Music, mackerel and a Happy New Year! All aboard the R.S.Hispaniola!

It was finally here.  One of the highlights of our trip - a front-row seat to watch the London fireworks, right up close and personal!!  

Earlier on in the day, we'd frozen our nuts off watching the Changing of the Guard, followed by ManpanionTM and the Squids going off to watch the Lion King.  I'd managed to get a little rest and enjoy a soak in the bath with a glass of prosecco before they all came back around 5.30pm.   We were planning to leave the hotel again at 6.30pm, so there was very little time for everyone to relax and recharge before donning our New Year's Eve finery and going to do battle with the NYE's crowds!

So....what exactly did we have planned?    We had booked a table here: http://hispaniola.co.uk/

Yep, permanently moored directly opposite the London Eye, there really was no better place in the entire city to watch the fireworks from than from where we were going to be!!  I've never actually spent NYE in London (as far as I recall!) and I've also avoided NYE in Times Square like the plague the whole time i was in NYC as I hate massive crowds.  So, while I was super excited about the prospect of such an amazing show, I was also a little apprehensive about how difficult it might be to get to the boat (obviously being right down on the Embankment).  I was especially worried about the Underground being so stuffed full of people that our group might get accidentally separated and we'd lose a Squid.  

As it turned out, my concerns were completely unnecessary - it was a piece of cake navigating the tube and it was probably less crowded and busy than a regular morning commute!  Easy peasy!!  Everyone had remembered to bring their Clam Cards and by this stage, we were complete pros at navigating the Underground system (I do have one or two latent memories of life before Crossing The Pond).   We only had a few stops on the Piccadilly line, then a change onto the Bakerloo line and one stop before exiting via Charing Cross.  The only teeny bit of stress was that the station was said to be closing at 7pm, so we had to make sure we'd arrived into the station by then, so that we could actually then get out of the station and exit on to the street - and we just made it, with 2 mins to spare!!

Inside the "blue zone" post security with almost
empty streets

As expected, there were quite a few people around but - again - nothing too crazy.  Large parts of the city had been closed to traffic much earlier in the day and you actually had to have bought tickets to watch the fireworks to be allowed anywhere close to the river (the "blue zone").  We were all sorted as, with our tickets to the RS Hispaniola, were also blue wristbands that would gain us entry.  We were pointed in the right direction of where we were to enter and - bam!  Suddenly, this was were all the people were!!  There was a huge mass of people waiting to pass through the security checkpoint area, funneled through an archway - we weren't sure where to go, so I asked a security lady and she pointed at the queue ahead of us and told us to go stand over on the side.  We went exactly where she directed us to - and in the process, pretty much jumped 8/10ths of the queue!  We snuck in at the side where people with no bags could get screened quicker (all of us had bags) and as we stood there, understandably a woman behind us started complaining at us that we had jumped the line.  We put on our most innocent and confused expressions and told her we were just going were we'd been told - but it was a bit sticky for a couple of minutes.  Especially when she'd gone to complain to a police officer about people jumping the line.  Fortunately, we were all saved from imminent arrest or further embarrassment by the queue starting to move forward, so soon we were lost to view of our new friend.  We got through the security squeeze fairly quickly (held up a bit by the people in front who'd brought too much alcohol with them, so were miserably getting tins of beer confiscated) and so the whole process only took just over twenty minutes!  (thought it felt like much longer!).

As soon as we'd got past the staging area, the roads were pretty much empty and we enjoyed the very unusual pleasure of being able to walk straight down the middle of roads that would normally be jam-packed with traffic!  After just a 10min walk, we found ourselves at the Hispaniola and were welcomed on board.   By this stage it was about 7.30pm, so we were perfectly on time for the evening's festivities!  Here's the timing for the evening - plus the delicious sounding menu:

Continuing on from the enormous success of previous New Year’s Eves 

on the RS Hispaniola, we are delighted to release the details of this year’s celebrations. 

We know the event will provide all our guests with a truly memorable 

evening and allow them to welcome in 2016 with the utmost style and enjoyment. 

Permanently moored on the River Thames, the RS Hispaniola is 

just a short walk from Embankment tube station and 

a 4 minute walk from Charing Cross Station. 

The ship will be beautifully decorated for the New Year festivities 

and offers spectacular views of the most famous sights of London 

such as the Coca Cola London Eye, 

the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and St Paul’s Cathedral. 

Most importantly it has arguably the best view in London of the 

stunning midnight firework display, centred on the London Eye.* 

Whilst not compulsory, we suggest a dress code of 

“Black Tie and Cocktail dresses”. 

The ship will be appropriately decorated with flowers, 

fairy lights, balloons, candles and a whole host more. 

Novelties will be on each place setting. 

Timings Guests arrive from 7pm 

Champagne and chef’s pre-dinner canapés reception 

Take your seats and dinner is served at 8pm 

Dancing from 11pm 

Fireworks at midnight* – viewing inside and outside 

Champagne Toast for 2017 

Bar closes at 1:30am 

Carriages at 2:00am

 Menu

 Beef carpaccio, orange and cauliflower couscous, radish and truffle oil *** 

Mackerel confit, cucumber tartare, lemon sherbet dressing *** 

Herb crusted Welsh lamb, potato rosti, edamame, sweetbreads, Madeira jus *** 

Clementine and gingerbread trifle *** 

Coffee and homemade friandise *** 

Vegetarian Menu 

Pickled vegetables, orange and cauliflower couscous, radish and truffle oil *** 

Charred and roasted butternut squash, goats cheese, tomatoes, balsamic *** 

Herbed gnocchi, wild mushrooms, confit tomatoes, kale *** 

Clementine and gingerbread trifle *** 

Coffee and homemade friandise

The very steep gangway down into the RS Hispaniola.
Very glad I wasn't wearing heels or I would certainly
have gone A over T!

ManpanionTM and I 

The boat was decorated with silver and black balloons and, on each table, were streamers to pop and masks to wear for, um, revealing yourself at midnight from.  There was a singer throughout the night (who was excellent) plus a disco for when she needed a quick break.  As you would expect, there was also some fairly heroic people watching, with the table behind us particularly good value - 2 guys and 2 girls (I think possibly London Turk), dressed up to the eyeballs with one of the guys being an extremely "enthusiastic" dancer!  There was also another family that was great to watch, including this one young woman who had the best legs I've ever seen (I think ManpanionTM and B.Squid agreed with me!), clad in leather trousers and dancing away with her Mum and Dad and brother.  Kinda sharpened the mind for the New Year's resolutions!!

Anyway, it was good that the entertainment was good - cos the food was absolutely rubbish!!!  The first course wasn't too bad - but it rapidly went downhill from there!  The second course was particularly offensive - OK, blogwatchers, when someone says "confit", what do you think of?   Maybe some duck dish, slowly cooked and rendered, maybe shredded and then potted in a little dish?  Or at least something that makes the meat that's being cooked tender and yummy, right?

Yeah, right.  The mackerel "confit" was just a bloody mackerel.  No sign of slow cooking or basically any technique at all.  And, to add insult to injury, it was basically inedible because - as well as completely lacking any taste or flavor - it had EFFING BONES EVERYWHERE!!!!   Come on!!  Really???

Confit-gate

The next course was lamb which - will it had the requisite number of bones - was cold and also incredibly fatty (more so than usual), which also meant it was very unappetizing.  G.Squid was having a much better time of it, having selected the vegetarian menu, and was enjoying her butternut squash ravioli very much!  The trifle wasn't too bad but I think, by this stage, we were just grateful to eat anything that didn't have bones in it.  The service was also a bit off too - while we all got our mackerel at the same time, we then had to wait for about 10mins before G.Squid got her veggie starter, despite several other veggie plates passing by our table en route to other diners.  This was a bit crap - and also served to heighten our crushing disappointment at how shit the mackerel was when we finally got to start eating it.  

Anyway, by 10.30pm our dinner torture was finally over by which time we only had another hour to go before we could go up on deck to get ready for the fireworks.   You can see from the pictures just how close we were to the London Eye, the site of the firework display.  There was a great atmosphere on the boat, with everyone just relaxed and having a good time.  It was cold on deck, but we'd bundled up so we were warm enough.  At around ten minutes to midnight, the servers came round handing out glasses of champagne with which to toast in the New Year and finally, we were in the countdown!!

BOOM!!!  The entire sky exploded with fireworks - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  After a New Year kiss from ManpanionTM, we all watched the display open-mouthed as it was, by far, the very best firework display I have ever seen or will likely ever see.  It was just incredible.   This was really what it was all about, why we were here.  It was a shame the food was crap but, who cares?  These fireworks more than made up for it.  I know the pictures and somewhat shaky video clips on my iPhone are a very poor substitute for being there in person, but hopefully this will give you at least a flavor of the show. (I didn't record all of it, as I wanted to enjoy the moment live, rather than from behind a 3 inch phone screen!).  

The show lasted a good 12 or so minutes, after which we headed back into the boat to wait for the initial crowds to die down and eventually headed out around 1am.  As expected there were very long lines of people still waiting to get into the tube stations, so we simply walked towards home.  It was a fun walk, through Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, with lots of people still enjoying the NYE celebrations, but no-one that we could see completely wasted or out of control.  So it felt nice and a happy atmosphere (I think, like me, most people were happy to get out of 2016 alive!).

 After about a half hour, we actually managed to flag down a cab for the last half mile or so, so we got home just before 2am.  Not surprisingly, we were a bit peckish, so I ended up making some bacon butties as a special nightcap and we all sat up chatting for a bit longer, before finally hitting the nest at around 2.30/3am.  It was a great evening and despite the potential for some stress, everything worked out fine in the end (except those damned bones!).   So, enjoy the pics and vids and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!  Here's looking forward to 2017 and hoping that its a somewhat saner year than 2016 (although, post Jan-20th, I somehow very much doubt it!!)

12 mins to midnight and ManpanionTM is
owning NYE like a BOSS!