer the games corridor because the chairs are straight-backed, not "loungy". I've certainly moved on when the other tables start to fill up. Also makes it easy for me to wander over from time to time and place a few pieces on the jigsaw puzzle that is currently in play.

I did a quick search and see at least one tour that would take you there (and to other neolithic sites and the Italian Chapel) from Kirkwall. There are also a few taxi companies and I'm fairly sure you could contract with one for a trip to Skara Brae. Kirkwall is a charming city with a few worthy sightseeing items and a bunch of shops that are much lest touristy than most of the places we visited. But I agree with @gnome12 that the ancient sites are far more interesting. Strange that a city tour would be offered but not the other. We selected our northern Scotland tour because it spent a day and a half in the Orkneys, so we saw both. Maybe you should ditch the city tour for a full day exploring the ancient sites?

While I certainly wouldn't take that bet, I'd encourage the original poster to check again later. The site is already operational for some countries, and now it's just a matter of rolling it out to new ones - in theory that could happen quickly.

Reception during our crossing last December was fine throughout, even mid-Atlantic. We're rather light users, however: email and some browsing.

I think it is also self-paced? You get a device with the recorded tour, I think, so you could speed up toward the end or skip a station if you feel you're running out of time. So I'm told.

When we visited Dubrovnik, we asked the cruise director what he thought of the included tour of the city. He suggested we looked fit enough (mid 60s but mobile) to walk the circuit of the city walls and thought we might enjoy that more. Boy, did we! It's a longish walk, great views of the city and surrounding areas. Game of Thrones was also current at the time and it was fun to turn a corner and realize we were approaching the House of the Undying or the place Varys and Tyrion chatted.

He won a few Oliviers and Tony awards (and nominated for more). Mostly for Cabaret, but also a couple other West End and Broadway shows.

Did anyone ever answer the original question? I don't know the answer, but I imagine you can order up a cab from your hotel at any hour of the day or night. (Obviously no one on this forum suggests this is the right way to go ...)

Sorry, that's TVTropes.ORG.

It's called "London England Syndrome". According to TVTropes.com: "The name was coined by Bill Bryson. He discussed it in an essay in which he suggested that the stereotypically lower intelligence of Americans compared to people of other nationalities is not down to some sort of racial defect, but a result of Americans being regularly freed from any need to think, ever. This trope, he argued, is one way in which American newspaper-readers are not required to cognitively exert themselves in the same way that British newspaper-readers are." As others have pointed out, there are a lot of US cities named after foreign ones. In my home state of Ohio, you can do an extensive tour of world capitals in one day: London, Berlin (and Bonn), Paris, Lima, Canton, Cairo, Athens, Dublin, Amsterdam, Lisbon (twice), Moscow. Plus many provincial capitals (Medina, Calcutta, etc.) Most are ferociously mispronounced, of course. My favorite is Mantua (pronounced "man tuh way")

Greatly enjoying your reports.