I awoke to the increasingly familiar pattern of my Apple Watch notifying me that I am not getting enough sleep. This has been going on every day since we left home, and it’s quite demoralizing. Things should improve considerably on all of our upcoming sea days, but if they don’t, I’m turning off notifications. I hate being told that I’m doing life wrong before my feet even hit the floor the morning.
I was in the World Fresh Marketplace first today, and got us both coffees and a table before things got crazy up there. It’s hard to know exactly how and what to eat when we’re planning to be off the ship all day, as bathroom availability is never guaranteed, so I stuck with two poached eggs florentine and removed the English muffin from each. Protein and veg are a safe choice.
It was supposed to clear up later in the day, but it sure felt cold, wet and gloomy when we left the ship this morning
Since we had no Plan B after our Plan A fell apart so quickly yesterday, we decided to take the train from Cobh to Cork. G loves trains, so that’s always a satisfying option. The Cobh Railway Station is located right next to the cruise ship pier, and it’s very easy to walk off one and onto the other, but the line to buy tickets stretched so far that someone (hopefully he was someone with authority) told all of us in line to just get on the train. It was SRO but I guess I am now at the age where young men offer me a seat, and I gladly took it. It’s about a 25 minute ride from Cobh to Cork.
We were talking with our fellow cruise passengers during the ride, and the general consensus was to take the HOHO bus from a stop right across from the train station in Cork. And I’m sure that would have worked perfectly if it hadn’t been the off-season, if the bus ran more often than every 90 minutes and if there weren’t already people standing when it arrived. We would have had to wait for the next bus to do even that as the line was so long. No thanks, that wasn’t going to work after all. We walked back across the street to the train station, found the first taxi in line, and hired driver Ally to show us a few things in her city. We are always more interested in seeing how people live and work and less interested in the stores, so it really was a better option for us.
Ally was originally from Nigeria but has lived in Cork for 25 years, so she knew her stuff and was easy to understand. The day was supposed to turn sunny, but we didn’t see that until the Regal was sailing tonight. Instead, it was cold and damp and grey, and Ally said that was very typical for Cork. We went first to the University College Cork (UCC) campus, then saw the Cork Opera House. Fin Barre is Cork’s patron saint, and their cathedral is named for him.
Before we arrived at our next location, Ally was giving us a crash course in Irish history and the significance of St. Patrick to the island and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I went to a Catholic elementary school called St. Patricks for eight years and St. Patrick’s Day was our biggest celebration after Christmas. :)
Ally drove us down the shopping street called Patrick St. with its high end stores (and we saw a lot of fellow cruisers there) and then Washington St., known for its pubs and restaurants. We drove to Blackrock.Castle, which dates back to the 16th century and was built as a defense against pirates and marauders who would sail up the River Lee to attack the city.
Backrock Castle
We were going to have Ally drop us back at the Cork train station, but felt so chilled every time we got out of the taxi to take pics that she instead drove us back to the ship. Along the way, we passed the Fota Resort, a 5 star resort famous for hosting weddings and getaways, but also for its wildlife park. And all I could think of was these poor African animals freezing their tucheses off in the generally damp, generally cold climate of Cork just for human enjoyment.
Once back on the ship, we headed directly to the International Cafe for the first time this cruise, to get something hot to eat (soup) and drink (coffee). We decided to split one of the extra cost cake slices (though G makes a point of having gelato every. single. day.). I chose the red velvet cake and….well, just skip it. It is obviously frozen (it was still half frozen), and just not worth the calories. We each had a couple of bites and left the rest. Too bad. I am definitely a cake person over other kinds of dessert choices but this pales in comparison to homemade.
Late lunch at the International Cafe
It wasn’t long until dinner, and I wasn’t sure I’d be hungry, but as we got closer to the Concerto Dining Room, we could tell by the garlic aroma wafting out of the restaurant doors that it was Italian night, and that is one of my favorites. We were so lucky; we got fresh made penne arrabbiata, though I’m not entirely certain if that was because we are seated right next to Reserve Dining or because everyone got it. It was not too spicy and I loved it.
I could live on this ratatouille!
Seaside Cobh from our dinner table
Tonight’s Princess Theater entertainment was a comedy magician so show time found me in The Enclave. The couple of things I reported as not working yesterday were fixed, and that makes me very happy. I’ve read too often where people buy a package of Enclave visits only to find a good number of its features out of order for their entire cruise. Not so here.
In fact, it’s a good time to make the point that we’ve had to report three issues with our cabin (safe was locked and sink stopper didn’t work when we boarded, bathroom light went out yesterday) and they’ve all been fixed in a few minutes. Since at home we are the ones who have to do the fixing, this is one of my very favorite parts of cruising. A working sink stopper is so important if you wear hard contacts. It’s easier for a plumber to fix it than to open up the drain to search for a tiny piece of plastic. Trust me…I’ve done both at home way more than once.
And that was the end of my evening. After a shower, I was so happy to be warm that I crawled into bed and read. G came and checked on me and then went out for his requisite ice cream but even he had an early night. We are ready for our three day sea day reprieve as we sail toward Madeira.
