Sunday, 20 September 2009
The British Isles, Day Four, Part II: Crossing the Irish Sea
This is an article in my ongoing series about our trip through the British Isles. Earlier articles include the Introduction,Stonehenge, Oxford, Driving to Wales, and Anglesey.
So on the afternoon of the fourth day, we left the United Kingdom and set sail for Ireland. The Holyhead-Dublin route is the most direct route to Dublin from Great Britain, and as such it is one of the most heavily-traveled ferry routes in the world. As a result, the ship we sailed on was huge—in fact, the largest car ferry in the world by capacity: Irish Ferries' Ulysses. I was glad to be able to book this ship because travelling in this manner made what would otherwise just be a matter of getting from point A to point B into something of an event in itself. Our ship was massive, and included a movie theatre, shopping area, restaurants, casino, video arcade, and children's area.
If I thought it was exciting to board the Ulysses, though, that was nothing compared to the rest of the family! Emilie found us a lot of great Irish-themed souvenirs in the shops (including some Irish socks that James still smiles and points out to us every time we put them on him), but by far the biggest fan of the ship was our toddler. James loved this part of the trip—more than anything else we did and more than anything else we've ever done with him, really. The playground kept him occupied from the time we boarded until it was time to go—he even skipped his afternoon nap, to our slight chagrin. But we were happy to see him have such a good time.
For those without children, the movie theatre must be a great way to sail to Ireland. Having two hours of the voyage taken up while seeing a movie must make the trip fly by, but for parents with young children like us we were not able to partake of that particular luxury.
Welcome to Ireland, Have Euros Ready
The strangest thing upon arriving in Dublin was that immediately on exiting the port area we were confronted by a toll, which we had to pay in euro coins. We were lucky to have these on hand, but for a lot of people who probably get off the boat still only having British pounds sterling this could be quite a shocker. There is literally no time to stop or withdraw cash anywhere before you hit the toll. So, word to the wise: if you take this trip, be sure to have euro coins or get some money changed on the boat before you drive off!
From there we went to our hotel, but as will become apparent in the next article, that is something deserving of an article of its own. So for now I'll just say, "stay tuned" for Day Five: Dublin and the Radisson St. Helen's.
