Disney Sheep

The August 1, 2015 cruise goes to Londonderry and is in port in Edinburgh only overnight for the passengers can return from the Tattoo. This is the cruise that they advertise.

 

The August 9 and 17, 2015, cruise goes to Milford Haven, Wales and spends 2 days in Edinburgh.

I must have checked out the same cruise that Ontheweb did, since I thought that Princess was no longer going to Milford Haven. Although Milford Haven will be coming up soon, I highly recommend that you book an excursion to somewhere that isn't Milford Haven, unless you are interested in treating that day like a modified sea day!

Oh, I am so sorry about the noise and lack of sleep! This would make anyone have a bad day!

 

Do you remember what the name of the mocktail in your last series of photos? I love getting them too and seem to always drift back to the strawberry daiquiri. On one cruise, one of the bartenders gave me the same fruit that you got on this as well as a slice of lime. I loved adding the lime to the top. Made the drink even better!

 

Also liked the one with chocolate and banana in it!

Thanks for your sympathy about our lack of sleep - trust me on the morning in Dublin I was really in rough shape!

The most recent mocktail was called a Tropical Blend. DS tried mine and then decided that he would order one of these each day since from his perspective they are very similar to a Banana-Orange Julius which he really likes. Technically the mocktails did not come with fruit, but the bartenders were willing to humour me once I told them I needed my mocktails to be pretty for their photo shoot by the pool :).

And you are correct, the darker drink was called a Chocobanana

Since it was our second Formal night we gave ourselves lots of time back in the cabin to get cleaned up and then headed down stairs to take photos, both with the Princess photographer photo ops, and with our own camera. Side note: we often used the bottom of the stairs by the customer service desk for a family photo op, the staff who worked the desk were usually available and willing to take some photos for us.

Photography/Lack of Photo Packages on Princess. Unlike Disney or RCI, Princess does not have (IMHO) reasonably priced photos/photo packages. As a result, on this trip I have way more photos taken with my own camera off the ship than on the ship (well as long as you don't count hot tub photos). The 8 x 10 photos are either $19.99 (restaurant photos or port arrival photos etc) or else they are $25 for posed photos. Either way they are way way too expensive, so in general I did not purchase those photos. IMHO Princess needs to get with the 21st century and offer photo packages. As an example, I bought only two photos this trip (and I was able to use coupons, so they weren't full price) - and I am a scrapbooker who usually buys the digital package on the other ships!

Heading into the dining room we enjoyed another really nice evening with our table mates. Since DS is our fish eater, he truly enjoyed the evening, and was very happy when the staff brought him a second plate of lobster after he ate his first serving in record time.

After dinner (well after 10 pm!), I still needed to top up my steps, so we headed up to the walking track. It had turned out to be a really nice evening, and both the pool and the walking track looked really great lit up at night, however at that point we were looking forward to a good nights sleep.

But as they say, you can't always get what you want, and after our relaxing and most excellent day, unfortunately the night (and sleep) were about to be lost, but we didn't know it yet :(

The first couple of nights when the ship was really moving fast we thought we were hearing a foghorn in our cabin (6082). Really. It was always somewhere between 2am to 3 am. But it was a cyclical/inconsistent sound in relatively short bursts at first. And, we were so so so tired that we attributed it to something passing by outside or else wind whistling through the balcony windows or else just our imaginations - however that 'imagination' caused us to lose sleep. By the night before Dublin things in the ventilation system had degraded to us being awake from 2-3 am to a sound so loud and for such an extended period that guest services could hear it over our phone. And it was still going when the night supervisor and company arrived 10 mins later. It turned out that part of the problem was a broken baffle (flap) that they discovered the next day. The noise did quiet down after 3 am for some reason, but it took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep. Which did not bode well for our port day in Dublin.

Eventually we decided to head downstairs for afternoon tea - only to discover that there had been a wine tasting held in the main dining room and afternoon tea was moved to Sabatini's - which happened to be directly opposite the library! But that's ok, I got much needed steps out of our walk to deck 5 and back. As we entered Sabatini's it was almost like they were expecting us. After we were lead to a very nice table, but then again most of the tables in Sabatini's are very nice, the servers immediately arrived with hot tea AND with hot gluten free scones! Score.

Seriously, the fact that Princess staff took up my casually tossed out challenge and managed to bake us gluten-free scones was truly customer service at its best (and yes, I filled out one of those customer service star forms for Julien and the afternoon tea crew - they truly deserved it). At the table I literally (mis) quoted Pinocchio from the second Shrek movie to my husband: I'm a REAL person!! (it needs to be said in a high squeaky over the top voice like Pinocchio did when he yelled: I'm a REAL boy!! :).

We have been on DCL and the Allure OTS (RCI), and although we always received great service when it came to gluten-free food, Princess went above and beyond in this case.

Afternoon tea had been a wonderful surprise, and we headed happily out of the very nicely appointed Sabatini's and back to our cabins to get changed into our swimsuits for our next indulgence, hot tub, mock tails, and pools. Repeat. Our Ultimate Soda and More package definitely paid off for us this trip. Between my daily mocktail, a daily hot chocolate and probably 2 daily pop on most days, we were comfortable that we got our monies worth, especially when I got to enjoy my mocktails in the hot tub each day :).

We were often joined in the hot tub by a passenger or two and the conversation was always enjoyable.

As much as I love port days those sea days sure are a blessing! I enjoy just lounging on the ship and the library looks like a good place to do that.

 

And my condolences on the recent shootings. Prayers and best wishes to our neighbors in the north.

 

 

Kristen

Many thanks for your kind thoughts, it has indeed been a tough week.

As for the sea days, we really needed a sea day after all of the activity that we packed in to Edinburgh! And I can honestly say that the library was a great place, not stuffy or staid, but comfy and cozy. And the other passengers had a great attitude.

Was hot chocolate free in the buffet?

Hi again. I do not remember seeing any free hot chocolate in the buffet, but then again I did not look for it either since we had hot chocolate included as part of our drinks packages. There was definitely tea and coffee available in the buffet, but that is pretty much all I remember as being available.

You are welcome. I hope I have been helpful.

 

And let me also thank you for all the information and pictures you have posted. And. of course, best wishes for all our Canadian neighbors to get through these tough times

Many thanks for your help, and for your kind words.

It was a 'Double Moo 7' kind of day for us :). In other words we were so tired after all of the activity that we had packed in to our two days in Edinburgh that we were more than ready to kick back and relax and take it very easy. And that meant from DH's perspective that he got to wear his 'I'm relaxing t-shirt' - the t-shirt is a Prince Edward Island 'Cows' Ice cream store shirt that is a parody of James Bond and his 007 personality. This t-shirt and his 'Angry Herds' shirt from the same store get him the most comments from other people. Seriously though, the t-shirt makes DH happy, so it was truly a Double Moo 7 kind of day.

As can be expected, we started the day by sleeping in and followed it up with an enjoyable buffet breakfast in the Panorama Buffet - it seemed that we could always find something we liked to eat for breakfast at the buffet.

Our next stop was one of our favourite places on the entire ship, the library. We had discovered early on during the cruise that not only was the library comfortable and cozy with all kinds of games available, but it was just one deck away from food and drinks. Lots and lots of food and drink. And happily, the other passengers who hung out in the library were fairly laid back and relaxed about it. Actually, although it was not a hard and fast rule, people who wanted to actually read or put puzzles together tended to settle themselves in on the starboard side, while those who might be a little more noisy while playing games tended to hang out on the port side.

Everyone who was there when we were in there however was respectful of others and of the purpose of the room, and that included kids of all ages. We actually saw more kids in the library during the cruise than we did any where else.

In general, we were mostly on the port side playing games together. Or rather DH and DS would play games, while I would work on the daily Sudoku puzzle that Princess provided or play Candy Crush on my iPad, and watch my boys. On this day, DS challenged DH to play Jenga.

DS mostly lost, whether that was due to DH being an engineer, to DS taking lots more risks, or to the motion of the ship just as DS would choose really risky moves and DH getting lucky, I'm not sure. What I do know is that the boys figured out very quickly the point in the game when they needed to be prepared to stabilize the structure, I.e. catch it before/as it fell in order to avoid loud crashing noises!

They eventually moved on to Chess and then Checkers, but it was the Scrabble game that was the most hard fought. As usual, DS kept trying to stick in words in French (since he is in French Immersion in school), while DH tends to approach spelling like a typical engineer - his vocabulary is extensive, but he spells words how he thinks they should be spelled, which means he and the Oxford dictionary are not always completely in sync. Overall, I was only required to rule on a couple of words during this game, and when DS used all of his tiles to end the game and DH added up the points, DH had won by just 9 points. And then DS started to ask questions about whether or not he should get a bonus for using all of his tiles - and I suggested that he read the rules and figure it out, which he did. And it turned out, that not only was DS able to point out that DH had to subtract the points from his score for the tiles that he had not used, but that DS got to add those 5 points on to his score. In the end, DS won by just 1 point - to which I pointed out the value of reading! It was indeed a hard fought and hard won victory.

And through the whole afternoon, I got up at several points and headed out onto the wind blown track to get my steps in. Given that it was windy and fairly cool, I would only manage to get a few laps in before I felt the need to head inside for hot chocolate and pop and sometimes treats from Panorama buffet. The library really was ideally located for casual afternoons.

I really am enjoying your trip report and pictures.

Glad you are enjoying the TR and glad to have you reading along.

Yvonne, we will be doing the OCEAN PRINCESS 8 day British Isle next year and enjoying your review. Your photos are very nice and you have a wonderful family.

 

It looks like Jersey was the last port before Dover? Am anxiously waiting to read what you did there.

 

Did you by any chance see any puffins?

 

Thank you.

 

paiagirl

Many thanks for your kind comments and glad to have you reading along.

St Helier , Jersey had the potential to be an amazing port! I would love to spend a week there, however we did not have time to see puffins.

Thanks for sharing, Yvonne.

 

Xlnt report.

 

Ira

Glad to have you reading along. MTF soon.

Answering your last question first, they just leave you off. We actually got off on our way back at the last stop before the ship (just a brief picture taking opportunity) and walked to an underwater aquarium. We asked and were told we could catch the next (last) shuttle if we were on time, and there were empty seats. We got there on time, and there were 2 seats left, so we did not need a cab.

 

We discovered the information about this shuttle in the British Isles section of cruisecritic.

 

In Milford Haven, we booked a ship's tour--a Welsh spoon making establishment and the town of Tenby. We bought a love spoon for ourselves, and one for a friend and neighbor who was making sure our cat got fed each day we were gone. In Tenby, we strolled around one of the beaches. We thoroughly enjoyed the day. Tenby itself, was basically a whole lot of shopping opportunities.

 

Before going on our tour, we started toward Milford Haven. We checked out a museum about the history of Milford Haven. It was mostly about the fishing industry. I'm sure that sounds boring, but it was fascinating. We spent so much time in there that we ended up not having time to get to Milford Haven proper before our excursion. (Actually, we had met someone from Wales earlier in the year who told us that there was nothing to do in Milford Haven.)

 

In St. Hellier, we went on a private tour set up by a member of our roll call. Basically, we were driven around and saw what sites there were. It was not really that much of a port. I did hear a passenger say that the Princess tour of the WWII German occupied sites was fascinating, but not really long enough to see everything.

Many thanks Ontheweb for helping get answers to people. It has been a tough few days in Canada, but we are moving on.

When we got back to Waverley Station to return to Inverkeithing, the monitors did not include Inverkeithing as a destination - after asking an attendant in an information booth, we discovered that we needed the train to Glenrothe (i.e. the train's final destination), which also stopped at Inverkeithing. Note, it actually left from the same platform that we had arrived on. Fortunately we had allowed ourselves a few minutes grace time at the station, which allowed us to find our platform on time.

The train ride back went smoothly, however the train seemed to stop at a lot more towns than it did on the way in to Edinburgh in the morning. Happily we were able to get seats together at a table this time, and we were more than happy to just sit and rest for a while. We also noticed Referendum signs at most of the train stations.

As we got close to Inverkeithing, I managed to take a photo of the ship from the train.

Once we arrived at Inverkeithing, we easily found a taxi waiting just outside the station to take us back to the cruise terminal and the cost was the same as the morning at £7. Back at Rosyth we only had to wait a few minutes for the shuttle, however the volunteers made it clear that we had to wait inside the terminal.

Once on the ship our first stop was our cabin to drop off our purchases and our next stop was the Cabaret Lounge to watch Captain America 2 - The Winter Soldier, playing on the big screen. This time DH and I sat up in the back where we had and un obstructed view of the big screen and I could pop out every now and then and pick up pop and munchies.

Somewhere around 3:45 pm, I popped upstairs and picked up 3 'take out' cups and then took the cups down to the main dining room and asked nicely at afternoon tea for some steeped tea. Apparently they aren't supposed to allow take out, but since I only wanted tea, they let me take tea away this time, especially when I made it clear that I liked their steeped tea so much better than the tea from just hot water poured on a tea bag. I found out later that the guys in charge of afternoon tea were looking for me since they saw me come in, but I disappeared with my tea before they could find me!

After the movie we headed up to enjoy hot tub time on deck 9. This was one of the first times that we tried out the hot tub on this cruise, but it would become part of our 'pre-dinner' routine for the rest of the cruise.

Each cabin had two blue and white striped towels for use at the pool, and our room steward replaced them each time we used them. I was also able to pick up a different mocktail at the Panorama Buffet bar each day to enjoy by the hot tub, so this was just another little perk that made our hot tub routine feel extra special.

and it was a nice way to pass the time together since we had late dinner, and the first show did not even start until we were scheduled to be in to dinner.

We headed back to our cabins by 6 pm in order to allow lots of time to shower and get dressed before dinner. Although all aboard time was 3:30 pm and we did indeed sail away shortly after that, we were still relatively close to shore as we sailed north and away from Edinburgh. Why was this fact memorable? Well, at one point I looked out the balcony window and said: Oh look there's a random castle! Must be Scotland. Googling islands in the Firth of Forth after we returned home, it turned out to be Inchcolm Abbey.

A little later we headed down to the main dining room for another enjoyable evening of good food and conversation with our table mates over dinner. Day one they had visited the National Gallery in Edinburgh in order to enjoy the art, while on day 2 they had visited St Andrews and had even taken a picture while standing on the 18th green, although they had not golfed.

Even the entry hall in the museum just outside the washrooms held works of art to enjoy while you waited!

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We left the museum before 1 pm and decided to make our way towards the train station as long as I could check out souvenir stores on our way along - and since there are a lot of souvenir stores concentrated around the Royal Mile, this had the potential for taking awhile.

In the end, we found a rugby shirt for DS as well as a couple of ridiculously priced geeky t-shirts that he hadn't seen anywhere else that made him very happy. Which is quite possibly how I managed to convince him to try on a 'Scottish Viking hat' - since I told him it would make his sister laugh! Coincidentally, when checking DD's photos when she got home, she had taken the 'matching' version of this photo.

I also managed to purchase a (mostly - in that it wasn't my usual ceramic, but was pewter) cheesy picture frame for me, as well as a set of 'bag piper salt & pepper' shakers. Actually we found the salt and pepper shakers in a souvenir shop just as we were entering the train station.

And yes, I also felt the need to torment DS and take pictures of some of the more amusing Scottish souvenirs.

We missed the flower clock in Princess Street Gardens on both our trips to Edinburgh. Where is it located exactly as I don't want to miss it again when we're in Edinburgh next July on our British Isles cruise? It looks more beautiful than the flower clock in Geneva. I loved the Museum of Scotland-- very well done and the architecture of the building itself is fascinating. You could easily spend the day there, but you hit a lot of the highlights!

The flower clock was located just off the street called The Mound as you enter Princes Street Gardens via the stairs off of Princes Street.

Specifically, the Mound divides Princes Street Gardens into east and west, you want to enter the west end to find the clock. You could easily miss the clock if you don't look to your right over the stair railing.

The National Museum of Scotland was amazing and I could have happily spent several hours there!

God luck finding the clock.

While on the 12 day British Isles cruise, Princess offered a shuttle into the city for a fee ($8-10) at a couple of ports.

 

We tendered while at Edinburgh, there was a shuttle (not with Princess) dockside for a fee that took you into Edinburgh. Did you see any like that, where you docked?

 

Did Princess offer a shuttle at any ports on the 8 day cruise?

The only shuttle that we saw on this trip was at Dublin.

I wish we went in there. Instead DW insisted we go to their other location to see the exhibit of American Impressionists. (Since she is the world's best elementary art teacher, I defer to her when it comes to museums, although I thought the listing of exhibits at the main site was intriguing. In addition to what you saw, I'm sure I would have enjoyed the Gauguin exhibit. ) The problem was that it was further away then she thought. They ran a free bus, but it only ran each way once an hour (except the middle of the day when they took a break presumably for the driver to have lunch). Too much of our precious time was wasted waiting for the bus to get there, and later waiting for it to bring us back. In retrospect, if we had realized how much time was going to be wasted, we should have considered taking a taxi. Also, the bus only seated 16 and did not allow standing. (They are very insistent on you wearing your seat belt.) We got the last bus back, and two people were actually denied boarding because the bus was full.

We truly enjoyed our trip to the National Museum of Scotland, but there is so much to see that sometimes you just have to take your best guess about what you want to see and go with it. I hope that your wife enjoyed the exhibit on American Impressionists. And on the positive side, you now have a great reason to visit Edinburgh again in order to see more!

Next up, we headed for the Kingdom of Scotland exhibits and I had no illusions that I would get to spend a whole lot of time.

Overall, I was happy to hit the highlights of the Lewis chessmen,

the Cadbahl chalice,

the Queen Mary harp

The amazingly intricately carved Celtic art,

and the replica of the sarcophagus of Mary Queen of Scots.

By this point, DS was starting to behave as if we had just crossed the desert, so DH suggested we enjoy a cup of tea and take a seat in a small canteen type area near the gift shop. This is also when we finally heard from DD who had been in a 'technical rehearsal' all morning and who was about to go back in to rehearsals for the rest of the afternoon. We are sad to report that we did not actually get to see her on our second Edinburgh day, even though we were in the same city!

Before we left the museum, we checked out the gift shop. I would have loved to have purchased a replica of the Lewis chess men set (side note: this is the chess set in the Disney movie Brave when the Mom tells Merida the 'ancient kingdom' story) but since it was £55 for the least expensive version and I don't play chess, and DS and DH weren't interested, and DD wasn't there to weigh in on my side, I agreed to give that shopping opportunity a pass. We did use the washrooms in the museum and they were very nice and very clean, which was definitely a good thing.

National Museum of Scotland. My goals in the museum were pretty simple as well since I knew that we were limited on time. We also really appreciated that entrance to this wonderful museum was free.

Once inside we were impressed by the physical space of the main display hall that we entered. There was so much light and open space available.

First we headed to find Dolly the genetically engineered (and now stuffed) sheep.

Although DH and DS were not wildly impressed with a 'stuffed sheep', I had enjoyed studying genetics in university, so I found the whole concept of Dolly intriguing. And need I point out here that I have a thing for sheep - Disney ones or not, Dolly was actually quite popular and had a line of relatively polite tourists lining up for a photo op with her.

We enjoyed wandering back through the park and headed across the bridge towards the green domed Bank of Scotland and onwards to the Royal Mile where the Fringe festivities were continuing in high gear.

We crossed this very busy street and headed for the National Museum of Scotland. Along the way we once again passed The Elephant House and soon spotted the Greyfriars Bobby pub, with the statue of Greyfriars Bobby in front.

DS however was getting tired of all this walking and sightseeing and was not all that interested to me discussing whether the cute dog had actually loyally hung around the churchyard for 14 years after his master, a policeman, had died, or if as rumour had it, that over the years the tale had been embroidered to encourage tourism (either way it makes a great legend). DS simply wanted to get me to the museum since that and any souvenir shopping I wanted to do was all that was keeping him from getting something to eat and a chance to sit down! This was also not the time to suggest a walk in the Greyfriars graveyard, so that will have to wait for another trip to Scotland.

This cruise is to celebrate our 25th - which is actually in June. I picked a sea day to celebrate but I'm pretty sure I told them the real date somewhere in the Personalizer.

 

Now we are taking this particular cruise because it nicely coincides with a class we'll be taking at Oxford (The Oxford Experience). It wasn't until somewhere later in my planning that I realized my birthday would occur while we are on board. So I'll be celebrating my 46th in Dublin. Can it get much better?? :D

 

Kristen

Woo hoo, clearly you will have lots to celebrate on your cruise :)

I tried to do the multi-quite option but it wouldn't let me - so anyways, thank you Yvonne for allowing me to hijack your thread (and for helping me hijack it! :D) and thank you to all who responded!

 

I think we've decided to go ahead and book the Tattoo on our own. We will leave early - that part makes me sad - but I probably wouldn't enjoy the last part due to the worry that Shogun pointed out.

 

Also, I'd been thinking we had to take the train to Rosyth. Somewhere in your TR you mentioned Inverkeithing. And I'm so glad you did! That actually opens up a few more train options for us relieving me of one more concern.

 

Again, a HUGE thank you for everyone's help. I do so appreciate the kindness shown on these boards. :)

 

So now back to the TR...

 

Kristen

Earlier this year when I was trying to figure out whether we should do a Princess excursion or book on our own, it was these boards that I turned to, so I am hoping that any questions/answers we manage to deal with here will help others in the future, with whatever decision they choose to make.

And you read correctly, that the train station for the cruise terminal is Inverkeithing - however Inverkeithing did not show up on the monitors in the Waverley Station, when we caught it back on day 2, it was the train to Glenrothes, I am not sure if that is the destination all of the time.

Despite all the worries at times, we did have a happy, and of course memorable, anniversary. Thanks for the wishes.

 

We actually "lied" on our personalizer, and said the next day was our anniversary. We knew that we would be off ship basically all day on our "real" anniversary.

 

The last time we were on a Princess ship on our anniversary, we had balloons on our door from day 1. On our anniversary day, we told the head waiter it was our anniversary (we were using anytime dining), and they brought us a cake for dessert. This time as we were coming back on the stated anniversary day from DW taking her morning swim and me having eaten breakfast, I was mentioning no balloons to DW. And then I noticed that our room steward was putting balloons on our door. At dinner, I heard our waiter whisper to the couple next to us "Are you in cabin xxxx, our cabin". I said that that was us, and they brought us an anniversary cake, and sang Happy Anniversary out of tune.

Most excellent that Princess did pull out the well deserved balloons and cake to make your celebration a little extra special. We have plans to be on a DCL cruise next year on our anniversary and will probably have to change our celebration date since our actual date will be our sail away date.

We however were on a mission, and that was to get a picture of the famous Ross fountain with Edinburgh castle in the background. Upon arriving we discovered that the fountain was under repairs. In recent years, the Fountain has suffered substantial water-loss through its stone sub-structure and it is currently switched off to prevent possible structural damage. We actually managed to get several photos, even with the small fence around the fountain, and despite the little kids on skateboards photo bombing us :) - it just made it more of a challenge.

Who knew just by looking at the Ross fountain today that it had caused such an uproar back in 1870 (approx) due to it being scandalous!!

Description from the internet: At ground level the fountain is decorated with stylised 'walrus' heads round the edge. The first tier of the central column has mermaid figures with overflowing urns, sitting on scallop-shell basins with lion’s heads between. Swags and cornucopia abound, and the bowls above have cherub-faced spouts. Sounds ok so far, but we honestly did not notice if the mermaids were 'appropriately covered' or not.

However near the top are four female figures depicting Science, Arts, Poetry, and Industry, seated between semi-circular basins. The structure is surmounted by a beautifully modelled female figure, holding the topmost cornucopia.

Daniel Ross, a local gun-maker ‘with inclinations to art and natural science’ saw the fountain at the Great Exhibition of 1862 in London, where it was described as “obtaining universal admiration”. He bought and gifted it to the city; it was shipped to Leith in 122 pieces in September 1869.

When it arrived in Edinburgh however it was described as 'Grossly indecent and disgusting; insulting and offensive to the moral feelings of the community and disgraceful to the City.' There was much wrangling about the siting of it, until West Princes Street Gardens was finally agreed. At that time these were private subscription gardens - and it was decided that it should operate 'on Sundays, and when the band plays...' It was erected and operational in 1872 but Ross died the year before without seeing it working.

All I can say is, how times have changed! We simply appreciated it for the intricately designed structure/artwork/photo prop that it is and we moved on without being scandalized :).

The park is truly beautiful and when we were there it was quite tranquil (since it was early in the day still), however I am sure that on a non-rainy, non-cold day such as when we visited, it would probably get quite busy!

DH found the War Memorial statue intriguing.

This area that is now the park used to be the Nor'loch, or a marshy area that had been flooded to make a lake as another means of defending the castle. It is also rumoured to be an area where they would drown witches - actually, if the woman suspected to be a witch drowned then it would be acknowledged that she hadn't been a witch after all, and if the woman didn't drown, then that proved she was a witch and she would be killed by another method. I believe that was the 'you lose some and you lose some' concept for any woman accused of being a witch back in the day. (And shades of Monty Python and the Holy Grail ran through my head as I typed that). The lake eventually degraded and became a sewer and supposedly when it was drained in the 18th century numerous corpses were found - not sure if that is the reason the park appears to be so green and well fertilized today!

Despite the history, I would have loved to have the time to just get a picnic (at the nearby Marks & Spencer) and relax on the grass! There was also a merry go round and other family friendly activities (bungee trampoline etc) in the surrounding area. And what appeared to be a 'London Eye styled ferris wheel', however we did not check that out either at this point.