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LIVE! The Royal Princess! THE BRITISH ISLES w/ SUNGIRL 29 Aug-10 Sept WELCOME ABOARD!

KCSungirl

By KCSungirl,
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KCSungirl

KCSungirl

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Day 4 - Dublin

 

OMG, I have been on the move for 9 days now. I need that sea day in the worst way. We had a great day and great weather in Dublin for our Drive-By tour. Bono, where is Bono? I love him along with the rest of the boys.

 

We docked at 5:30am. I would like to see the people lined up at that hour to disembark. I have never seen 5:30am unless it was to catch a flight. I was doing extremely well to be off the ship at 9am. We were walking out the door and the batteries in the cabin safe went dead. That cost me 20 minutes.

 

Once off the ship you have two options to get to town from port if you are not on a tour - shuttle bus $8/pp or taxi €15-18. We opted for the taxi. It’s all about time management and making the most of 6+ hours. Our driver dropped us off at St. Stephens Park. We got on the HopOn/Hop Off Bus at the park. €20/pp. We rode the bus from the east side of town to the west side of town. We passed churches - Christchurch Cathedral and St. Patrick’s, Temple Bar area, Guinness, Dublin Castle. We hopped off at the Kilmainham Gaol. The jail housed many political prisoners for 130 years up until 1924. I originally booked afternoon tickets online, but it worked out that we were there much earlier. I exchanged my tickets no problem for an earlier tour. I did lose €4 on the exchange because they don’t honor the online discount if you exchange. The Gaol tour is 1 hour. The history of Ireland is pretty sad. They have had a lot of problems. We hopped back on the bus to finish the tour. We hopped off again at Trinity College, the oldest college in Ireland which houses the Book of Kells and the Old Library. We bought walk up tickets for 2:30pm. I heard the lines were terrible in the am. We had no line. The gift shop is nice and everyone buys a t-shirt! After the Trinity walk about we moved on to the National Art Gallery. I love national galleries. I do a quick run to find the top ten masterpieces, use the restroom (they are always the best!), have a snack in the cafe, and check out the gift shop. My snack turned into a full blown meal. They had chicken pot pies that looked so good. I had to go for it. It included 3 salads. I have a very hard time passing up chicken pot pies. PC and I had just decided to go to the Crown Grill, when I come to the table with this meal. He dies laughing because he knows my snack usually becomes a meal and we wouldn’t be going to the Crown Grill.

 

We left the gallery, walked back toward St. Stephens Park. I figured getting a taxi back to the ship would be easy at a hotel. I had my eye on a posh hotel - The Merrion. We stopped for a glass of wine and to check it out. The taxi ride was fast back to the ship because Saturday late afternoon traffic was light.

 

Dublin is a great city. I would love to visit again. I barely scratched the surface, but I am always happy with my choices. I would say many people spend most of the day at the Guinness Experience or the Jameson Distillery and pubs in the Temple Bar area. It’s not our thing, but I am sure it is great fun. I didn’t have time to shop on the pedestrian mall. I am not much of a shopper, but I do enjoy poking around a bit. The potato famine monument is so sad. Starving people. I clearly left Ireland before the famine. I was a Potato Baroness in my past life.

 

Bono and Edge along with partners own The Clarence House Hotel. Close to the Temple Bar. I didn’t look for them there. Bono was in town to accept some type of award. It was in the newspaper.

 

Fun Fact - St.Patrick’s is not a Catholic cathedral. It’s Protestant. Same with Trinity College, but Catholics can attend.

 

We were back on the ship by 5pm. The weather started deteriorating and became very foggy. I hate the low visibility. I get claustrophobic. The Captain had to use the horn a lot.

 

The dinner/buffet menu featured an Irish theme tonight. And guess what? More chicken pot pie! My favorite. We loved our choices. After dinner we went to movie trivia. It was movie sound bites and movie clips. Very fun, but we weren’t as strong as we thought we were. I had to laugh, the couple we paired up with last night didn’t want to pair with us again tonight and we were really good. As if! We couldn’t figure out if it was me or PC. Rejection, it sucks. I could never do that to someone who wanted join my group. You’d really have to see them to get the full joke of the matter.

 

Did I mention this is a bit of an older crowd? 75+ would be the average age. I just had a birthday and was feeling old. Nothing like a good senior cruise to make me feel younger. I admire these seniors. This is no easy task getting around the ship and ports. As we crawl to the cabin at night, those seniors are still on the dance floor and singing Karaoke. I am sure many of them can party longer than me. Ray, the piano entertainer, starts playing at 9pm to 12:45am. Who can stay up that late and tour all day? I need to get to the bottom of that. The Asians were doing the twist at the 50’s sock hop in the atrium. They are so good, they get airborne. The cruise director’s staff is fantastic. We passed on the Magician show, the encore performance of the Liberace performer, and the Yes or No game show.

 

After 9 days of going non-stop I know PC is going to start begging for mercy at any moment. He will probably sleep 24 hours straight on the sea day.

 

Goodnight, see you in Belfast. ❤️🇮🇪🌈😁

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geoherb "Live from...." Rare

geoherb

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We had the overnight in Dublin last year, so we had time to go to Dublin Castle and the National Gallery the first day and then do the HoHo--with a long stop at Guinness--the second day. Plus they had free shuttle buses that took passengers to Merrion Square.

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Thrak

Thrak

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Did I mention this is a bit of an older crowd? 75+ would be the average age. I just had a birthday and was feeling old. Nothing like a good senior cruise to make me feel younger. I admire these seniors. This is no easy task getting around the ship and ports. As we crawl to the cabin at night, those seniors are still on the dance floor and singing Karaoke. I am sure many of them can party longer than me. Ray, the piano entertainer, starts playing at 9pm to 12:45am. Who can stay up that late and tour all day? I need to get to the bottom of that. The Asians were doing the twist at the 50’s sock hop in the atrium. They are so good, they get airborne. The cruise director’s staff is fantastic. We passed on the Magician show, the encore performance of the Liberace performer, and the Yes or No game show.

 

 

After 9 days of going non-stop I know PC is going to start begging for mercy at any moment. He will probably sleep 24 hours straight on the sea day.

Goodnight, see you in Belfast. ❤️🇮🇪🌈😁

 

Ray Coussins will have people listening as long as he is willing to play. That older crowd loves the Sinatra connection and Ray played with him for a long time and has a number of stories and anecdotes.

 

 

I have to agree with PC - port days and land stuff are exhausting! 9 days in a row of "go, go, go" would kill me. I have to have sea days.

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sunsetbeachgal

sunsetbeachgal

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The British Isles is a very tiring but wonderful itinerary! Our twelve day cruise (with Liverpool) did not have a sea day until we were a week into the cruise. The beauty is that you can easily do some of the ports on your own at a relaxed pace. I would love to do this cruise again....

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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echoshipmate

echoshipmate

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Can you find out if ray cousins will be staying on for the TA leaving Sept 10. We have sailed with him before and he is our fav piano man. Your descriptions are making me even more anxious to be back on our favorite princess ship. Thanks in advance. Btw, I agree that the prime rib in the HC is wonderful. Cheers.

 

Ray Coussins will have people listening as long as he is willing to play. That older crowd loves the Sinatra connection and Ray played with him for a long time and has a number of stories and anecdotes.

 

 

I have to agree with PC - port days and land stuff are exhausting! 9 days in a row of "go, go, go" would kill me. I have to have sea days.

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chamima

chamima

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It’s turning into a Hawaiian Tropic Day in Dublin. It’s all relative! Looking for Bono. See you later with my report on Day 4.

 

 

I saw on FB that Bono is in Berlin and stopped a performance in the middle because he had a total loss of voice!

:eek:https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/u2-concert-ends-early-bono-loses-voice-berlin-57558002?cid=social_fb_abcn

 

U2 lead singer Bono is reassuring fans that he'll have his voice back for the rest of U2's European tour after ending a concert in Germany Saturday night, which they are rescheduling.

In a statement posted Sunday to U2's website, Bono says that a doctor has ruled out anything serious related to his loss of voice during the performance in Berlin. He says his relief is tempered by the knowledge that he Berlin audience was inconvenienced, adding that he can't wait to get back there on Nov. 13 for a rescheduled show.

Bono suffered a "complete loss of voice" at the band's Saturday night show at Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena, causing the engagement to end early. The 58-year-old frontman made it through the U2 hit "Beautiful Day" with the help of the audience, German news agency dpa reported Sunday.

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KCSungirl

KCSungirl

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Day 5 - Belfast

 

I need a vacayshun! One more port and then I can rest a day. Today was another beautiful day, but LONG. We were off the ship at 8am. That is just wrong. Way too early.

 

We wanted to take another scenic drive out of town through the northern coastal towns and countryside. I mentioned previously we drove the west coast of Ireland pre-cruise. PC couldn’t really enjoy himself because the driving was so stressful. Today we had a driver.

 

I pre-booked a tour with Odyssey Tours thanks to SunsetBeachGal. She cruised earlier in the summer and shared all of her tour info with me. The buses were all lined up and ready to go at 8am.

 

There are several companies that offer the Antrim coast tour. It includes a stop at the rope bridge, Giant’s Causeway, Ballycastle for lunch, and Carnlough..

 

There were 3 or 4 drivers with Odyssey taking names and directing traffic as we excited the ship. Raleigh greeted us, checked my name on his clipboard, and directed us to his bus. We get about 30 minutes down the road and I am thinking that I didn’t book this tour. I thought they did a bait and switch. I booked a mini-bus and this was a coach. Raleigh starts collecting money for the rope bridge on the bus. £8. When he gets to me, he is very confused. He said my name was already marked as paid. He couldn’t figure it out. I figured it out! He put me on the wrong tour. There were two people with the same last name and he didn’t ask my first name. I didn’t really care so much because we were going to basically the same places, but I paid $50 more for the minibus tour. I told Raleigh to call the driver of our tour and tell him we would meet him at the first stop. Raleigh couldn’t handle that. He acted like it was his first day on the job. When we arrived at the first stop, the rope bridge, we inquired with another driver, Jimmy, and he said we belonged on his minibus. High drama! Another funny thing that happened was I was getting the driver told off because they were charging 8 pounds for the rope bridge and the walk up price was 5 pounds. I kept saying Lira instead of Pounds. This lady says “wrong country”! Italy hasn’t used the lira since 2002! Blonde moment! I am fried!

 

Our first stop was an hour and fifteen minutes at the rope bridge. It’s a novelty excursion on a gorgeous coastline. The walk to/from the bridge was challenging. If you have any mobility issues, you will need to pass on this. I huffed and puffed up the hill. It’s probably close to a mile each way, but the return is steep. Gorgeous coastline and on a clear day you can see Scotland. The Second stop was at Giant’s Causeway. A Unesco World Heritage site. Basalt towers and stones that are very interesting.

 

Our lunch stop was in Ballycastle at O’Connor’s Bar. I am still bingeing on fish and chips. After lunch we drove the coastal road back to Belfast with a comfort stop in a cute town. Ireland is so beautiful it hurts. 40 shades of green..We got a quick glimpse of Belfast, but only on the perimeter. It was 6pm by the time we returned. We were tired. Great tour!

 

Ireland is so beautiful, words can’t describe. We completed 4 out of 25 scenic drives in our book. We still have a lot to see!

 

We got back to ship and it started to sprinkle rain. The sun was going down. I knew I was going to get a rainbow - finally. Sure enough, a lovely rainbow appeared over the ship. Lucky.

 

We were zombies, but of course I never want to miss anything. Ray Coussins was the headliner in the Princess Theater. I was very disappointed. He only sang three Sinatra songs and talked about his relationship with SInatra for an hour. It was boring. I was tired. After the show, we ran to the buffet. It was German night. My favorite. Unfortunately the theme part of the buffet closes at 9pm. Bummer. I will have to wait for another cruise to enjoy Wiener schnitzel and spaetzle.

 

Ireland is a wonderful place to visit. Maybe I will get back someday. Unfortunately with my quest to see everything in the world, I rarely repeat anything.

 

Lift me up! I have another week yet!

 

Night, Darby O’Gill is moving on to Scotland

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echoshipmate

echoshipmate

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Thanks for the great review. We are boarding Sept 10 for the ta. Have sailed with ray cousins and he is one of our favs. I suspect he will stay onboard but would be nice if you could confirm for me. Thanks for taking us along. [quo3te=KCSungirl;56930651]It’s turning into a Hawaiian Tropic Day in Dublin. It’s all relative! Looking for Bono. See you later with my report on Day 4. 🍀🍀🇮🇪🇮🇪

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KCSungirl

KCSungirl

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Day 6 - Glasgow, Scotland

 

We left Game of Thrones to find Outlander. If you visit Ireland or Scotland they offer tours of filming locales for both series.

 

This morning was a more sensible departure- 9am. We have not yet made breakfast, but PC is sweet and brings me coffee, juice, and porridge to the cabin. Spoiled Princess! I never eat porridge unless I am traveling. I love it. In Kansas, it’s called oatmeal but I feel so Eurostyle when I say porridge. I learned that in the swanky castle hotels we stayed in.

 

I have traveled all over the world independently, cruise ships, and small group. Today I did something I have never done before. I booked a potluck tour through Viator/Trip Advisor. Oh the horrors of the unknown, slow people, and loud talkers. My usual MO is to hire drivers, join a small group, follow Rick Steves walking tours, or HOHO bus. I had to change my strategy for this cruise for a few reasons. First, the weather comes into play on this itinerary. If I pre-booked a private tour and the ship didn’t make it into port, I would get no refund. This is a possibility is several ports. Or if the weather is inclement, the tour still goes and I don’t want to go. Secondly, the tour companies that do guarantee a refund if the ship is unable to stop either didn’t offer what I wanted or they were sold out by the time I started doing my research. I usually won’t commit to anything til well after final payment of the cruise is due. For those two reasons, Viator was a great option. They offer 24 hour cancellation on any tour and a port guarantee. The problem with booking through Viator is you don’t know the tour operator name until after booking. That’s fine. I get the name when I book and read the reviews on Trip Advisor. If it doesn’t look good I will cancel. Viator gave me the most flexibility if I changed my mind, didn’t feel well, or the weather was a problem.

 

I booked the Loch Lomond, The Trossachs, and Stirling Castle tour with Timberbush Tours. They get very good reviews and are based in Edinburgh. Ok, I can do this. We meet exactly where they tell me. They have at least 3 large coaches and a few smaller ones waiting for the masses. The bus is HUGE. At least 60 people. UGH. The weather was bad, I had to stand in line for a Castle ticket because I got busy and forgot to pre purchase my ticket. AND I had no private guide! I was in full Judy Benjamin mode. Stirling Castle is very cool. Fully restored. The Trossachs and Loch Lomond, part of the Scottish Highlands are beautiful. We made a nice lunch stop in Aberfoyle. Can you guess what I ate? 10 days in a row of fish and chips. Haddock and Cod must hate me! I shopped a bit and bought some plaid and a sweater. I was very pleased with the tour. David, the guide, was great. The coach seats were very comfortable, two doors on the coach made for faster on/off, and I could be completely anonymous. No one really engages on the larger tours and lots of people nap. I am surprised when people are sleeping because they are missing the most gorgeous scenery. It’s nice and quiet though. I survived my first large coach bus tour. 😉

 

Darby O’Gill has left me and I was surprised by a new man - Angus MacFergus. OMG, you just have to see the plaid tam-o-shanter. For those of you who venture to my FB travel page, I hope you are enjoying the pics and videos. I don’t take myself too seriously.

 

Greenock was the first port that had a small market area of souvenirs after you enter the gates to the port. I get used to markets being set up so I can shop as I get back on the ship. You can’t do that on this itinerary. No markets!

 

We arrived back on the ship around 5pm. Sail away at 6pm. Weather is gorgeous, but cold. Bring warm clothes. Our balcony has not been very useable due to rain, wind, and cold. A few minutes here and there.

 

Tonight’s theme in the buffet was Scottish. OMG, I went hog wild crazy. Macaroni pie, macaroni and cheese, pasties, broccoli cheese gratin, AND chicken pot pie. PC loved the braised rib stew. He is a carnivore and eats mainly meat, not a lot of carbs. I am the opposite, and I have the waistline to show for it.

 

On to showtime! Chas Burnett was the headliner in the Princess Theater. He is a comedian/guitarist/singer. He was great fun. He had a husband/wife shtick that was funny considering we are celebrating LoveFest 31. I kind of get tired of cruise humor comedians, and he was a fresher act.

 

PC loves the sweets on deck 5 - International Cafe and the Gelato shop. We have been stopping for sweets when time permits. We donated $10 to the casino $1 slot machine. Casino is busy. I tried the soft serve ice cream on the Lido Deck, but I thought it was terrible. Over sweet and not frozen enough. Good thing, cuz I don’t need to find more good stuff to eat on this ship. I haven’t eaten any popcorn yet. Can’t believe it. That is my favorite snack. I am going to get some tomorrow.

 

We came back to the cabin to take a look at the movie selections. Previously, I said the choices sucked. I was wrong. I didn’t tab over on the TV. I was only looking at the French subtitled section. I didn’t pay attention to the other tabs. There are many choices. We fell asleep before we could agree on a movie!

 

Goodnight. I am going on vacayshun tomorrow. Hope you are having a good time with me!

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sondi 14

sondi 14

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KCSungirl - I start d to read your report as we’re considering taking this cruise next year and wanted to learn more about it.

 

Just wanted to let you know that I can sympathize with you about not having ESPN and being able to get the Open. I’m chewing my nails in anticipation of Rafa’s match tonight against Thiem and will do my best to send him your vibes from the UK.

 

Enjoy your cruise - I’m enjoying your report.

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