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“Live From:” Z and TB’s Magical Mystery Tour of the British Isles


Zqueeze1
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Again thanks for the photos, we've never been to Dublin--never as it been on the list, however it really looks like a place to go and enjoy the city. Well have to look at cruises that end or start in Dublin, wasn't in the plans-but thanks for the insight.  What hotel did you stay in? and did you like it? I'm guess it was central to the city? Rick

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We have been to Dublin and thoroughly enjoyed it.  My dream cruise is Dublin to Iceland including Greenland.  There are now nonstops to Dublin and Iceland from Dfw.  We are restricting our air travel to nonstops due to my aggressive RA that controls the ole body.  Much easier on me. There is a great sweater store in Dublin that only sells the really good stuff..cost shows but so worth it. 

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I see that you also enjoy "Murphy in the Morning" at the Coffee Connection! If I had found your Live thread before today, I would have asked you to greet him for us.

 

Adding my thanks for such a great blog.  Scheduled on a Reykjavik to Dublin cruise next summer, but was thinking it was too port intensive.  Your blog has me reconsidering that concern.

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We are staying at the Hilton Charlemont Hotel about q mile south of the city center. Although the room is small, the service is great an the food portions at the bar are huge. I would stay here again. It is also next door to a tram stop which, although convenient, we’ve only used once. The rest of the time we have hoofed it. 

I really like this city. It is clean and has great restaurants, wonderful pubs, and so much to explore on your own. In regards to security, I have felt safe everywhere. I would love to see more of the country.  

Z and TB

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Good Morning!  Last day in-country. Today is flyaway day, departing at 1540 to Dallas then Miami and scheduled to get home around 0200 on Wednesday. Long day, but, hey, it’s business class on AA’s 787-9 so let the champagne flow and let’s get home fast. We still have a full morning of touring today before heading to the airport. 

Yesterday can only be described as wonderful, breathtaking, and beautiful. We were picked up by Tony the cabbie who drove us from the Nav to our hotel on Saturday and offered to take us to see the Irish countryside. We were not disappointed. We left at 0930 and headed to Powerscourt manor where we walked through what National Geographic rates as the third most beautiful garden in the world. 

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We the drove to Glendalough to see the twin lakes and take a “short” 25 minute trail. Thirty minutes later, we were only half way through the trail and went into  Bataan death march mode to finish up because Tony was charging us 50 Euros an hour.

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I think he took pity on us because he took us to a pub for a pint of the superb Guinness beer which tastes so much better in Ireland. 

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Next, we went on a trek to see the Guinness lake which is adjacent to the Guinness mansion in an isolated part of the country.

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The scenery was expansive with rolling hills,  broad valleys, and totally breathtaking views.  

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We even saw lots of sheep, deer, and indigenous red squirrels. 

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We continued onwards back to town and were dropped off at Devitts Pun where we had lunch on Saturday and had to return for their seafood chowder one more time. 

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Overall, this six hour trek with Tony the Cabbie was one of our highlights of our sixteen day British Isles odyssey. 

Today:  Trinity College, Book of Kells, and Harry Potter library.  Then, we pack a fifty pound pile of clothes into a five pound bag. 

Z and TB

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2 hours ago, 1teach53 said:

We have really enjoyed you taking us along on your adventures! 🍺 Thank you ! 

Safe travels home, miss you both. ✈️ Wave to us when you reach DFW. 

Hugs , K & J 💞

This trip would have been so much better if you two were onboard. We only have an hour in Dallas, so expect visitors if we don’t make our flight. I’ll send you instructions on what The Boss likes for breakfast. 

Z and TB

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Hi, all. 

We are at the airport waiting on our flight and it’s here! 

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Barring any any maintenance or. Few rest issues, we should be airborne in 90 minutes. We had some snacks at the shared lounge, but I almost had a heart attack when I asked for my last Guinness and they served it in a can!  Yes, I cried again, then settled for some Spanish Tempranillo wine. 

Our morning soiree to is to Trinity College to see  the Book of Kells which is an illuminated book of four of the Bible’s gospels. It was a magnificent relic to see as well as where it precises which was used as the setting for the library in the Harry Potter series of movies. 

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Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and got ready for our departure.  Tony picked us up and gave us another running narrative which proved that there was so much more to see in this wonderful town. He took us by the Phoenix Park where the residences of the Irish president and US ambassador are located as well as a zoo.  If anyone is planning to visit Dublin, I highly recommend him and he can be reached at 00353 0861 728 079. 

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Oldest pub in Dublin

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Next time we write on this thread should be our “we’re home and why is the house in a mess” entry. 

Z and TB

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2 hours ago, Zqueeze1 said:

This trip would have been so much better if you two were onboard. We only have an hour in Dallas, so expect visitors if we don’t make our flight. I’ll send you instructions on what The Boss likes for breakfast. 

Z and TB

 

Ohhhhhhh 🤗 you are too kind! Hope we can plan a cruise with “yous” soon! Miss you! 

Eggs, bacon & a warm delightful cinnamon bun ( RSS memories) for TB 💞

Be safe, hugs 😻💞😻💞

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Hope the flight went well.  The thing I love about flying from DUB to the USA is the pre-clearance so landing is as a domestic flight.  No long waits for passport controls etc.  It is really civilised.  Plus I like the size of Dublin airport...very "human" !

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Thanks for such entertaining reports and great photos.

Hope your journey home was comfortable & uneventful.

 

17 hours ago, Zqueeze1 said:

He took us by the Phoenix Park where the residences of the Irish president and US ambassador are located as well as a zoo.  If anyone is planning to visit Dublin, I highly recommend him and he can be reached at 00353 0861 728 079

Is that Tony, the Irish President, the US Ambassador or one of the zoo residents? 😁

 

Looking forward to your next trip report, whenever that might be.

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We've only been to Dublin once (well, I've only been once, the wife had been several times) and we also fell in love with the city, the people, and of course the Guinness.  Your photo of the Oliver St John Gogarty brought back some fantastic (yet very, very fuzzy) memories of our last night in town - they play traditional Irish music upstairs and we were in there hanging out with a group of Italians drinking and telling jokes...they didn't speak English, nor we Italian - and we still had a blast. By about 2:00 AM my drunken fake Irish brogue was so good (?) that I had a group if college students from New York convinced I was Irish - turns out my brogue sucked and they were just drunker than I was!  

 

These posts make me want to go back so badly - I knew we had only scratched the surface of the city and now I realize it was a very light scratch at that...might cause us to rethink our pending vacation plans...

 

Thanks for the posts, the pics, and the chuckles.  Looking forward to your next cruise almost as much as I'm looking forward to mine.   :classic_tongue:

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Good Morning:

This is it, folks, our last official entry regarding our cruise/land travel. We had a nice nine hour flight from Dublin to Dallas which was highlighted by Quasimodo as the flight attendant and a really good meal. The flight attendant brought lunch but forgot to offer me something to drink, so I asked if I could get a club soda and she responded with “I’m working on it!”  All class. She also gave out headsets to all but me. She treated me as if I were her ex-husband/cousin who owed her money.  However, the business class seat was a very roomy, comfortable, and fully reclinable flat bed seat 

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and the food was actually very good to include monk fish with some amazing potatoes

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and dessert. 

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The flight went very quickly and I watched three movies while The Boss slept over the Atlantic (she threatened me if I posted a pic of her sleeping).  

This is one of our last views of Ireland. 

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We we already miss the hospitality and great food. 

Our flight to Miami was uneventful as we napped most of the way. However, we knew we were home when we had to do the Miami airport shuffle that includes:

-Walk four miles from the gate to baggage claim (this is at 0200 at an empty airport)

-Wait thirty minutes for luggage to come out

-Watch as the first piece of luggage is ours, then wait another 20 minutes for the next piece despite having priority stickers on them

-Get on a cab with the check engine and low tire pressure lights on, cabbie had to be told by me to put his seatbelt to shut up the bell reminding him he wasn’t wearing it 

Regardless, we got home safe and sound after a wonderful trip. 

But, wait there’s more!!!  We walk in the house to find out that we had an unexpected houseguest. 

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Cobi is a Boston terrier who belongs to our niece who is out of town. He is such a good boy, but our cats don’t like him. He’s a lot like me in that we both take meds, are hairy, and a little stinky. However, he takes his meds with butter whereas I use water. 

Anyways, the best thing to close out a wonderful trip is a hot shower and sleeping in our own bed (no pics). 

Today is unpacking and washing day as well as picking up groceries for tomorrow’s festivities. I feel as if I went a couple of rounds with Rocky Balboa and need a coupe of days to recuperate. 

Thanks, everyone for letting us share our adventure with you and thank you all for the nice comments. I’ll leave you with a pic of a cottage from St Stephens Square in Dublin which Pam fell in love with. 

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Take care and be safe. 

Z and TB

Edited by Zqueeze1
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3 minutes ago, Mudhen said:

Happy 4th and welcome home! So looking forward to your next adventure! Where are we going again? Forgot!

J&L

We are scheduled to go on a western carib cruise onboard the Explorer in Jan 2020.  However, we are considering rescheduling for a Miami-New York southern Carib cruise onboard the Splendor in April 2020.  I'm hoping we reschedule because it is a more interesting itinerary, the possibility of catching a Yanks game in New York, and we know several folks who will be on this cruise.  The down side is the cost which means we would most likely cancel our June 2020 Montreal to New York cruise meaning only one cruise in 2020.  But, it will keep us on a Regent schedule of one cruise every nine months or so.  

 

BTW, the mini pub crawl in Dublin reminded me of the one we did along with Jackie in Malaga, Spain which was just awesome.  We even toasted the Bloody Mary and Margarita Society members.

 

Take care and have a great day.

 

Z and TB

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Good Morning:

 

I just looked at this thread on my laptop for the first time, since we did all our blogging and pic taking on my Iphone X druing our trip.  Although it is very convenient to do it all on my phone, picture quality suffers especially closeup shots.  I need a solution where I can simplify taking pics from my camera and transferring to my Iphone for uploading.  Thoughts?

 

Happy Fourth of July!!!

 

Z and TB

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41 minutes ago, Zqueeze1 said:

Good Morning:

 

I just looked at this thread on my laptop for the first time, since we did all our blogging and pic taking on my Iphone X druing our trip.  Although it is very convenient to do it all on my phone, picture quality suffers especially closeup shots.  I need a solution where I can simplify taking pics from my camera and transferring to my Iphone for uploading.  Thoughts?

 

Happy Fourth of July!!!

 

Z and TB

I have an adapter I bought at Apple that I just plug memory card into and then plug into iPad.  Bet it work for phone too. 

I vote for Splendor...we will be on it😀.

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