We will be leaving three weeks from today to begin our journey to Europe to board the Regal Princess. We have been trying to do more research on what to do in some of the other ports where we will be spending more time away from the ship. These ports include Stockholm, Greenock and Cobh. in addition we have done a lot more planning on what we’re going to try to do while we’re in Warnemunde before the start of the cruise.
We are both getting excited as the trip approaches and have done some preliminary work towards packing. Mainly this effort has focused on making sure all the extra over the counter medicines that we take with us are not expired. We always try to take some sinus medications and gastrointestinal medications just because we’ll be on the ship and may have limited access to some of these items. Luckily, most of the items that we had from our last trip are still within expiration or had just expired one to two months ago so we did not feel that they were old enough to throw them out. We will probably get rid of any of the unused, but expired items before we pack to return home to lighten our luggage as much as possible.
We also needed to get a few toiletries in travel sizes so that we do not have to carry full size containers with us. Those are some of the items that we can always use to lighten our load because most of them are used up or nearly used up after a three-week trip. I just don’t really understand why the travel sizes have to cost so much but I guess it’s a market that people have to have and so the manufacturers can charge about anything they want to. In most cases I’m sure the packaging cost more than the small amount of product they contain.
Since we’ll be gone at the end of one month into the beginning of another one there will be a lot of bills that we have to pay while we’re on our cruise. Luckily everything is done online and we can set up payments for most items before we leave. However there will be some bills that we won’t even have yet before we go that will be due before we get back so we’ll have to check those online while traveling. We keep a record in our travel planning book on what bills are due at what time so that we make sure that we don’t let anything slip through the cracks and get hit with extra charges. Unfortunately we have a lot of bills due in the first two weeks of the month so there will be a lot to keep track of. This is all a lot easier since we have direct deposit for paychecks and on online payment for bills. It used to be a lot more work when we had to write checks ahead of time and mail off the payments before we left.
This post is being written using voice to text through Google Chrome. It is a lot different than typing and you have to give it more thought before you start talking. I never did a lot of dictation when I was working, so I have to try to teach myself to think of what I want to say as I’m going. I was such a slow typist that I could easily think of what I wanted to say while I was typing. This system is a lot easier to edit because I can highlight words and say what I really meant to say the first time. Hopefully this will also cut down on errors in typing, however it will probably not do much to help my grammar.
Here is some of the updated plans for the following stops.
Stockholm, sweden
The port for Stockholm is actually Nynashamm, which is about an hour from Stockholm by train. The train station is about a 15-minute walk from the port and we hope to be off the ship first thing that morning at 7:00 A.M. There’s been a lot of good information on Cruise Critic on how to buy your train tickets at the port and what types of tickets to buy. The train ticket is actually a 24-hour pass for the train and also includes any of the public transportation within Stockholm.
Our plan is to ride the train into the Stockholm Central Station and then walk a few short blocks over to the City Hall and try to arrange for tickets later in the day to climb up the City Hall observation tower. They only allow a few people each half hour to go up the tower so it can be hard to get tickets unless you purchase them first thing in the morning. We will moist likely get ticket reservations for later in the afternoon. From there we will take transportation over to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a 1600’s sailing warship that sank in the harbor on its maiden voyage. It is the most visited site in all of Sweden and so we probably will have to wait in line for entry once we get there. Luckily you can buy tickets online ahead of time but those tickets do not give you access to entering any quicker, but do save some time waiting in line to purchase your ticket. They have indicated on their website that sometimes they do have a priority line for people that already have purchased their tickets online, but it’s not done all the time. From my research it appears that the line moves fairly quickly so we should not have to wait very long to get inside in any case.
After we do the Vasa Museum, we will probably spend some time wandering around on the island that the museum is on before heading on a ferry across to Gamla Stan, which is the old town area of Stockholm. If we have time we’ll just wander around in Gamla Stan and then some of the waterfront areas there. It is supposed to be really nice for photos along the waterfront. All of this will depend on what time our tickets are for the City Hall Tower climb. The City Hall in Stockholm is also where they have the Nobel prize awards ceremony dinner and reception. The ceremony itself is held elsewhere since the facility at City Hall is not large enough.
This will probably wrap up our day in Stockholm since we need to get the train back to Nynashamn and be on board the ship before 6:00 P.M. We sail at 7:00 PM.
Greenock, Scotland
Greenock is the port stop for Glasgow and Edinburgh Scotland. Since we visited Edinburgh Castle on a previous trip and it is a little farther away than our port time frame allows, we are going to try to do something a little bit different. This is one of the ports where they shortened our stay from departing at 10:00 P.M. to departing at 6:00 P.M., so we don’t have as much time to travel farther away from the port like we originally wanted to. In addition, we do not get there until 8:00 A.M., and so that makes for a fairly short port day.
If the weather is good, our plan is to take a train from Greenock into Glasgow. We will need to change train stations in Glasgow, which we have done before, and then will be heading to Sterling Castle. Stirling Castle is where one of the battles was fought by William Wallace in the days of the wars against England, as portrayed in the movie Braveheart. Nearby is also the William Wallace monument, but we may not have time to go over there to see it after touring the castle. Unfortunately the train rides will take up most of our day and we will not have a lot of time to spend there but it affords us something different to do. If for some reason the weather is not good and we don’t feel like wandering around in the rain to see a castle, we will probably just spend time in Glasgow. On our previous trip there, we did not any real time in Glasgow, all we did was use the train stations to go elsewhere. There are few sites to see there and so will have a back-up plan in case of bad weather.
Cobh, Ireland
Our last travel intensive port is Cobh Ireland. Cobh is also the last port before we start our 5 day transatlantic journey to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This is certainly a port where we do not want to miss the ship, but luckily, this is also our longest port stop. We are in port from 7:00 A.M. until 10:00 P.M., so that gives us a little bit of leeway to make sure we can get back before the ship departs. Our plan will be to get back to the ship before 7:00 P.M. anyway, we just don’t need to be gone that long and that gives us three hours of leeway.
We have been to Cobh before and that is where we traveled to Blarney Castle. We are planning to go to Blarney Castle again on this trip, hoping for some sunnier whether. It was a little bit overcast and rainy the last time we were there in 2009. The Cobh train station is right next to where the cruise ship docks so it’ll be easy to get a train and head over to Cork, Ireland. From there we will take a short city bus ride up to the Blarney Castle. Our plan is to be finished there around 12 noon and again, if the weather is good, take the bus back into Cork and then, from there, take a train down to Kinsale. Kinsale it’s a seaside village that is supposed to be very scenic. There is also a fort nearby call Charles Fort. It is located up on a bluff overlooking Kinsale, as most forts are when protecting a harbor town, and it is about a 40-minute walk to get there from Kinsale. The walk is supposed to be very beautiful.
If we are running a little short of time we can always take a taxi from Kinsale to the fort and then walk back to Kinsale. It is about an hour bus ride each way from Cork to Kinsale, so we’ll just have to see how our time is going and how much time we have to walk to and then also visit the fort. Once we’re back in Cork will just take the short train ride of about 15 minutes back into Cobh and head back to the ship. There is a nice cathedral in Cobh that we visited last time we were here, but I’m not sure that we will have time to visit it before it closes if we do all of the other activities.
This is all we will put in this update, the last update we will do will be shortly before we leave and it will give more detail on what our plans are for spending time in Warnemunde and nearby Rostock where we board the Regal Princess.