A couple of points before starting.

There may be people who say that a taster cruise of this duration isn’t going to offer up a fair comparison with the cruise line’s longer offerings, and we accept that and agree with that to a point, but taking out the people aboard – the hen parties, the younger crowd, the families – we should still get some idea about what MSC are like. That was our reckoning, anyway.

And we wanted to compare as much like-for-like as possible with the typical way we cruise so we opted for a balcony, used the on-board credit that was part of the booking deal to bump us up to the top drinks package, and had one speciality meal and one main dining room meal on the two nights.

Embarkation At Southampton

For us, this was an absolute breeze. It probably took us no more than five minutes from arrival at the terminal to boarding the ship.

Two things may have affected this: firstly, we only had carry-on luggage with us so didn’t have to look around to drop off big cases; secondly, we’d spent close to two hours stuck on the M27 waiting for a car crash to be cleared up and thus arrived during a quiet period in the middle of the afternoon. Virtuosa’s departure wasn’t due until eight in the evening so we hadn’t panicked during that wait. Much. Talking with the lovely person in the terminal we heard that some people had forgotten their passports and needed to quickly return to Leighton Buzzard to fetch them, so a good thing that the ship would likely still be there for them on their return.

The only oddity about boarding was passing through security first. I’m sure there’s a good reason why that appears to be the opposite way to every other cruise line we’re been with.

MSC Virtuosa Cruise Ship

Some thoughts about the ship.

We’d not been sure what to think of the Galleria Virtuosa – the long, two-level street-like arrangement on these MSC ships with its fancy curved displays overhead – because it was such a different concept to the typical atriums or piazzas that other cruise ships we’ve sailed on have. We had some preconceived ideas that the display would be gimmicky – and it was – and that it would be noisy and crowded and, yes, to an extent that was true, but we hadn’t considered that we’d actually really like it. And we did. Particularly once we found “our bar” – L’Atelier, in case you’re wondering – which offered us a great people-watching spot that really worked because there were locations either end of it that people wanted to move to. This did a great job of simulating that outdoors café on a Mediterranean evening feel.

The variety of bar types in this area was quite nice too: the pub, the Mediterranean café, the champagne bar, the futuristic bar. However, service was a problem. Table service only seemed to exist in the champagne bar. L’Atelier was fine because it was never crowded so getting a drink was the work of minutes. The Masters of the Sea pub, though: yeah, forget it. Absolute mad scrum across the entire length of the bar with no concept of queueing in place. It’ll probably appeal to the Wetherspoon crowd because there was the general selfish attitude on show there that I associate with that craphole of a pub chain.

We also headed up to the Sky Lounge at one point just after the ship had departed and found seats easy enough. We saw someone approach the bar and get told to sit down as someone would serve them so we sat down too, and on the table adjacent as well. Table service, we thought. At last. That’s better. And then we watched the waiting staff go around all the other tables, then go to the table next to us with the people who’d been told to sit down, then look across at our table and our cards ready to show and ask for a drink, and then walk off, ignoring us. Probably need to serve drinks and then they’ll sort us out, I suggested to my wife. But, as you’ve probably guessed, that wasn’t the case at all. We walked out of there without any drinks after half an hour of fruitlessly trying to catch the eye of literally anybody at all.

We thought we’d check out the sail away party on the top deck for a change. We don’t normally, but new ship, new line and all that. It was average. Some dancing, some waving of flags, an attempt to form a conga around the top deck. We mostly tried to find spots to stand in that were marginally less sticky than other spots around. Naval folk who have fond memories of Joanna’s nightclub in Portsmouth and who want to relive that sticky carpet sensation we all associate with it might want to cruise on MSC Virtuosa and walk around the top deck for a bit. Why not see who can generate the loudest suction cup popping sound? How about recreating that Michael Jackson lean trick?

That stickiness was one facet of what we saw to be a generally filthy environment on the top deck with food and drink littered everywhere. A lot of that you can point to the passengers on board and say that’s not on MSC. But there weren’t enough people obviously cleaning up, and that general stickiness suggests that’s a lot of build-up of spilt liquids not being properly cleaned over a lot of time at work there.

However, top deck and nightclub aside – yeah, we went to the nightclub to dance (briefly) and chat (for ages) with some fellow cruise blogger people (hi Sabrina and mum!) – we generally found MSC Virtuosa to be very clean.

Food And Drink On MSC Virtuosa

The drinks on MSC Virtuosa were great. We loved the variety, the quality, the strength, and the drinks package was great for unchaining the bar staff and allowing them to conjure up anything they felt like giving you depending on how nice you were to them. Again, hats off to the L’Atelier bar staff here because they were absolutely superb.

Food on MSC cruise ships has been something we’ve heard a lot about with a lot of bad tales being most prominent. Sadly, we’re going to have to add to that collection.

On the positive side, the food range in the buffet was very good and desserts we ate were tasty.

Yep, I think that’s covered all the positive aspects of food on Virtuosa.

A burger at the pool grill was stone cold. Maybe it’s something that stays warm under the heat lamp in the Caribbean or Mediterranean when there’s not a strong wind blowing across the deck, but in the UK when the wind has a bite to it that food has a warm-life measured in seconds. At least the food in the buffet will be warm, we thought. Wrong. Nothing we managed to pick up was a good temperature with some of it being that way as soon as we picked it up and some of it getting that way thanks to the worst layout of a buffet we’ve ever seen on any ship leading to enormous queues all around it and no ability to keep the one or two warmish things that way before getting everything you want to eat on the same plate and back to a table. That happened for both breakfast and lunch. Terrible.

On the first night we managed to get into the Butcher’s Cut steakhouse speciality restaurant because our loyalty match status allowed us one free speciality meal. More on that later. The location was lovely, the service was great, the staff were friendly. The fillet mignon steaks that we both had looked gorgeous, were perhaps a smidge overcooked (but nothing worth complaining about), and were so tender to cut. If I’d closed my eyes, though, and you’d told me I was eating textured water then I might have believed you because, unfortunately, they were utterly lacking in flavour. Like: is this meat at all? We wondered whether any meat heathens who have their steaks done well would notice because, obviously, well-done steaks remove all the flavour anyway. We’d asked for rare, and we always ask for rare specifically so we can taste the meat and know we’re getting the good quality stuff they can’t burn and disguise. My wife described the texture of the prawns she had for her starter as vile, like rubber. Had we paid for this meal then we’d have been upset.

On the second night we tried out the main dining room. We’d been assigned late seating (not a fan of assigned times, but so be it) and joined a couple of women on our allocated table for six who were surprised that they weren’t dining alone on this night. They were also absolutely shit-faced but friendly and entertaining for it. None of us were impressed by the menu and we asked whether it had been any better the night before. No. Nevertheless, we ordered and our waiter was great and the company was great. The service was all over the place with half of us getting plates and others waiting ages with lots of “No, don’t wait, please start, yours will only get cold, well colder” pleas, naturally. The food was generally considered abysmal. Texture was wrong, temperature was wrong, soups were watery.

In addition, we have to conclude that someone high up in MSC once remarked that he or she quite liked tough, dry, chewy bread and that it’s been company policy since then to only serve it that way.

Virtuosa Likes And Dislikes

I’ve already said we liked the drinks and drinking venues in general but we’d love to see a lot more table service.

The Bluetooth speaker in our room was fabulous. That’s something we’d love to see on more cruise ships. Great for sticking on music from the phones.

The bed was the best bed we’ve ever slept on at sea. Beautifully firm. Just an absolute joy of a bed.

Sitting in L’Atelier and watching people walk along the Galleria Virtuosa was excellent; a very good evolution of the piazza concept on a cruise ship.

The base price for MSC is extremely competitive. Now, naturally, a lot of people have mentioned that some of the issues we faced might be rectified by upgrading to MSC’s Yacht Club tier but that price increase negates the main selling point of MSC in the first place. And, besides, it’s a bit classist. We don’t mind a little bit of snobbery here and there, but we have our limits.

Just to drive the point home: the food was appalling.

The MSC app was so bad I wanted to cry. Using it prior to sailing was fine. Logging in once aboard, though. Oh boy. The killer here was that you needed to enter your month and year of birth. But you couldn’t just enter the year, you had to use their list of years to select the year. The scrollable list has years in the future in it to start with. Why are MSC allowing people who haven’t been born yet book cruises? Okay, that’s silly, but not as bad as having all the years you want to reach – those being years in the past – up the list from where it starts and therefore requiring you to scroll the list down. Except you can’t. Because a drag down with your finger triggers a page refresh which resets the other information you’ve entered. The only way to get to the year was to scroll up and down quickly enough to just show a tiny portion of the year before. 2023. Click. Scroll up then down. 2022. Click. Scroll up then down. 2021. Click. We are not young people. This was torture.

There was not enough seating in venues. MSC Virtuosa is a big ship, capable of cruising with over six thousand people. The location for game shows and quizzes looked like it could accommodate about four percent of that number at a squeeze. We love trivia and wanted to join in, but not if it meant standing thirty deep, twenty metres out in the corridor.

Information was lacking. This isn’t unique to MSC Cruises but it needs mentioning. We loyalty-matched prior to the cruise and that meant we had Diamond Level cards. Ooh! That meant we had perks such as free speciality dining, plus a bottle of Prosecco and some macarons and chocolate, plus priority embarkation and disembarkation, and the option of a late check-out from our room. Allegedly. Quite how any of this was supposed to be redeemed or requested was not communicated to us. The bottle and nibbles arrived the second day, and were very nice. The speciality dining was something we had to walk up to a restaurant aboard and ask about; there’s no way to pre-book and no indication whether it’s your steward, a phone number, guest services, or the restaurants when they actually open that are where you need to enquire, but it’s the latter just so you know. Embarkation and disembarkation was irrelevant on this cruise, and staying in our room later than the 7:30 they wanted everyone out by might have been nice if we’d known who or how to ask about it.

Cherbourg

A quick mention about the port of call on this taster cruise aboard MSC Virtuosa while I’m here.

Cherbourg is a terrible, terrible port that shouldn’t be on any cruise line’s itineraries ever.

If you don’t head off on an excursion and you’ve been to the Cité de la Mer before (which is actually well worth a visit) then there is almost nothing to do at all to do or see in Cherbourg while a cruise ship is visiting. Nothing will be open until the ship’s about to leave. We turned up on the Sunday but it was the same on a Saturday when we visited before. The French people in Cherbourg do not want to adjust their lives in any way to embrace or encourage visitors – which is their right, and we love that attitude about France – but cruise lines should honour that and not subject their passengers to this very unwelcoming port.

MSC Virtuosa Cruise Conclusion

Would we cruise with MSC Cruises again? Out of the UK with a mainly British crowd? Absolutely not. The laid-back attitude aboard that would be great to experience with an international crowd would most likely start to feel like the clichéd “Butlins at sea” slur bandied about by anti-cruise dullards in that case. But, we would never rule out something further afield, definitely of a longer duration, and ideally while children were still at school. It’s a mix that could appeal given MSC’s pricing and interesting itineraries away from UK waters.

Us on an MSC Cruises trip in the future is therefore not a firm no, but a teeth-sucking perhaps.

We therefore never considered a cruise to British ports until very recently but in May 2024 we headed down to Southampton and embarked Regal Princess for the start of twelve nights visiting Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and France. For me there would be no new countries to tick off the list but my wife had never been to Ireland before and she was keen to do so.

Embarkation was perfectly simple, the muster process was a breeze, it was nice to see new Princess Cruises tote bags in our room (we have quite the collection now), and the most important task of the first hour aboard was to head up onto the top deck and grab ourselves a 24K Margarita and a Dirty Banana. The staff are usually so busy delivering luggage or cleaning or dealing with confused passengers on embarkation day that it’s far easier to head to a bar rather than take advantage of the excellent room service through the Ocean Medallion system.

As Regal Princess left Southampton in the afternoon we saw a few very familiar sights. Hardly surprising given how often we do this.

First up was Steamship Shieldhall. We had a lovely time sailing on this 1950s vessel past all the cruise ships in port in Southampton back in 2022.

Further down the Solent and we got to admire the hovercraft on its Ryde to Portsmouth flight. That’s right, they’re called flights when you’re on a hovercraft. The ultimately useless, nineteenth century forts are also always a nice sight on these cruises out of our home county.

We don’t tend to do much on cruise ships – for us they’re for reading, listening to music, drinking, enjoying the sea views, and taking us in the most relaxing way possible to see sights around the world – so to conclude this first day aboard Regal Princess here are some photos of the food we had in the main dining room in case that’s of any interest, and some pictures of the Double Down Bar next to the casino, and the place where we’d end up most nights for the disco and cocktails. It was quiet there this first night but it did have its popular nights and with it being on the walking route from the theatre to the piazza – a stupid design decision – it did get briefly crowded whenever the shows finished and you’d have no chance getting a drink for about fifteen minutes.

The first full day on Regal Princess was a sea day, and one of only three on this cruise, and since it was so bright and sunny it was the perfect day to take a few photos around the upper decks after lunch. We had cruised on Regal Princess in 2021 just as we were coming out of the heaviest of the pandemic restrictions so photos of the ship had been taken before but that’s no reason not to take more.

Regal Princess is a Royal-class ship. Regal and her sister ship Royal Princess were the first two in this class and on this particular design their adults only pool has more exposed sides to the sea offering lovely views, little cabanas by the pool, and a far better pool design and depth than that of the later variants of the class. We ended up swimming in the pool and chatting with other cruisers for ages on this first sea day and my wife ended up sunburnt.

A perk of being Elite level with Princess Cruises, other than telling other people at every opportunity that you’re Elite level with Princess Cruises, is that you get a free wine-tasting on a sea day on cruises and that happened on this first day. These wine-tastings are pretty terrible but they’re entertainingly terrible if you’re sharing a table with other people who share your sense of humour and similar thoughts regarding what makes a wine nice and what causes you to screw up your face in horror, and that’s what happened.

We had noticed a few women aboard Regal Princess on embarkation day wearing red hats with other clothing in purple but hadn’t quite realised what the reasoning for this was nor quite how many of them were aboard until the afternoon on this sea day when, with it being formal night, a whole swathe of them (well over a hundred) suddenly swarmed the piazza where we were sitting down with a glass of decent wine now. They were all in 1920s themed clothing and had turned up for lots of group photos, and they looked fabulous. This was the Red Hat Society, as it turned out (not that unsurprisingly), and they’d prove to be entertaining both on the ship and off during this cruise.

Before the cruise we’d pre-booked some speciality dining and it was Sabatini’s, the Italian trattoria on the ship, that we dined at on this evening. We will almost always dine here at least once on any Princess cruise because the food is always fantastic and you never feel like you’re not getting value for money from the experience.

In the next post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the first of two ports in Ireland, Cobh.

Regal Princess was docked at Cobh itself, meaning we could simply get off and walk into the town, but that’s not always the case if you’re on a cruise ship that claims this as the port on the itinerary. From our balcony in the morning we could see across the water to the island of Haulbowline and beyond that to the right of it was Ringaskiddy where some ships dock instead. As there’s stuff all to see in Ringaskiddy you’re at the mercy of shuttle buses and tour trips to get you to anything interesting if that’s your port, so we were very pleased with our docking location.

Cobh is listed as the port for Cork and the ship was offering excursions to it although you could simply hop on the train right by the ship if you wanted to. The issue we had with excursions on this cruise as a whole was that they were extremely overpriced – we suspect that the captive audience of largely American cruisers visiting quaint old Europe played a role here – so we took a lot fewer of them than we otherwise might have given that we were visiting new ports. There was also the sense that with these cruise ports being technically not that far from us in England we could always return to any that appealed and see them in more detail and for less money. I mean, we won’t because we spend all our free time cruising, but we could, and that’s the important thing. All this is to say that for this, our first time cruising to Ireland and our first time in the port of Cobh, we decided to explore the town rather than head anywhere else.

As it would turn out, our time ashore would end up being a lot shorter than we’d planned because I started to feel unwell during our walk around so this post will contain a lot less than we were hoping to do. We’d intended to visit a museum and possibly find a pub but the combination of putting off both of those until later in the day, only finding one pub open and that claiming that their card machine wasn’t working at the moment and that everyone needed to pay cash (the sign looked like it had been written a long time ago and suggested something dodgy to us), me not feeling well, and this being a Sunday so feck all else was open anyway meant we had to adjust accordingly.

We headed off along the coastline, heading past Kennedy Park, and getting our first look at some of the colourful buildings that Cobh has become famous for.

It was interesting to see a statue in honour of Cobh-born athlete Sonia O’Sullivan simply because on the last cruise we’d been on before this we’d also happened upon another statue of a local athlete, that being Fanny Blankers-Koen in Rotterdam. Perhaps we’ll have to try to find statues of athletes everywhere we travel from now on.

Cobh has a natural harbour that was the reason for it becoming an important port for both naval vessels and, later, for commercial interests, including tourism and emigration. Cobh was the final port of call before the Titanic made her ill-fated trip in 1912, and Cobh was where those rescued from the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 were brought, and you can find numerous plaques, memorials, statues, or references to this sad history associated with the town wherever you walk.

Cobh, in fact, turned out to be very keen to commemorate any person, group, or event, and it was almost impossible to go a couple of minutes without some artwork, sculpture, or marker stone. If you like reading then come to Cobh and walk the streets.

I’ve mentioned already that Cobh is well-known for its colourful houses but when people think of them they’re most likely thinking of the “Deck of Cards” houses which we would see a bit later on. However, along the shoreline part of Cobh to the east of the main part of town we passed Father Corbett Terrace, the owners of which have clearly decided to invest in a job lot of vibrant exterior house paint too. Against the greenery of the hilly backdrop and the blue patches of sky above this looked absolutely beautiful during our time there.

Our destination on this slow walk was the Titanic Memorial Garden and it was a peaceful, pleasant space, but perhaps shouldn’t be the only thing you go to visit if you’re in Cobh because there’s not a whole lot to see there. The garden and views out to the water were nice enough, of course. For us, though, it was nearly the only thing we saw because I was feeling pretty awful at this point and had already decided that plans involving pubs or museums were now thoroughly shelved.

Continuing with the theme of the people of Cobh really invested in having you read things while you’re in their town it was lovely to see a little library near the garden entrance.

I think my wife would have been happy enough to just head back to the ship on the same route we’d come but I tried to eke out a little more from our day in Cobh by heading up the steeper-than-expected road past St Colman’s Cathedral on a slightly more circular route to the port. This is a twentieth century church in the French Gothic style and I would have liked to have popped in for a nose and some photographs but this was a Sunday and Ireland is a religious country so that was never going to happen.

We spotted the “Deck of Cards” houses from here and I figured I could soldier on for just a little longer and head around for some views from different angles. As we started to walk up the road there came the sound of bagpipes playing so we waited while a piper followed by a column of older men with military decorations marched down the road and towards the church. Interesting to experience this sort of thing but when I think of men marching to the sounds of bagpipes in the British Isles I can’t help but get a little twitchy as we’ve a history of groups doing this mainly to wave their dicks around a bit and piss off other groups with differing political views. Admittedly, that’s more a Northern Irish or Scottish thing so likely wasn’t the reason for this display but it’s still a thing I’d like to see stopped altogether. My wife’s views are similar but she’d also like to see bagpipes banned internationally.

The “Deck of Cards” houses were exactly as expected. On a sloping road each building is raised above its neighbour slightly and coloured brightly and differently from those adjoining, and certain views of this were better than others. The cars along the fronts of the houses didn’t help from a tourist photo perspective, but I imagine the owners of the houses consider that secondary to being able to park outside their homes. Although it then makes you wonder why they bothered painting their houses in such a way as to attract people there in the first place then.

Our very truncated visit ashore in Cobh came to an end with a walk past the Cobh Museum (not open on Sundays, naturally, otherwise we’d have stretched our time out a little longer) then a quick look around the Cobh Heritage Centre for some souvenirs before getting back on Regal Princess.

I had a few hours to try to start feeling better before sail away and, thankfully, by the time that came around I was a lot perkier.

The day of arrival in any port can be very important as to your experience there. I’m glad we’d already decided to forego trips further inland given my crappy health on the day but Sunday is definitely not the day to be visiting a country that is still highly religious and largely closed. However, we enjoyed what we saw of Cobh and would love to give it another visit at some point. Cork would be of interest too, but large cities sometimes feel a bit ubiquitous compared to these smaller places with their individual charm.

In the next post in this series it’s time to sail away from Cobh and take a look at the evening’s meal aboard the ship ahead of the second of our Irish ports, its capital, Dublin.

There wasn’t a whole lot to see on the cruise out to the open sea and the general scenery took on a grey tone with splashes of muted colours. Before we moved away from the town, though, we were entranced by the single crewman taking a lot of time to pull in the warning sign that had been hung from the side of the cruise ship while Regal Princess had been docked. The sign indicated that for security reasons other vessels must remain fifty metres away from the ship, although quite what the ship could really do about it in the absence of (obvious) weaponry or a fifty metre prodding pole is another thing entirely.

The photo below doesn’t quite encompass the entirety of our walk along the front of Cobh so despite my unwell state earlier in the day I don’t think we did too bad in at least getting a decent amount of gentle exercise. Although the walk up to the cathedral was perhaps not as gentle as either my wife or I would have liked.

Much of what we could see from our starboard side balcony was off in the distance and often difficult to make out with the weak evening sun in our eyes even from behind thin veils of cloud. However, we did get close enough to Camden Fort Meagher as we passed Ram’s Head to like what we saw. Fortifications of some form or another have existed at this point since the middle of the sixteenth century. The fear of Napoleon led to a large upgrade towards the end of the eighteenth century and in the late nineteenth century the fort had some slipways added to test an early guided torpedo system. By the 1980s the fort was no longer needed militarily and was handed over to the county council who left it to rot, but in 2010 locals started to restore the place for tourism. It certainly looked and sounded interesting enough to warrant a visit should we ever find ourselves back this way in the future.

The main interest on our sail out from Cobh proved to be spotting a group of dolphins not far from the pilot boat that had been shadowing our transit out of the port and waiting to pick up its pilot from the ship. No photos of the dolphins as they were quite some way off, but we enjoyed watching them for several minutes until they seemingly lost interest with all the activity in the harbour.

Some quizzing took place but it was a quiet and fairly early night for us aboard Regal Princess. All that remains in this short post is to show off the dinner in the main dining room on this evening because traditions must be upheld.

I was feeling well enough to try a cocktail or two before bed.

In the next post we arrive at Ireland’s capital, Dublin, where we had an organised tour and some free time arranged and where we were hoping for a more successful day ashore with more to do and see as it wouldn’t be a Sunday. However…

I had been to Dublin a couple of times before, both with parents when I was considerably younger than I am now and also while studying at university (Liverpool, since you asked) when I was merely largely younger than I am now. For my wife, this British Isles cruise on Regal Princess was a chance to actually tick Ireland off the visited list for the first time and while Cobh had been nice enough it was Dublin that she was most looking forward to. The liveliness, the friendliness.

If you’ve never read any of my travelogues before or the About page then don’t worry because not many people have, but you might not then know that when we cruise (our preferred from of travel) we do like to take excursions when hitting new places. For this cruise on Regal Princess, because it was pretty close to home for the most part and targeting a lot of American tourists, we found it difficult to justify the cost of ship tours, particularly seeing as language and general customs would not be a barrier to us getting around. We therefore did our own thing at most of the port stops, but in Dublin that wasn’t the case for a couple of reasons: firstly, we could see that the distance from the port of Dun Laoghaire to Dublin was not inconsiderable so that meant shuttle buses and potentially long queues with a lot of people doing the same; secondly, we saw an excursion that included a short tour in Dublin, some free time in Dublin, and a visit to Powerscourt Estate, and we had reasons for wanting to see that latter location. Secret reasons. So, figuring that we could tick off some sights, have time to see the Book of Kells, have a Guinness (I know, so clichéd), and not be clock-watching for the bus back we booked this excursion.

The usual tour process for Princess Cruises commenced with a gathering aboard, trundling down to the tender boat, tendering into the port, hopping aboard the tour bus, and making our way into the Irish capital. It was on the bus that we were told that most of Ireland was closed for the day thanks to the bank holiday. Bugger. Still, shouldn’t affect what we wanted to do, we thought. And then we were told that students were protesting about the treatment of Palestinians by the genocidal Israeli regime so the Book of Kells was off-limits for anyone who wanted to look at it. Bugger, again. We supported the students and the Palestinians, and we still do, but it was bloody annoying to effectively visit Ireland for two days and find it shut.

Anyway, on with the guided tour part. We got off the bus at Merrion Square, a Georgian garden square dating from the late eighteenth century, and the townhouses on three of its sides that we’d be taking more of a look at (than we wanted) all date from the same period. First, though, we had pointed out to us St Stephen’s Church, known as the Pepper Canister Church for obvious reasons, and the statue of the engineer William Dargan, designer and builder of large parts of Ireland’s railway system and several bridges, one of which was in the city.

The main purpose of this visit to the square was to admire the Georgian buildings and doors that have achieved a level of fame of their own, and yes, they were very nice, but once you’ve seen a few then do you really need to see more? Apparently, on this tour, you do, and so we did, and it seemed to go on and on. Some of this might have been my general feeling of grumpiness at what was shaping up to be a disappointing visit to Dublin.

Some of the tour also touched on famous inhabitants of the houses over the years, with the most notable being Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, but there seemed a lot more about the door designs and colours than I think most people were interested in. I like architecture but this wasn’t described as an architectural excursion and you could sense some fidgeting amongst the passengers after a while.

As Merrion Square was where we’d need to meet back for the bus to take us onto the afternoon’s part of the excursion we were then given the option of heading off for some free time on our own, but as the guide was heading in the direction we wanted to walk anyway we tagged along with the portion of the group who’d remained for a bit.

The modern building below is the library attached to Trinity College. Knowing that behind it, in another building, the Book of Kells was laughing at us not being able to see it was not enjoyable.

Lovely human being Taylor Swift was due to visit Dublin as part of her Eras Tour the following year and we saw a dad and his young daughter stringing up some temporary sheeting to start work on some artwork we assumed was for it on the street. We’d see the nearly-finished piece when we came back past this point later on.

The Tart with the Cart is the local name for the Molly Malone statue, the point at which we decided to explore a little more on our own with what little time we had. As is the way with statues like this all around the world there’s a tendency to rub parts, for luck in most cases, or because people are generally perverted little oiks who objectify women in this particular instance.

We continued towards Temple Bar because it’s apparently a fairly popular tourist trap if it’s open. Just on the outskirts of this neighbourhood an interesting sculpture caught my eye. This is the Tree of Gold (or Crann an Óir, and don’t ask me how to pronounce that), commissioned by Ireland’s Central Bank as a public artwork to commemorate Ireland receiving European City of Culture status in 1991.

Temple Bar sits on the south bank of the River Liffey so we had a chance to see both of these Dublin landmarks (okay, one’s more a watermark, but you know what I mean), and there was a lot of colourful street art around, which we always enjoy. We were never going to get the full feel of the place on an overcast Monday afternoon when nearly everything was closed but on the plus side we also didn’t get robbed blind at any of the pubs there.

We had time to stop somewhere for a drink and some food – the excursion did not include a meal despite its reasonably long duration – and we figured we’d head back towards Merrion Square where we’d seen an open pub on the corner just so that we wouldn’t be pressed for time getting back to the bus. The Taylor Swift artwork was coming along well.

The pub we stopped at was called The Sin Bin – a sporting reference, as you could probably tell – and it was large, clean, but understandably a bit soulless there with some perfunctory service when we popped in as we were a couple of maybe eight people in the place. My wife opted for a cider while I fulfilled our legal obligations and ordered a Guinness and they were both okay, but nothing wonderful, and we’ve had better of both back home in England many times. The food we ordered, however, was excellent, and huge. We struggled to finish these plates between us.

Before the bus turned up to pick us up from the corner of Merrion Square I grabbed a quick shot of a sculpture of its most famous former resident.

In the next post in this British Isles cruise series we’ll be concluding our tour with a visit to Powerscourt Estate and Gardens.

We like country estates and gardens so it should be no surprise to see us picking this particular tour option from those available on this port stop, but anyone who knows us in real life will know the real reason we wanted to visit Powerscourt Estate and Gardens. You don’t know us in real life, though, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Ooh! Secrecy! And on this, my site, where I tell you things you don’t need to know or don’t want to know all the time!?

Powerscourt Estate stands on the site of a former thirteenth century castle although much of what’s there today, both in the buildings and the formal and landscaped gardens, owes its look to extensive changes undertaken in the eighteenth century and renovations in the 1990s after a serious fire in the 1970s. The Palladian architecture and style of gardens were very familiar to us with lots in common with many of the National Trust properties we’d visited over the years in England.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the main building as there wasn’t a whole lot to see there with the gardens being the main draw for this visit. Actually, one of the main draws of the estate is the famous Powerscourt Waterfall, Ireland’s second highest, and something we’d assumed we’d be able to see. But, following the theme of the day in Ireland – mild disappointment – we were told that it was possible to walk to it but not within the time limit we had for our visit. More on that time limit later.

This post is therefore mainly photographs from our wander around the gardens with a few elements pointed out. If you like landscape and formal gardens then it’s a fabulous place to take a stroll.

We started off above the Triton Lake with views down to it and some lovely landscape sights across the countryside.

The black and white pebbles arranged to form patterns reminded us of the Risseu we’d seen while visiting the Ligurian region of Italy in 2019, and particularly our trip to Camogli.

We first entered Tower Valley, named for the tower within it, Pepperpot Tower, itself named for the condiment container after which it was designed. Yes, really. Scenes from the TV series The Tudors were filmed here, although a great many TV series and films can claim to have used some portion of Powerscourt Estate as a shooting location over the years.

A meandering, downward-sloping walk along trails and past a variety of trees, bushes, and flowers brought us above the gorgeous Japanese Gardens. This was easily the prettiest and most interesting part of Powerscourt Gardens although the time of year and general overcast conditions of the day might have accentuated its vibrancy.

Fans of mossy grottos – that’s everybody – will enjoy the mossy grotto just off the Japanese Gardens.

We walked in a broadly circular route, taking us around the far side of the lower lake where we could look back up towards the building that we’d entered. The trees and some of the views through them were genuinely spectacular from here.

I can’t say we were expecting to see a pet cemetery on the grounds of Powerscourt Estate and if I had expected it then I’d have also been expecting to find it a little creepy, but it was actually quite heartwarming to see the names and dates and some of the writing on the grave markers on this small plot of land.

Another lake brought us to a small formal garden area adjoining the main building at the top of the estate and gardens and brought this walk to an end.

Time limits. Time. Time and excursions. There’s either never enough or there’s too much, and this day’s excursion as a whole was a great example of this problem. Of course you have to compromise when you’re on a group tour but we weren’t alone in thinking this while we waited for our bus to return because we got talking to fellow passengers who said the same thing. Our conclusion from the full day of first visiting Dublin, having free time there, then heading off on this excursion to Powerscourt Estate and Gardens was that we could have done with perhaps half an hour more in Dublin and half an hour less at the gardens. The gardens were lovely but we’d seen all we could really see well within the amount of time we had to spend and ended up just hanging around at the end. We had too much time at Powerscourt for what we could admire in the gardens, yet not enough to get out to the waterfall and back, and we felt that with this in mind we would have appreciated longer in Dublin to perhaps hit a museum.

But we did enjoy Powerscourt Estate and Gardens, and later in the year with more colour and interest around and the likelihood of a warmer day and slower walking then the time there might have felt more suitable and made the cruise excursion overall feel better-balanced.

In the next short post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise travelogue series there are some brief views of Dún Laoghaire as we tender back to the ship – and some thoughts about that – along with the evening meal aboard as we head off towards the next port of call, Belfast.

There was a fair old queue to get back onto the tender boats to the cruise ship because the cruise lines do like to arrange for as many tours as possible to finish at the same time for some perverted reason. But, when we did finally reach the front of the queue it was to find one boat had just left and another just arrived so that gave us the chance to sit up on top if we wanted. I wanted. My wife did not because it was cold so she stayed below.

I’d initially thought that the modern concrete building in the photo below and the tower were all one thing, and assumed it was all a fancy, brutalist church from the 60s. In fact, the sloping structure in the foreground belongs to the library and cultural centre, built in the early 2000s and opened to the public in late 2014, while the tower is that of a former church and now maritime museum. Just the sort of thing we’d visit on a return trip.

It was a fairly slow ride back to Regal Princess on the tender boat so that the breeze and choppy waves didn’t cause too much trouble for those aboard. As expected, it was cold on the top of the boat but the views were fabulous. One of our fellow passengers was up there in just his t-shirt and was definitely braving it out.

There’s not a lot to report for the evening on the ship as there wasn’t much to see in terms of sailaway views from our anchored position off the coast. Because we’d eaten so much at lunch in Dublin, however, we decided to skip the main dining room meal and take advantage of one of the free “casual dining” options that are included when you purchase the Princess Plus drinks package (and we always do). And so it was that we enjoyed a meal at Alfredo’s with a glass of wine (or two).

In the next post in this British Isles cruise series we’ll be hitting Belfast, and unlike the first occasion three years earlier when we took an excursion, this time we’d be exploring on our own and would start with a walk to and visit of the fabulous Crumlin Road Gaol.

Not the port area, though, because that was the very definition of uninteresting.

The distance of the cruise port area to Belfast city centre was enough to require a shuttle bus and it wasn’t too long before we’d hopped off opposite the city hall, had a quick nose at the tourist information centre, then set off on a walk to where we wanted to hit first. Lovely little architectural touches and some gorgeous bits of derelict or unloved buildings pleased my eye. A monument of Henry Cooke seemed important and after reading up about him he seemed to symbolise Belfast’s history pretty well, being a divisive figure with a set of beliefs at odds with those of other people’s sets of beliefs, memorialised in bronze afterwards by his supporters likely mostly to just piss off the opposite side.

We encountered a few bits of street art on our walk to our first destination of the day, and we would encounter a whole lot more before the end of the day.

It didn’t take us too long to reach where we’d been aiming for, and since the likelihood of you hitting this write-up without having searched for the name of the place or at least seen the title of the post before you randomly clicked on it is as close to zero as makes no difference then it won’t surprise you to read right now that this was the Crumlin Road Gaol.

Just before we entered the gaol, though, we were quite taken with the building opposite. Neoclassical, lovely portico with Corinthian style columns? Yes please! This was the mid-nineteenth century Crumlin Road Courthouse, a convenient location close to the gaol at which to try the accused. Its fate in more recent years has been blighted by redevelopment plans needing to align with its Grade 2-protected status and mysterious fires. You’d be amazed how often there are mysterious fires when redevelopment is involved. Amazed.

The courthouse and gaol were connected by a tunnel to facilitate transferring prisoners and after we’d paid to enter – after also helping some French visitors understand the payment process and where to go following some confusion dealing with the person at the counter (thanks GCSE French!) – the first part we looked at was that tunnel.

We then absolutely enjoyed a couple of hours within the walls of the prison. I won’t go into the history of Crumlin Road Gaol because there are better sources for that and if you’re interested in visiting then you’ll likely have some idea anyway. You will learn so much more inside. This was one of those places that has a lot of videos you can watch and these can be hit and miss sometimes, but at Crumlin Road they were utterly fascinating. Genuine accounts from prisoners from both loyalist and republican sides in the troubles including successful escapes, fictionalised accounts of older stories of inmates including young women and the poor put in there for the most minor of offences, the punishments doled out. Well worth checking as much out as you can.

One of the aspects of the visit that we appreciated the most was the one-way system in areas of the gaol with timed entries and exits. Effectively, to get into one wing, for example, you’d need to wait in an anteroom until a gate opened up, timed to allow others out at some other point. This stopped everyone walking through en masse and it stopped people heading back to parts they’d already seen, but the best part about it was the removal of just that tiny bit of freedom of movement. It was fascinating to see people tutting and getting a little frustrated that they couldn’t move on without realising that they were getting to experience the merest hint of what the prisoners had to live through.

The last area we wandered through inside the gaol was the execution chamber, built in 1901. In total seventeen prisoners were hanged at Crumlin Road Gaol. This chamber housed chilling “entertainment” in the form of silhouettes of the condemned and guards with the rope hanging and sounds of the doors opening.

Out into the fresh air at the end of our visit we had a good chance to admire the architecture of the gaol and its distinctive star-shaped arrangement. In addition there were some classic vehicles from the times of the troubles: armoured cars, a truck, and even a Wessex Helicopter.

The very final part of the gaol experience was a quick look inside the Matron’s House. The matron was tasked with looking after the incarcerated women and children.

We’d had such a wonderful time in the gaol and had reached past lunchtime with the realisation that we had loads more walking planned during our time in Belfast so we did something unexpectedly sensible for us and grabbed a spot of lunch in the gaol’s café. We offset that sensibleness by ordering cocktails too.

Unfortunately, in addition to being very expensive the food was basic and dry and the drinks were frighteningly sweet. Luck of the draw, perhaps, or maybe just another nod to the likely average-at-best nourishment that prisoners would have received. Maybe. What are cocktails like in prison, anyway?

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll head off for a walk to see the Protestant and Catholic areas take on street art either side of the Belfast interface area.

An interface area was a place where neighbourhoods in Belfast with strict ethnic or religious affiliations came together in a spirit of friendship and understanding. Wait. Wait a second. No, that’s not quite true. It’s where anger and violence was commonplace. The areas were therefore often patrolled or segregated by barriers. Following more sensible heads prevailing these parts of Northern Ireland’s capital city have taken on more historical, educational roles, and some have become popular tourist destinations. The west Belfast interface area between the Shankill and Falls roads (loyalist, protestant and republican, catholic areas respectively) is one such area, now known for its street art either side of the barricades, still interestingly sectarian in nature as we were to discover.

The first piece of street art we came across, however, was above a corner of the Shankill Road known as Conor’s Corner, dedicated to a late nineteenth century local artist and featuring some of his work on the walls. The street art that caught our eyes, though, was more modern; a Blade Runner-style artwork called Hope and painted by Dan Kitchener.

At this point we were in the largely loyalist, protestant part of Belfast and the street art was very indicative of themes you associate with British self-identified patriots nowadays: military figures of the dim and distant past, glorifying war achievements, any ethno-cultural prejudices a bonus. John Henry Patterson got his own bit of glorifying on the walls just north of the interface area and he does have a fascinating history: born in Ireland, serving in Africa, killing lions, becoming part of the Ulster Volunteers against the idea of Ireland ruling itself (because it’s nice to be subjugated), then leading what was called the Jewish Legion during World War I which would be the precursor to what is now the Israeli Defence Force. It’s highly likely that defending antisemitism from his own superiors towards the men he commanded ended up pushing him over the edge into full-blown Zionism (because it’s nice to subjugate). A very influential individual.

Through one set of barriers we passed by a few odd sculptures and the Imagine mural which hoped to serve as some sort of bridge between the two cultures either side of the interface area. From this point on the artwork would take on a very different feel with the emphasis on peace, freedom, stopping wars, stopping oppression, releasing political prisoners, and just generally trying to get along with everyone.

We took our time walking slowly along this road, taking in all the themes of the pieces of street art, and we quite often saw taxis turn up and stop with tourists, the drivers acting as guides and giving details on the history of areas or of the meanings behind particular pieces of art. This is quite a popular way to see Belfast by all accounts and if you’re less happy with wandering about on your own or have more pressing need to make the best use of your time then it offers an alternative way of seeing sights such as this.

We eventually turned off the road we’d been walking along and started heading back towards the centre of Belfast where we had one final destination on our agenda for this day in port. At this point the political street art came more-or-less to an end and more general artworks started to pop up on walls and the sides of buildings.

In the next post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise series we’ll try out some local craft ales then enjoy some of the architecture and sculptures around Belfast City Hall before heading back to the ship.

“Did it involve the drinking of beer?” you might be asking yourself if you’re at all familiar with us.

It did involve the drinking of beer. Give yourself a gold star.

But first there were some roads to navigate and these included the odd statue or sculpture here and there – Belfast likes them – and some more street art – Belfast likes that too – and we’re quite keen on the two things as well so photos were taken.

Of particular interest was the statue of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave-turned-abolitionist and orator, who had been invited to tour Ireland in the 1840s, partly to ensure he stayed out of reach of his former owner who might try to retrieve his “property”. His life story is absolutely fascinating and well worth a read. This is the first statue of him to be erected in Europe.

The drinking establishment to which we were headed, and where we had a couple of very nice pints in lovely surroundings, was Bell’s Brewery. We will always try to find local craft ale brewers whenever we travel. The place had a good range and was very spacious with the fermenters on show and some memorabilia on display too.

After resting our feet and treating our taste buds we made our way to where the shuttle bus would be, but with still a bit more time to spare and with no idea when we might be back in this part of the world we took in a circuit of the outside of Belfast City Hall. Did I mention that Belfast likes statues? I did!? Well, it really likes statues and you can find a lot in the grounds of the administrative building.

Construction of the city hall was started at the tail end of the nineteenth century, not being completed until 1906, and the decision to build an administrative headquarters of this size was due to Belfast being awarded city status in 1888 by Queen Victoria and it being felt by the new city’s councillors that something grander than that already in use was needed. The building therefore incorporates some elements that are early Edwardian but with a lot of Baroque touches too.

It was interesting to see a plaque marking a memorial garden for the Titanic’s victims in the grounds of City Hall as this was the second one we’d seen on this cruise, having walked to one in Cobh in the Republic of Ireland.

Below you can see some of the other statues and memorials erected around Belfast City Hall.

Pictured first is a memorial to the soldiers who fought and lost their lives in the Second Boer War and a bust of William Pirrie, who, amongst other non-cruise-related notable achievements, was on record during his chairmanship of Harland & Wolff shipbuilders of saying that the Olympic-class ships (Olympic, Britannic, and Titanic) were unsinkable and that the small number of lifeboats on them were there to help others. Ah.

James Horner Haslett was a politician, an MP representing the city in the House of Commons first for Belfast West then for Belfast North, and served as mayor of Belfast for two years in the late 1880s.

The USA Expeditionary Force Memorial commemorates the arrival of American troops in Belfast in 1942. The only Victoria Cross recipient from Northern Ireland in World War II, James Joseph Magennis, gets a monument too. His cross was awarded for a successful if arduous limpet mine-planting task on a Japanese cruiser.

Unveiled just a couple of months before our visit to Belfast there were two statues to two female political activists, Mary Ann McCracken (abolitionist) and Winifred Carney (suffragist).

Of course, Victoria got herself a prime piece of central real estate for her statue although she didn’t live long enough to see it.

And finally, the Cenotaph.

We admired a little of the other architecture surrounding Belfast City Hall but at this time we saw a shuttle bus arrive, boarded it, and were soon on our way back to the ship.

To conclude this post and our visit to Belfast – a visit that had been far more interesting than Dublin, it would be fair and easy to say – here are some photos of dinner aboard Regal Princess in the evening and a couple of cocktails we availed ourselves of as we enjoyed some of the entertainment on the ship during its overnight sailing away from Northern Ireland.

In the next post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise series I’ll cover the start of our day docked in Greenock, Scotland where we spend absolutely no time there at all and head off to look at Stirling Castle instead.