Steve and Cathy's Blog

A very long night’s sleep was very much in order. Unfortunately, Cathy awakens at 6, and has to wait until 8 for Steve. She has taken a shower and is ready to go. Steve, however, first has to have an adventure with the shower.

He stumbles into the small but nicely appointed bathroom to take a shower. The shower itself is one of those where the shower head is attached to a hose so you can hold it, instead of a fixed one. Steve turns on the powerful shower, tries to grab the showerhead and manages to knock it off the bracket. It starts spraying water all over the bathroom. He manages to corral this wriggling snake, but not until everything in the room is soaked. Not a good start.

Finally, that nightmare is over and, after using almost every unused towel to sop up all the water, he finishes his ablutions, gets dressed and we both head down for breakfast to eat in the hotel’s restaurant, named Six Restaurant, named six after the address of the hotel.  The breakfast buffet is excellent, and is complimentary. 

We have only the morning to see some more of Dublin, as we want to be on board our ship by 2pm. Cathy has been studying the map and has found two interesting attractions literally one block from our hotel. We aren’t checking out until noon, so off we go around 9:30am. The first stop is the Garden of Remembrance, a garden dedicated to the memory of “all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish Freedom.” It was opened in 1966, fifty years after the Easter Rebellion, “an armed insurrection during Easter Week, April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent Irish Republic while the United Kingdom was heavily engaged in the First World War. It was the most significant uprising in Ireland since the rebellion of 1798, and the first armed action of the Irish revolutionary period.” (Wikipedia)

Across the street from this park was the Dublin Writers Museum. Now this might sound a bit obscure, but when you learn that more Nobel Prizes for Literature have been awarded to Irish writers than those from any other country, you begin to understand why this country is so justifiably proud of their literary heritage. Cathy the reader was quite aware of Irish authors, but Steve was the one who got the most education. Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett, Bram Stoker of Dracula  fame, James Joyce (Ulysses), W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernhard Shaw, to name but a few. An incredible heritage, and even the museum exhibit writings were as good as we have ever seen. A very interesting ninety minutes gave us a new appreciation of Irish heritage.

Since our goal is to be on board ship by 2pm, we return to the Cassidys Hotel around 11:40, finish packing, and check out. But first, lunch is in order.

Being the extremely intrepid and curious travelers that we are, we immediately walk the fifty yards to Murray’s Bar & Grill for our third meal in this fine pub. After all, we’ve already had a breakfast and a dinner, so why not complete the trifecta with lunch!  Which we do. Cathy has delicious chicken soup and bread, and Steve an equally delicious and huge roast beef sandwich.  Another fine repast!

Back to the hotel, grab our bags, hop into the cab the hotel arranged for us, and off we go. The cabbie is a young guy, very friendly, as virtually all Irish people we have met are, and knows his city well. With our acquiescence, he slips down side streets to beat traffic (which gives us a nice view of some in-town neighborhoods) and we are at Alexandra Wharf, Pier 33 in a matter of fifteen minutes.

We are back at another container port, so we feel right at home. A huge tent has been erected on the pier through which we walk to deposit our luggage, fill out a public health questionnaire (have you vomited in the past 24 hours? – who would answer Yes to that and be denied access to the ship?), show our passports and board. We are directed to Nautica Lounge on Deck 5 where the ship check-in takes place. All very efficient. We’re in our stateroom 7042 by 2:10pm. 

At 3:00pm, Cathy heads for the Canyon Ranch Spa for … well, she’ll tell you about it here: [“Detoxifying Ritual.”  First a rub and scrub, then a wrap and head massage, then shower, then full body massage. Glorious. AND, the masseuse was the same person I had on our world tour! Her name is Preetee and she is from India. She remembered me. Or, more probably, Canyon Ranch has a protocol for employees to check on previous history of clients.  But, she was very sweet and so of course I signed up for 3 more spa treatments at 10% off.] Steve reads, blogs and unpacks when our bags arrive. Our stateroom is a mirror image of the one we had last year, so it’s an easy task. Cathy returns from the spa around 4:30 in a state of complete relaxation. Lifeboat drill takes place at 5:15pm and we’re back in the room by 6:00pm to watch the sail-away at 7:00pm. 

Oceania Cruises has left a chilled bottle of excellent champagne in our stateroom, and now is the time to break it out. We sit on our veranda overlooking the harbor, watching the buzzing of all the container terminal vehicles. The ship pushes away from the pier precisely at 7pm. We slide quietly out of port past container ships, enormous ferries and other ships and boats. We are on our way!

We mosey on down to the Grand Dining Room for dinner, sitting by ourselves for this evening. We are just as excited as we were eighteen months ago. In fact, it feels to both of us as if we had just left the ship a week ago, the primary reasons being that 1) we are on an identical ship to Insignia, our ATW ship, and 2) we meet a couple of staff members we knew from our previous voyage. It’s a strange but exhilarating feeling to feel so at home so fast.

Of course we eschew the evening entertainment after dinner and head straight back to our stateroom. We admit to not having done the marvelous city of Dublin justice, but we will return on August 4^thfor another one-day stay. In the meantime, we look forward to our Northern Glow adventure.