A Day in Belfast


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Europe » United Kingdom » Northern Ireland » County Antrim » Belfast
September 24th 2018
Published: September 25th 2018
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So we arrived in Belfast this morning. After brekky we did a load of washing and then relaxed and read our books, being interrupted by the butler who was concerned about which shoes Tom was wearing to tonight’s formal dinner, and could he give them a clean, which he duly did.

We had been given a choice of shore excursions but I was still grieving for the west coast ports we are missing out on and hadn’t been tempted by them. Tom wanted to go to the Titanic museum, whereas I didn’t like the idea of going to a sunken ship museum when I was on a cruise! So after an early lunch Tom went ashore on his excursion while I had a nap and did some sewing and reading. While he was out we received notification that our next three planned ports were all cancelled due to the weather (that was to be Stornaway in the Orkneys, the Faeroe Islands and the Westman Islands), but we would stop for the day tomorrow at Greenock in Scotland, where James Watt was born, and then head straight for Iceland, arriving on Thursday night instead of Saturday morning, but not having to leave the ship except for shore excursions until the Saturday.

At 4pm I went down to La Terraza for tea. It was the first time on this holiday, and it was a typical high tea. A German couple sitting near me told me they’d decided to get off the ship tomorrow when we arrive in Greenock. I gathered they weren’t going to be the only ones. When I returned to our suite I discovered that Neeraj had also left a platter of canapés!

Tom returned and it was time to prepare for our evening. It was a formal evening, and we had a cocktail reception first up for the frequent travellers, followed by dinner at the table of one of the senior staff, a lovely lady from Spain named Ana who is a hostess who helps out with the non English speaking passengers. We were seated with 2 Americans and 2 Brits, and we had a lovely evening. Brexit was a really interesting topic of conversation, hearing the opinions of a couple of knowledgeable Brits.

At the end of dinner we went down to the bar where the lovely German rustled us up a couple of those wonderful dessert cocktails to take into the show lounge with us. The ship‘s entertainers were doing an opera aria night which was just wonderful, and my friend Keegan, whom I’d met in the panorama lounge the other morning, was one of the singers! A lovely rich voice! At the end of the show they always line the doorway as we exit the lounge and he hugged me! He was glad we‘d come along. What a sweetie. He‘s a grown man, but he has a griffindor wallet! We’d bonded over Harry Potter!

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