Today we are visiting Greenock, Scotland, but for much less time than was originally scheduled. We were able to sleep in this morning due to the delay in at Greenock caused by the electrical issue at Kristiansand, and strong headwinds during the voyage to Greenock. We were scheduled to arrive at 11:00 AM, but then the Captain came on the intercom system and informed us it had been revised to 11:30 AM, due to the rough sea conditions last night. He had to slow down the ship due to 12 meter waves, and that further delayed our arrival. Of course, we can’t stay any longer than currently scheduled due to the ship having to arrive in Dublin tomorrow at high tide.
Sailing On The River Clyde
It was a nice morning as we made our way up the Firth of Clyde and then the River Clyde into Greenock. There was a lot of sunshine, and although it was windy, we found some protected areas on the stern of the ship at the Outrigger Bar. There were some rain showers in the vicinity, but they mostly missed us, but did provide us with some nice rainbows.
The ship was secured in the berth in Greenock by about noon, and we knew from past experience that getting off the ship in a timely manner was not going to happen, everyone was ready to get off all at once, and now we were about another hour later than had been announced yesterday. People were antsy to get going on their tours and there were long lines forming before they even finished tying up the ship at the pier.
We opted for going to lunch instead, and let the lines dwindle down, so we headed to the Horizon Court Buffet to eat. While we were at lunch, an announcement was made that there was some problem with getting the gangway ramps secured and there was going to be even more delay getting off the ship.
After finishing lunch, we went back to the cabin to get our gear, and went down to the gangway. There were still long lines to get off the ship. We got in the shortest line we could find and it moved along fairly quickly until a large tour group from the Princess Theater arrived at the gangway, and they were allowed to merge in with us in the existing line. I guess they have priority so that they can get to the ship sponsored tours they had paid for.
It was very crowded ashore, everyone was trying to get information at the terminal, and needing one of the free maps of Greenock they were handing out. We did not have much of a plan for today other than to scout out the location of the train station in case we ever visit here again. The available directions online to walk to the station from the port were hard to follow. We also needed to turn in our old, expired one pound sterling coins we had left over from a previous trip at a bank to get the newer version that were actually usable.
With map in hand we headed in the general direction of the train station, and found a bank, where we exchanged our coins. The tricky part of the route to the train station were the directions about taking a shortcut through a large indoor mall. We do not recollect this mall being in existence when we were here in 2009, and getting to the train station had not been that hard. Since the mall may or may not always open early in the morning, we wanted to find the alternate route around the mall since we would most likely be trying to get to the train station earlier than the mall opened on any future trip.
First, we tried to the right, and were unable to find a road with a sidewalk on that side of the mall that went all the way around, only one that went halfway. Next, we tried to the left, and after a couple of reroutes, we finally figured out the correct way to go. There were a couple of tunnels for pedestrian crossings on this side of the mall, and we chose the wrong one the first time. Once we went through the correct pedestrian tunnel crossing, we found the end of the mall, and could once again use the map we had for the directions to the train station. This area was familiar to us from before, we recognized a couple of the unique buildings.
A Familiar Building in Greenock
We walked up the hill to the small station. There was not really any building, just a couple of platforms and ticket machines. With this mission accomplished, we headed back to the mall to check out that route, and see what stores were inside the mall. It was a nice mall, and quite large. We visited a couple of stores as we walked through and noticed that there were signs everywhere, specifically to show directions inside the mall for both the train station, in one direction, and the cruise terminal in the other direction. This would certainly make the trek to and from the train station easier, as long as the mall was open, at least the interior areas outside of the stores.
We visited a couple more stores on the main shopping street, and started to head back to the ship. We stopped at a Lidl Grocery store and bought some diet cokes and some laundry pods. We were out of the laundry pods we had brought from home, and only had one packet of liquid tide left for washing clothes. The smallest pack of laundry pods in Lidl contained more than we needed, but the box of 25 pods was less than the cost of a single box of powdered detergent on the ship.
Stephanie, The Bagpipe Player
With these supplies in hand, we headed back to the ship and dropped them off at the room. We wish we had more time here to do the plan we originally had, visiting Stirling Castle, but that was not in the cards.
After dropping off all of our gear and supplies, we headed back off of the ship to visit some of the stores in the cruise terminal. We had briefly gone through them on the way in, but wanted to drop off our backpacks in the room and come back to spend more time at these shops without the weight of the loaded backpacks. Stephanie posed for a “Scottish” picture behind a prop of a bagpipe player while we were on the way back into the terminal.
We purchased a couple of souvenirs, one being a cute wooden replica of the Loch Ness monster. It is in shaped pieces that look like the monster sticking up from whatever surface the various pieces of the body are sitting on. We also purchased a couple of wool scarves. We headed back to the ship after shopping. After dropping off our purchases at the room, we went to the pool deck to enjoy some of the sunshine while the ship was not moving. The wind made it chilly, but out on deck, in wind protected areas, it was nice.
There was a Scottish Music and Dance show scheduled for 4:30 PM, so we headed to the Princess Theater for the performance. We had seen a couple of bagpipe players getting on the ship when we had returned from our adventure, which had reminded us about the show. We went to the theater about 30 minutes early, and had no problem finding seats. The theater got really crowded by the time the show started. There was mostly dancing and singing, along with a violinist who played traditional Scottish music. All of the performers were local talent. It was good, but we had wanted to hear more bagpipe music, they had only played one bagpipe song at the beginning of the show.
We headed to Vines for a glass of wine, and shortly thereafter, the ship was getting ready to sail. There were some bagpipe players outside on the pier playing while the ship was preparing to sail, and Stephanie went outside to listen to them play. It was a much smaller group that we had seen last time we were here, that band had been quite large.
Later on, we went to the Horizon Court Buffet for dinner, and then to Crooners for a nightcap before heading back to the cabin. Tomorrow is potentially an early wake up call for our day in Dublin. The ship arrives at 3:30 AM to coincide with the high tide, and will be tied up at the pier and letting off passengers at around 5:30 AM. We won’t be getting off that early, probably around 8:30 AM. Unfortunately, we also have an early departure time to meet the timeframe for the next high tide around 3:30 PM in the afternoon.