Rain Rain, Go Away - British Isles on the Legend Sept 13th

[Goldwolf]

I've never been to Loch Ness, it seems such a long way when you're down in England, but I know it's not really. It looks lovely. I probably should take a couple of days out to drive up there some time, if I didn't use up all of my vacation travelling the rest of the world! :)

 

It reminds me of a few weeks back, I was in Orlando at a conference talking to a guy from New York and he was telling me a story about how he flew from New York to London en route to Glasgow and the London to Glasgow flight was cancelled so instead he hired a car and drove it. I'm like, are you mad! And then he told me he went via Stonehenge as he had the car anyway. I've never been to Stonehenge either lol. Then I reeled off all the places in the US I'd been to that he hadn't. It's definitely a case that familiarity breeds contempt.

[CI66774]

OP - love your review so far. Great photos. I'm a little confused, though. You reference "Wales" while you were in Liverpool. Liverpool is in England. Am I missing something?

[Sargent_Schultz]

OP - love your review so far. Great photos. I'm a little confused, though. You reference "Wales" while you were in Liverpool. Liverpool is in England. Am I missing something?

 

We also went to Wales. Liverpool is close to the border. Cross the Mersey and then a hop, skip, and a jump.

[jenng1976]

Friday - Edinburgh, Scotland

Wow - does time ever fly? Already it's been a week since the cruise began and now we are in our third and final Scotland port.

And ... the SUN is out! Today is going to be a great day - I feel sure of it. We were up bright and early once again - our plans for the day were to take the train to Edinburgh centre, then go to Edinburgh castle (we had pre-purchased our tickets, and thankfully they changed the date for us), and walk the Royal Mile or whatever for the rest of the day. We had this view in the morning from our cabin:

 

 

After breakfast, we headed to Deck 2 near the Dining Room where the Priority people for the tenders were supposed to meet. Mind you - we didn't actually receive this information in our cabin, but we asked at Guest Services and they confirmed the location.

Luckily the huge group of Diamonds/Platinums that had been there earlier when we passed by before breakfast had already departed, so we were able to go right up to the Carnival ladies organizing the priority people. We were given FTTF stickers to put on our jackets and they radio'd ahead to the Tender people to see if there was room for us on the next one. Answer? Yes! Off we went following the one agent, down a few flights of stairs and joined the line of tender people from the lobby. They all had 21/22 stickers ... I have no idea how long they had waited for the tender, but we had waited all of 0 minutes to get on. Yay FTTF! It was worth the $50 just for that.

On to the tenders ...

 

Ok ... due to technical difficulties I'll have to end this post now and reboot the computer ... will continue either tonight or tomorrow morning!

Thanks to everyone who is following!

[Coolcruise02]

Great review and pictures!

[Clairescurtains]

I am so enjoying reliving some of our cruise with you.

We didn't go to Wales unfortunately, wouldn't pay what CCL wanted for it:eek: so we just wandered around Liverpool and had a nice, if rainy, day.

We enjoyed meeting you both and hope to cruise with you again some day.:)

[bridgetjonesni]

Enjoying your review and photos, although I'm sad you never got to visit Belfast in the end!

 

And also, for those still wondering, yes hotdogs are different in the UK. They're not the same frankfurter type texture as American hotdogs, but rather a large, meatier pork sausage. However it's very rare to get a good UK style hotdog from a fast food stand, as they use the cheapest sausages, which tend to be greasy and sometimes gristly. In a restaurant you'd be fine though if you're open to the different texture.

[idiebabe]

Looking forward to the rest of your review! :D

 

We really enjoyed Invergordon with the different Castles (Cawdor was beautiful), Culloden and Clava Cairn and our boat ride on the Loch Ness (even if we didn't see Nessie..lol)!

 

Enjoying your pics! :D Looking forward to your ones in Paris!

[jenng1976]

I am so enjoying reliving some of our cruise with you.

We didn't go to Wales unfortunately, wouldn't pay what CCL wanted for it:eek: so we just wandered around Liverpool and had a nice, if rainy, day.

We enjoyed meeting you both and hope to cruise with you again some day.:)

 

It was great meeting you too Claire! :)

 

Enjoying your review and photos, although I'm sad you never got to visit Belfast in the end!

 

And also, for those still wondering, yes hotdogs are different in the UK. They're not the same frankfurter type texture as American hotdogs, but rather a large, meatier pork sausage. However it's very rare to get a good UK style hotdog from a fast food stand, as they use the cheapest sausages, which tend to be greasy and sometimes gristly. In a restaurant you'd be fine though if you're open to the different texture.

 

Thanks for the explanation! That does make sense - since I did have a hotdog at another pub, and while 'different' than home it was still good.

[jenng1976]

Edinburgh - Continued

Sorry for the delay - fingers crossed my computer won't act up again today!

Where were we? Oh ... the tenders. After a short 5ish min tender ride we got to the shores of South Queensferry. From here we had a walk to the train station which consisted of 125 or so stairs, and a brief walk through the woods. Sounds intimidating, but it wasn't bad at all, plus there were signs guiding you along the way.

 

 

Once to the station - you could either use the Automated machine (which we did) or there was a ticket both. It was 4.80 GBP for a return ticket - quite the bargain! After about a 20 min ride - we were in Edinburgh!

 

 

[jenng1976]

Once into the City Centre - our first stop was Edinburgh Castle where we had pre-purchased tickets (and they were kind of enough to exchange for the proper date). It was maybe a 10-15 min walk up a fairly steep incline up to the castle.

There were lots of people there already - but nowhere near the amount when we left. This is definitely an attraction that is good to get there early.

We lucked out and a (free) guided tour was starting just as we got through the gates which was very interesting. A good tour guide can really make the history come alive!

After the tour, we walked around on our own - saw the Crown Jewels, the jail, and the various other buildings.

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

 

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

Continuing on ... I'm sure you've seen enough pictures of the castle and it's views!

 

By this time it was coming up to lunch time and we decided to find a pub for lunch. Also, I was starting to fight off a cold (it seemed many were sick on the ship) so my energy level wasn't quite as high as normal.

 

We walked along the Royal Mile and eventually found a pub to stop at.

 

 

After a relaxing lunch - I wanted to go back up and find some of the Cashmere shops we had passed earlier. I thought a cashmere scarf would be the perfect gift for me, my Mom (for looking after our kitty), and Jim's Mom (for looking after our house) would be perfect. Yes, the Dad's helped too but I knew they wouldn't appreciate a scarf!! And eventually we picked out 3 beautiful ones - which worked out to be equal to $175. So soft though - definitely worth it!!

 

We didn't really do anything else the rest of the afternoon - just walked around and headed back to the train station around 2:30, arriving back to the pier around 3. First, a few more pics from the city!

 

 

 

Once back to Queensferry - we were greeted by a GINORMOUS line for the ferries back! No priority line here unfortunately.

 

So instead of joining the giant line, we decided to stop in the pub across the street for a couple pints! As did many of our other fellow cruisers, the place was hopping! After one round, we popped out to check on the state of the line - still big - so we settled in for a second. What a hard life, haha.

 

After the second round, we decided to just brave it and hoped the line would move quick.

 

 

At this point, the line was moving along fairly quickly, since they had recruited a tourist boat to help speed the process. We were in a regular tender, but got pictures of them unloading the other boat.

 

 

 

 

So that was the end of our visit to Scotland - overall a beautiful welcoming place, and I'm sure we will be back in the future!

 

The rest of the night was the usual ... all the evening's kind of blended together so I don't really have specific memories of specific days.

 

Next up: Sea Day # 3

[jenng1976]

Saturday - Sea Day

Today is Sea Day #3 and we can sleep in! Definitely appreciated after several busy days touring.

Most of the day was spent reading in various places on the ship - by the windows on Deck 3, Lido in the covered section, our cabin - along with eating and the casino.

In the casino Jim even earned the "Drinks on Us" card - which we've never had before! This entitled him to drink for free while playing in the casino. Though it wasn't actually as easy to get these free drinks as you might think. While elsewhere on the ship (shows, dinner, etc) bar waiters were everywhere - in the casino they were hard to find! I think this was partially due to the fact that since it was a longer cruise - almost everyone who played regularly in the casino had earned the card by the end of the cruise. (I got mine the last sea day). But, a free drink is a free drink, so we enjoyed several.

I know it's not actually "free" since we had spent lots of money in the casino - but we budget casino money ahead of time as part of our cruise costs, so consider it as entertainment.

Tonite was also the 2nd Elegant night which we enjoy. Jim had bought a new suit for the trip and looked pretty good in my opinion!! :)

This is us at dinner - I like the set-up of the table for 2's here - since you are back to back with the other tables, rather than all smooshed together side by side.

 

 

 

 

Next up: Stavanger, Norway

[jenng1976]

Sunday - Stavanger, Norway

 

Today we were in Norway! Before our trip this was the port we were MOST looking forward to. We were planning a hike up Pulpit Rock and had been training all summer for it. We had gone on countless hikes up various ski hills and hilly hiking areas as well as bought proper hiking shoes since I read that good shoes were essential.

 

This is what we were expecting would be the payoff. This photo was taken by Mr. Radu from Carnival on the previous cruise to ours. Doesn't that look simply amazing?

 

The hike was 7km roundtrip - with about a 350m in elevation change (600 metres down to the water).

 

 

However - what did we wake up to? Rain. And lots of it. Sigh. But, we were still going to give it a go and see what happened.

 

We were ready to get off the ship the second the doors opened and along with another couple we met on the ship headed over to the Ferry Terminal. We would need to take a ferry to Tau, and then a bus from Tau to Pulpit Rock. We withdrew some Kroner from a bank machine along the way - however we could have used credit cards for both.

 

We caught the 9AM ferry and ended up at Pulpit Rock around 10:15AM.

 

 

 

Here are some pictures from our hike:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

It was here that we ended up turning around. I fell while crossing this mini-waterfall, somewhat breaking the camera in the process. I was a little banged up (my leg is still bruised!!), and we were nervous that since the rain just wasn't letting up, that if we continued on it might be difficult to get back in time. We didn't want to risk missing the ship and having to fly to Paris. We knew other people made it - but we weren't the quickest and it just seemed risky. Plus we were soaked and the camera wasn't working properly.

 

I still second-guess our decision today. Could we have made it? We'll never know - and I hope that one day we can get back there and complete it. I know even if we had made it that day, we wouldn't have gotten the great view, only clouds - but it's still so disappointing to work so hard and not get to the top. But, life is about the journey, not the destination, right?

 

 

Here is us crossing a "bridge" on the way back - obviously you can see how high the water has gotten. On the way there everyone was taking off their shoes/socks and hiking up their pants so as not to get wet - on the way back we were already both soaked so we just plodded on through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think we got to the stick man just after the 1.5km mark.

 

 

This picture was taken on the way up - but shows the type of rock path that we had to take most of the way.

 

 

 

After we got to the bottom - we had to wait about an hour for the next bus (we just missed one ... sigh again) and ended up back in Stavanger around 3PM.

 

There we had some leftover Kroner, 86 ... and thought we would stop in a pub and buy a drink (despite being soaking wet!). We asked how much a Pint was and the woman explained that they don't sell pints in Norway - only .4 or .6 (of a Litre). .4 was 79 Kroner so we got that, and left the rest as tip and we split it.

 

Well, .4 really isn't very big - 400mL (13.5 ounces) - especially when sharing - and if we hadn't been wet we would have bought a second with the credit card. But, we just really weren't in the mood and wanted to get back and out of our wet clothes! I will say it tasted DELICIOUS! Later on we figured out how much that beer cost us ... approx $20!! Yikes!

 

Norway has the highest standard of living of any country in the world, and prices to match! But hey, how many times do we get to drink Norweigan beer?

 

Anyway - after our drink we headed back to the cabin to drown our sorrows and have a very nice warm shower! It ended up taking a week before our sopping wet shoes dried out!

 

So that ends Norway - out of all the ports this is one where the rain impacted us the most. I know you can't control the weather but I so so wished we could have had a nice day here. Oh - and ironically - as we sailed away, the sun came out. Boo sun! I've never been so mad at the sun coming out!

 

Next up: Last Sea Day

[jenng1976]

Monday - Last Sea Day

Today was the last sea day - we slept in until about 9:20 and then ran straight towards breakfast. Unfortunately - we were too late to get a private table - if we wanted to eat there we had to do a sharing table.

I wasn't really thrilled about this, we had just woken up and I wasn't in the mood for chit-chatting with other people. But, it is what it is. Though if I could do it over again I would have gone upstairs to Lido.

We were sat at a table for 10 or 12 and there were about 9 people who were there with us. Nothing wrong with any of the people, and I put on my happy friendly face and chatted like a normal person would, but it's not really my thing. Plus service was wonky that morning.

I ordered omelette and toast, and Jim Melon, Yogurt, and Oatmeal. Jim got all his items pretty much one after the other right away. And finished them. While I waited and waited and waited. Eventually my eggs/toast came, but by that time Jim was finished. So then watched me eat. Very strange. Normally when we had a table for 2 we both ate at the same time. And it wasn't just us - most of the other couples were the same way. Those that ordered eggs waited forever, and the other 1/2 of the couple got their food right away. Considering this was our last dining room breakfast it was a bit disappointing.

And yes, I probably sound like a bit of a crybaby here! I admit it! I just really enjoyed our breakfasts just us. I'm curious at the split at dining room breakfasts/lunches how many people take sharing and how many do private. It seems like more and more people prefer just to eat on their own (judging by my unscientific poll of people in line ahead of us, haha). For those reading? What do you prefer?

Anyway - since we had breakfast so late, it wasn't too long until it was lunchtime! We made sure to get to the dining room at a reasonable time to get a private table. There was also a CC luncheon planned - but I totally forgot all about it, until we saw the Cruise Critic sign when we left. Oops!!

And the rest of the day was filled with this and that - we thought about starting our packing since we would be gone most of the day in Paris, but ultimately never got around to it. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!

Next up: Le Havre (Paris), France

[jenng1976]

Tuesday - Le Havre (Paris), France

Our last port! I can't believe it. We were going to Paris - sweet! When we first signed up for this cruise we talked about what we wanted to do in Le Havre. I knew that going to Paris meant a train ride of roughly 2 hrs each way, with about 4hrs sightseeing time in Paris. While a long way to travel for only 4hrs in the city - at the same time we had never been to Paris and didn't know when we would be able to get back, so decided to go for it.

I know some people warned us about travelling so far from the port, and what if we missed the ship - but I figured worst case scenario we would just fly from Paris to London. Not ideal, but I had my backup plan and wasn't planning on missing the train anyway! We also didn't book the last train back - there was one more that would have gotten us back very close to sailaway time, but could be a failsafe (which we didn't end up needing).

Anyway - back to Paris. I pre-booked our train tickets on the SNCF website for a total of 30 Euros return / person (approx $50). In comparison, Carnival's bus ride to Paris was $150/person. The train to Paris left at 0803, and we were planned to dock at 7AM, though it was closer to 7:30 by the time we actually got off. We shared a cab with some fellow cc'ers and were there in plenty of time.

Ok - I need to reboot again to access the photos. Darn computer!! Back in a flash.

[jenng1976]

Paris, Continued

On the train - we had one minor scare. Although I do understand some french, the announcements were all spoken very quickly so they were hard to understand.

At one point, about half the train got up - and I had heard the words "Gare St Lazare" in the announcement (our station), so I was unsure if we were supposed to stay on the train or get up. I was pretty sure we didn't have to switch, but SO many people got up I wondered! I ended up calling out "Parlez Anglais?" in general to the people standing near us waiting to get off and one kind man said "you stay here" when I asked about Paris. Phew! We arrived in Paris around 10AM, and our plan was to take the Metro to the Eiffel Tower. We bought a Day Pass and got off at Trocadero, where there was a beautiful view of the tower!!

 

 

Now, you may remember me mentioning my "somewhat broken" camera in Norway. Well, the buttons no longer worked, we couldn't zoom, and it turned off after every two photos (which was just a little bit annoying!). Plus we weren't entirely sure it was working at all - so had purchased a disposable camera on the ship as backup. Though it felt so old-fashioned to have to wind the camera and look through the small viewfinder!! We still haven't gotten around to getting them developed, hopefully there are companies that still do that!

But, as you can see it was a beautiful sunny day and we were in Paris - does life get any better? Plus it was warm too, 24 degrees!!

 

At the Eiffel Tower we were going to walk to the 2nd level instead of taking the elevator. This was partially to beat the lines, since there were none to take the stairs, but it also seemed like a neat thing to do. And had the bonus of being a little cheaper (5 Euros/person).

 

 

There was a viewing area about halfway, and another at the second level - total of about 25 flights of stairs.

[jenng1976]

 

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

We took the Elevator back down, since there happened to be one right there (and you don't need a special ticket to go down).

 

After that we walked down to "Vedettes de Paris" Seine river cruise company for a one hour tour. It was 13 Euros/person. We chose this company since it departed from the Eiffel Tower, and offered a bar on board! A large draft beer was 7 Euros. I think I started a trend since after I bought ours, several other people did the same!

 

Now, here is where the lack of zoom was a little annoying, but what can you do? We still got some great pictures!!

 

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

After the river cruise - we headed back to the Trocadero station, and took the Metro to the Arc Du Triomphe.

 

 

 

 

 

[karinad]

We prefer to eat alone, also. We were on the cruise before you and there was one evening that there was open seating because of the late day in Amsterdam. We got soaked that day and the last thing we wanted to do was sit and make happy talk with other people! It turned out nice. The other people seemed to feel the same way. The service was pretty fast, so we were out pretty quick.

 

We still say "no" to sharing!;)

 

Very nice review and beautiful pictures!