20240515 Wednesday, May 15, 2024; Late Arrival to Cobh (Cork)

The ship plowed through some rough waters last night and even into the morning the seas remained heavy.  We ended up even later than the Captain had hoped.  Our Blarney Castle tour was rescheduled to 3:15pm, but then it got rescheduled to 3:45pm, and by 4pm the ship was still not tied up.  The Blarney Castle closes at 5pm and is a 45 minute drive from Cobh, so it’s highly doubtful that even if the tour arrived before closing, that anyone would have time to anything other than walk around the parking lot before it closed.  We were given the opportunity to get a refund, so we took it.  

We did have time to participate in the 10am morning trivia, which we won (more coasters, yippee), an 11am What’s the Next Lyric trivia, and 3pm Name That Tune music trivia.  We didn’t win either of those, but we came close.  

The ship finally arrived and disembarked passengers just before 4pm.  We walked off the ship and walked through Cobh from the waterfront to St. Coleman’s Cathedral at the top of the hill.  

We enjoyed pleasant pleasant weather for a walk despite a forecast of 50% chance of rain.  Also, despite our late arrival, there was plenty of daylight because sunset is at 9pm.  There are narrow streets, quaint shops, and European coastal architecture.

  

We walked past some very interesting vegetation growing through some retaining walls.  There is a Titanic museum and tributes to the victims of the Titanic and Lusitania.  

After returning to the ship, we headed to the Princess Theater Showtime production of Broadway Ballroom, which showcased the dancers and singers with songs from Broadway.  It was a new show to us and both flashy and entertaining.  

After a casual dinner in the buffet, we finished up the night with a Beatles music trivia.  While we thought we had done OK, Jenny, whom we had teamed up with once, and who was playing alone on the opposite side of the lounge, won with a perfect score.  She grew up in the UK when the Beatles and British Invasion was happening and was very much in the middle of that music scene.

Tomorrow, we have a tender port of call, so we’ll see just how loud and disruptive it will be when they prepare, launch and retrieve the tenders since there are two lifeboats right outside our window.  There are only a couple of boats that get used for port tenders, and I don’t think those are outside our window, so we may luck out.  We’ll see.