Wednesday, 18 July

According to the ACL interactive web site, we were scheduled to arrive in Hamburg on 11 August.  In the absence of any other information, Ellen and I booked a room in Hamburg for a few days starting 11 August, and arranged a rental car through AAA in Virginia.  We planned to spend a few days in Hamburg, pick up the car on 14 August, spend that night somewhere in Belgium, and arrive in Paris on the 15th.

Although Colin had been able to help us work through a lot, at this point there were some uncertainties that gnawed at us.  Specifically:

• How would we get to the ship in Baltimore?  Would our rides be able to enter the port and drive us there?  And how would we get all of our luggage onboard?  
• How could we contact the hotel and/or AAA if our arrival time changed significantly while we were underway?
• How would customs and immigration work in Hamburg?  Would we have to drag our luggage to some customs and immigration center in the port?  Would the customs and immigration people come onboard the Atlantic Sky before we could get off?  
• What if the ship arrived in Hamburg at, say, 1:00 am?  Would we be required to disembark then, or would we be able to stay until the morning?
• How would we get from the ship to our hotel in Hamburg?  Would there be a phone onboard that we could use to call an Uber or taxi?

These weren't life or death issues, and we weren't lying awake at night staring into space wondering about them, but they were producing a certain amount of low-level anxiety.