The ship arrived a bit early this morning. It was scheduled to arrive at 9:00 AM, but arrived early enough that I was actually off the ship quite a bit earlier than that.
The ship had two gangways set up which made it much easier to get off. It was the easiest of all the ports so far.
I easily found my tour guide and I did have to wait a bit for the bus to arrive. Once everyone was on the bus, we left the port at 9:16 which was about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
The bus was quite nice, with a few tables and USB charging ports.
I took some photos of Belfast as we left the city. The tour would come back and explore the city a little more later.
The tour guide passed around a menu of a restaurant that we would be stopping by later for lunch.
Asa the bus got closer to the scenic area we drove past one of the beautiful shoreside golf courses.
And I took a few more photos along the coast through the windows.
The very first stop was Dunlace Castle for a quick photo stop along the road.
The next stop was the Giant’s Causeway. The tour guide gave us both the scientific explanation for the basalt rock formation and the myth about two giants – one in Scotland and one here in Ireland. We had 90 minutes to explore, which was enough time, although I probably would have been happy to spend 4 hours there. I took the red trail up along the cliff and walked down some steps to the blue trail. The blue trail is paved, and there is a bus that can take you back, however the queue was too long and I left my pounds sterling on the ship… and they only take cash. I determined that Q-bert (video game) must have been invented here.
The bus quickly drove by Dunseverick Castle. The tour guide gave us a warning, so I managed to get a photo.
I took some more photos from the bus along the way to the next viewpoint.
The next stop was a photo stop for the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. They’ve closed off the area to large buses (well tall vehicles in general), so there is an overlook with parking spaces. It was very busy as there were at least 5 buses there all at the same time.
A few more photos of the scenery along the way.
The bus stopped in a very small town, Cushendall for about 80 minutes for lunch. I had fish and chips, which was actually quite good.
I wandered around the town a bit after lunch, but didn’t really have time to wander too far. There was an interesting tower called the Curfew Tower. I also took note of an outdoor laundromat at the petrol (gas) station as well as the crazy high price of petrol (multiple by 3.78 and change pounds sterling to US dollars to figure out it is nearly $9 a gallon).
The bus drove along the shore for a while, then continued onto Belfast. I took some more photos along the way.
The bus tour of Belfast was very interesting. I had no idea that they had fences / walls that still to this day close at 7 PM and don’t open again until 7 AM between the Catholic and Protestant areas.
The bus also drove by the Titanic museum and buildings (now a film studio) as well as an outdoor set for Game of Thrones (big blue screen with a castle).
I managed to get a couple of pictures of Belfast’s two largest and most famous residents – Samson and Goliath. If you can’t figure it out, they are the big yellow cranes used to build the ships and they appear on all of the souvenirs in Belfast.
I took one picture of the ship from outside the port.
And I found a new towel animal in my cabin when I arrived.
From the ship in the back it was possible to see the outdoor set, and the dry dock with the huge Samson and Goliath cranes for the shipyard that built the Titanic. I took some pictures of the shipyard and the ferry nearby from the ship before we departed.
I had dinner at the main dining room. I started with Beef & Barley soup, and what they called Jalapeno poppers which was more like spicy fried cornmeal. For my main I had the tagliatelle bolognese pasta and for desert I had the Amaretto cake.
After dinner I went to the two comedy shows.
Today’s timeline:
