MSC Magnifica picture heavy fun review -- 12 days British Isles incl. DIY port trips

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

“The Real Ireland Adventure continued”

 

 

 

Well, this is the Heuston train station once you entered the building.

 

 

 

 

Let’s get tickets … oh, look, there’s an information counter … let’s go and ask.

 

Apparently we would have been better off if we would have bought the train tickets “long term” before our ride … LOL – Long term in Germany means weeks or months before the ride …. In Ireland apparently this means a matter of hours! But we missed this miraculous deadline by a couple of minutes. Darn. But we found out that if we buy a family ticket, it would be affordable as well … exactly 100 Euros for the three of us. These very friendly (and highly amused about our story) Dubliners told us all that.

 

 

The guy in the back didn’t want to appear, so I blanked him out … but he was just as wonderful as the guy in the front. They made us laugh … well, Tanja and Tarik snickered all the time at my expense anyway … but they made ME smile for the first time that evening… and I’m so grateful for that! Thank you guys.

 

To buy the tickets you have to go to another counter. Don’t panic if they’re closed up… Lol – we found out that they take random breaks, shut the whole thing up for a couple of minutes, just to open up a wee bit later again. Quite odd. Of course we DIDN’T know that at first and got to a closed up counter… but after I literally ran back to the nice guys in the above picture, I was told about this routine and started to relax again. And yup – a couple minutes later, we approached the reopened counter to get our family ticket.

 

Thank God, Tanja took her credit card with her that morning… she’s very organized … never leaves the boat without passports and filled wallet.

Well, tickets in hand we still had about 40 minutes left to go until our train would leave. We were not only dead tired (it was a looong day) but also hungry … well Tanja and Tarik were … I was still in semi shock state. It wouldn’t be a 7-course meal tonight. We knew that. But THIS joint (the only place around) sure wouldn’t become our favorite fast food place either.

 

 

Yuck!

 

Sigh. But hey, it filled Tarik’s belly --- and that’s what was important.

 

 

 

 

My loved ones . I just think Tarik’s facial expression is priceless on here. Tanja’s glance is making me a little uneasy, lol – though not necessarily in a bad way.

 

 

I am very aware of how fortunate I am to have a family who is just in this with me together without any harsh words or grudgy feelings. I’m sure this isn’t the case in every family and I feel very blessed to be so loved and supported even and especially in a situation, where I seriously screwed up.

Also, you can see, how many kids were still travelling at this late hour.

 

 

 

Once the train arrived, a wild stampede started. First wagon we entered … completely full… second … completely full

 

aaahhhhh…

 

 

would we have enough time to exit the train and run to the next wagon? It was afterall the last possible train for the day… but we were just too pooped to endure the next hours standing upright.

 

Phew! We succeeded - In the third wagon we finally got a seat for all of us. Good.

 

 

 

 

Tanja thought this whole “being stuck and now chasing the ship” deal to be quite hilarious by now.

I think it took 5 minutes and Tarik was fast asleep. It would be a close to three hour train ride and we’d arrive in Cork a bit after midnight. Then it would be another adventure to get away from the nightly station and find a bed for the kid (in a town completely booked and past midnight!).

 

 

 

So we’ll end this port day (and post) somewhere on the tracks between Dublin and Cork … riding on a train through a dark Ireland … I really wish I could have at least seen some of the landscapes we travelled though.

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned!

 

Stef

[Irish Cath]

How wonderful your family is to keep in such jovial spirits throughout the trauma and to be honest I think you're being a bit hard on yourself - we all make mistakes.

 

Anyway I just wanted to say how grateful I am that you are going to such bother to continue to deliver our daily installment. I think I would be after throwing your mums computer out of the window if it took that long to upload photo's :mad::eek::D

Edited January 3, 2015 by Irish Cath
To say it's such a shame it was dark outside and you couldn't even enjoy the countryside

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

I think I would be after throwing your mums computer out of the window if it took that long to upload photo's :mad::eek::D

 

 

We just spent the evening, hooking Tanja's laptop onto mom's LAN connection ... this should speed up things a bit until tuesday ... that's when the technician will finally come over to our house to fix stuff:p:rolleyes:.

 

over and out ... until tomorrow. Sleep well everybody!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

“The Real Ireland Adventure continued”

 

 

Shortly before we arrived in Cork, we woke up the kid … at least he had gotten close to three hours of sleep. Who knew what would await us here.

 

There were only a few passengers left, now leaving the train. Most of them were either being picked up by friends/relatives or headed to the nearby parking spot to drive off themselves. Some even left by bicycle. There was one taxi parked a bit further away, but there where people from the first wagon, who reached it before we did. Bummer.

 

What now. It was chilly – damn, why on earth didn’t I take a jacket that day – and it was dark … really dark. For a central city train station ….quite bizarre. But just before I could start panicking, another sole taxi pulled onto the lot and we waved and hollered like maniacs to flag him down -- lol - quite successfully: He didn’t even proceed to the regular taxi spot, but pulled up right in front of us. Yes!

 

We gave him the name of the hostel we’d like to try to get a room in. He knew where that was and off we drove. He was very nice, but we hardly understood a word he said. I don’t t even know if it was an Irish accent or if it was his “motherlanguage”-accent mixed in with regular English. He looked as if he just returned from a Jamaican rum commercial. Dreadlocks, big grin on his face and the weirdest music I have ever heard on the radio. He appeared so out of place, that I had a hard time, realizing that all this was happening for real right now.

 

Suddenly he pulled to the curb and said we’re here … or at least something supposed to mean something like that.

 

??? A dark, narrow street … no hostel sign or any sign whatsoever around…is this Harry Potter and we’re supposed to find platform something and three quarters?

 

When we had paid him the fee and tip, he mentioned up a flight of dark steps … Here is a picture of them by daylight.

 

 

Apparently the hostel was only to be reached by foot at the upper end of these steps. Mhhh … okay. Gulp. What if the room would be gone by now? At least we knew they’d be open all night … so we figured we could call from there to find possible alternatives …. But then again … every place we called from Dublin was booked ….ahhhh.

 

This was the entrance to our hostel …

 

 

to make a long story short --- they did still have that room and we paid the moderate amount of approximately 50 Euros for the three of us including sheets for the beds – and breakfast! And so – thank god – we didn’t end up like this guy…

 

(saw him the next morning on our stroll back to the station)

 

 

 

 

…but in real (bunk-)beds:

 

 

Oh God, I screwed up real good this time -- and I knew it … but I was so glad my family loves me and was there for me and with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned!

 

Stef

 

[crvng4mr]

Omg! Omg! Omg! I was screaming reading the whole Dublin post! It was until this last picture that I hysterically started laughing and had to share with my family because they thought I had gone absolutely mad from laughing.

[AnnMR]

It's giving me chills just thinking about this.

On my first cruise it would have been me and 11 Year old stranded with 15 on board on his own (he only agreed to holiday with us if we didn't make him go on any trips).

This is why I tend to go on the organized trips as I'm a wuss and I get stressed just making it to the boat on day 1 with several hours to spare.

[Kewz1]

Just before reading about your Irish "adventure" I told my husband Dublin would be the "best place" to miss our boat since our next stop is Londonderry/Derry. ;)

 

But... to actually read about you missing the boat - how terrifying! You all seemed to handle it with such grace though. Well done!

 

What a great story you have to tell!

 

Kristen

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:D:D:Dwhoohooooo:D:D:D..... hello world....I'm back online ... what a grand feeling. The technician just left and replaced some broken little thingy called splitter....whatever that is. Anyway -- I'm so relieved.

 

Sorry for the raincheck yesterday, but there was just too much to do around here to go through the "mom`s computer ordeal".

 

I have however prepared the next post and will have it up shortly (grinning -- now with speedily uploading pictures ... no problem)

 

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Omg! Omg! Omg! I was screaming reading the whole Dublin post! It was until this last picture that I hysterically started laughing and had to share with my family because they thought I had gone absolutely mad from laughing.

 

Hi Ayasha,

 

:Dglad I could make you laugh hysterically:D

 

Hope your family didn't get too big of a scare:o

 

:)Great to hear you're still here for the ride!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

It's giving me chills just thinking about this.

On my first cruise it would have been me and 11 Year old stranded with 15 on board on his own (he only agreed to holiday with us if we didn't make him go on any trips).

This is why I tend to go on the organized trips as I'm a wuss and I get stressed just making it to the boat on day 1 with several hours to spare.

 

:eek:oh my God:eek: you're so right...missing the boat with one kid along and the other still onboard must be the scariest thing ever.

 

We only left Tarik on board twice -- once for a short nightly stroll in Venice and once for half a day in Dubrovnik while on our Serenade of the Seas cruise... gulp -- but I never thought about what would happen if we'd miss the boat there... two seadays were to follow that port and we'd have had to figure out some way to get to Barcelona to pick him up three days later, once the ship would finally arrive there ..... what a bonechilling thought.

 

I think I'll refuse to let any single family member stay on board from now.

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

You all seemed to handle it with such grace though. Well done!

 

What a great story you have to tell!

 

Kristen

 

:pwell thank you .... doing a little curtsy.

 

:DLol -- and you're right ... we will definitely never forget our spontaneous Irish adventure.

 

 

Stef

Edited January 6, 2015 by Kreuzfahrtneuling
typo

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Beginning of day nine … sort of but not quite Cobh port day yet.

Lol – considering the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll understand why I don’t start with the dailies this time …. Lol – we simply didn’t have ‘em at that time yet.

We woke up well rested the next morning. I don’t know if it was from sheer exertion or comfy beds … but we really all did sleep fantastic.

This was the view out of our room.

Oh my, yet another cemetery. They seem to be everywhere.

Why did they lean those gravestones at the wall? Does anybody know? I was a little puzzled.

After missing out on dinner the evening before, I was close to being starved. Food! Now, please! After a real quick freshening up in the hall restrooms (pretty decent for a hostel actually! And it sure ain’t their fault we lacked towels, toothbrushes and shower gel/shampoo), we slipped on our clean fresh Ireland t-shirts and were off to breakfast.

If I should ever complain about the food on a cruise --- any cruise – please remind me of this breakfast in Cork. There was white toast, butter, jam (orange), honey and powder for either tea or coffee… oh and hot water… That’s it!

But it was edible and Tanja even dared to use the very British toaster … those thingys where you have to slide it in at the side and it sort of rotates through …. They scare me ever since I managed to badly burn a toast in one of them in a hotel in Malta. So we ate our toast … toasted and untoasted and had a sip of the worst in my lifetime coffee. Lol – the tea wasn’t any better. Tarik up to today rementions the horrific tea in Cork almost every time he sips on a cup of tea here. But that’s not a bad memory… it’s one of those: “remember when we were there and had that godawful tea” sort of moment and he smiles while saying that. Know what I mean?

Two more of those fun memories concerning the hostel:

Tanja and I were the oldest people in here by far…

Lol – as Tarik sure was the youngest!

Lol – we sure stretched their age curve for the day.

…and when is the last time you had fun doing your own dishes during a cruise holiday?

Yup, even the younger generation helped out.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[spinnaker2]

I have had several go bad. Now I keep an extra one at home just in case.

My PhD computer engineer son advised that they don't last forever, and it's a lot cheaper to have an extra one to try and fix the solution before resorting to call the cable guy( never seen a cable gal) to come out and pay $$$$ for a consult.

Glad you are up and running and running!

[crvng4mr]

Hi Ayasha,

 

:Dglad I could make you laugh hysterically:D

 

Hope your family didn't get too big of a scare:o

 

:)Great to hear you're still here for the ride!

 

Stef

You can't get rid of me, haha! Sometimes it takes awhile to get caught up on posts that I take notes on. I can't just whiz through like some others. [emoji6]

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Singing and dancing ... just booked a romantic cruise for two.

 

So excited ... but no worries ... I'll keep on writing this review....but now I have to get my butt asap into our local library to work on my Italian skills and desperately get infos on our new ports ... Oh my God! So short a time to do all the planning! ... next to review writing and working ... Gulp!

 

 

Whoohoooo a new cruise!

 

 

 

Stef

[crvng4mr]

Singing and dancing ... just booked a romantic cruise for two.

 

So excited ... but no worries ... I'll keep on writing this review....but now I have to get my butt asap into our local library to work on my Italian skills and desperately get infos on our new ports ... Oh my God! So short a time to do all the planning! ... next to review writing and working ... Gulp!

 

 

Whoohoooo a new cruise!

 

 

 

Stef

To where????? When????? So jealous!

[europe14]

Yay! So glad you are going on another cruise! That means another great review coming soon. :)

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

To where????? When????? So jealous!

 

 

:) It was a super bargain, because its not in a school holiday. We can only book because Tarik will be gone on a skiing trip with his school. Of course he's madder than hell right now, because he would much rather join us than go skiing:rolleyes:. :DDid ya know we're the meanest parents in the whole world?

 

We got the last two seats in the plane offered in this deal. I'm so psyched!

 

Our stops will be Tenerife (gotta go see the penguins in Loro Park -- been there berfore and loved it!), La Palma (pure romantic nature --never been), Fuerteventura (mh, beach? no clue yet) and best of all one and a half days in Madeira (oh all the possibilities!)!!!!!

 

Lol and of course we'll be travelling with our cherished Italian cruiseline again --- MSC.

 

Viva Italia!

 

 

Stef

[crvng4mr]

So awesome! I can't wait for you to go. What horrible parents you are to such a deserving son! ;) You mean he has to go skiing instead?! Shame on you both, lol.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Yay! So glad you are going on another cruise! That means another great review coming soon. :)

 

Thank you!

 

:D:rolleyes:Sure I'll write a new review. I'm addicted to review writing. I just don't know how big it'll be .... usually I have at least 6 months time ahead for planning... This time it's less than 2 :eek:!!!!!

 

 

Stef

[bridgetjonesni]

Can I just say, this review has been more gripping than any of the Christmas TV specials that have been on this year? My stomach sank for you when you wrote about the ship sailing away at Dublin! As a neurotic travel planner I can only imagine the horror! But I'm so glad you got to Cork safely and found somewhere to stay!

 

As for the gravestones leaning against the wall, it's probably a very mundane explanation: as the stones get older and the ground becomes more unstable, some stones become a health and safety risk in case they fall over. Those which wobble too far have to be secured somehow. Sometimes they lie the stones flat on top of the graves, and sometimes they lean them up against a wall. It's an unromantic reason but a practical one :)

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Can I just say, this review has been more gripping than any of the Christmas TV specials that have been on this year?

 

 

As for the gravestones leaning against the wall, it's probably a very mundane explanation: as the stones get older and the ground becomes more unstable, some stones become a health and safety risk in case they fall over. Those which wobble too far have to be secured somehow. Sometimes they lie the stones flat on top of the graves, and sometimes they lean them up against a wall. It's an unromantic reason but a practical one :)

 

:eek::p wow -- what a compliment! I feel flattered:).

 

Mhhh, why don't they stick em properly back into the earth? They don't rot. They're stone after all...it shouldn't be more difficult to get them standing up stable than when they were erected originally, should it:confused:? Weird stuff. But thank you for the explanation:o!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Hostel impressions and a tear for Blarney

Tanja found this picture on the wall and was stoked. She’s the biggest possible fan of Joan Baez.

Lol – I thought that was oh so funny. Not that we’d have much in common (especially after yesterday), but the irony of a joined picture wasn’t lost on me and I enjoyed it still.

Sigh, what I didn’t enjoy was that my plans for this day (and they really were well thought through --- really!) went down the drain.

This was all I was going to see of Blarney castle this day.

My loved ones wanted to return to the ship asap and preferably not leave it out of sight for the remainder of the day. Sigh, and I later found out that they meant this “sight” business quite literally.

So bye bye Blarney for now. Sniff, no gift of eloquence for me, booohhhhh. But luckily I still had the memory of the compliment of our Dublin pub friend to dwell on.

At least some other Cruise Critic members went to see Blarney that day. Remember Pat and Steve? The only other RollCall members onboard?

Tadahhhhh --- Proof – Pat did it!

She even got this nifty little certificate:

Oh, lol – sorry.

 

This is what the two look like when not momentarily hanging upside down from an Irish tower to kiss an old stone ;-) (and yes that is jealousy speaking out of me).

We had some wonderful chats with them and it was interesting to see Americans on a MSC cruise. Both of them usually love Carnival cruises and both – although they didn’t hate the cruise, missed all the activities onboard. They won’t return to MSC. I think this cruise line is culturally challenging for new world inhabitants – especially when sailing in its own realm (meaning anywhere in the vicinity of the European continent). At first we were wary as well, fearing that we wouldn’t be able to cherish this very different cruise experience, as we really enjoyed our time on an American ship before…but we wouldn’t have needed to worry … we enjoyed the “more Italian than Italy itself” feeling (quote from Skipper Tim --- thank you for that!) so much, we already booked our next cruise with them.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[suekay]

Not wanting to be a party pooper.....but I wonder how many people have strokes as a result of hyperextending their neck to kiss the Blarney Stone (Beauty Parlor Syndrome) Sorry - it's the ED nurse coming out in me. When my kids were small and I came home from work, they'd say "What can't we do today Mum?" :o

[Wriggler]

:) It was a super bargain, because its not in a school holiday. We can only book because Tarik will be gone on a skiing trip with his school. Of course he's madder than hell right now, because he would much rather join us than go skiing:rolleyes:. :DDid ya know we're the meanest parents in the whole world?

 

We got the last two seats in the plane offered in this deal. I'm so psyched!

 

Our stops will be Tenerife (gotta go see the penguins in Loro Park -- been there berfore and loved it!), La Palma (pure romantic nature --never been), Fuerteventura (mh, beach? no clue yet) and best of all one and a half days in Madeira (oh all the possibilities!)!!!!!

 

Lol and of course we'll be travelling with our cherished Italian cruiseline again --- MSC.

 

Viva Italia!

 

 

Stef

 

Sounds a great itinerary Stef! :)

 

I just can't bring myself to leave Royal Caribbean now I've clawed my way up to Diamond - might swap over to Celebrity but that's only because I'll take my perks with me :o

 

Carol