This is it. The last post of our more than three week 2019 trip to Europe. Yesterday I told you about our short and sweet visit to Cork and Cobh and the next morning found us sitting at the dock in Dublin. But unlike previous cruises, we did not have to get off the ship. Celebrity, in their great wisdom, had decided us to give us an overnight stay in Dublin before we had to disembark. So we arrived on Thursday the 13th at 7:00 am and didn’t have to leave the ship until 9:00 am on Friday the 14th.
This left us with an entire day to do something else in Dublin. This might have been really important to us if we had not just spent three full days in Dublin before the cruise but that all worked out since we were going to the Guinness Storehouse to celebrate Bob and Holly’s anniversary by taking part in the Guinness Connoisseur Tasting Experience.
If we hadn’t already known quite a lot about beer, this would have been a super learning activity but we had pretty much been schooled in beer by Kathleen’s daughter Michelle and her husband Brian who are level one cicerones (the beer equivalent of a sommelier). Since we pretty much had the beer facts down pat, it was a very fun way to spend two hours with friends and family and drink a sample of every beer that Guinness makes (six to be exact) plus learn to draw the perfect pint of Guinness (as we had learned about Beamish the day before in Cork). By the way, one thing we learned was that the Guinness Storehouse has been named one of the top tourist destinations in Europe. It’s a really slick presentation and very well done. If you are in Dublin, it’s worth the time and cost.
Once you have looked at the pics below, our trip is done. We have been home for more than a week now and if you missed the story of our flights coming home, you can read about that by clicking here. We hope you have enjoyed traveling with us and I plan on returning to posting about travel in general for the rest of June and most of July…right up until we cruise again, to Alaska on July 26th on Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas with our kids and grandkids. Can’t wait.
In the meantime, since it’s summer, we are doing ship visitations and those deserve some posts as well. Last Thursday we went to Vancouver to tour Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, so you can watch for that one coming soon. This Saturday we are touring Norwegian Cruise Line’s Joy and I will get some info and photos from that one. Later in the month we will be on our old friend Solstice as well as Ovation. Watch for these.
My favorite food from my homeland is Guinness. My second choice in Guinness. My third choice – would have to be Guinness. —Peter O’Toole
And one other thing. On the back of every bus was the ad at right. Only problem was, it wasn’t true. We rode four different busses and my brother and his family rode four others. On only two of them were their live guides. The rest had almost unintelligible, recorded (with music) narration. Boring with a capital B.
