Day 19 - Tue - 08/25/26 - Cobh (Cove), Ireland

This morning we had a later arrival than normal into Cobh (Cove) just before 10am.  There was a lengthy delay in receiving clearance from the local authorities for guests to go ashore.  So we just waited it out.  Once clearance was given, we scanned off of the ship and made our way along the waterfront to the ferry pier for our excursion to Spike Island.

Spike Island is located just off of Cobh in the harbor.  It was established as a military fort, the walls and many of the structures exist until today.  Later it was converted to use as a prison and then back to a fort during WWII, and then back to a prison.  In 1985 on my birthday, there was a major 2 day riot and it wasn't long after that the prison was eventually closed.  It's now a museum documenting the history of of its use.

To reach Spike Island, one must purchase a ticket which I did online the previous evening.  All we had to do was check in and get a thermal printed receipt to show at the gangway.

The ferry ride is very short and it was drizzly out.  We secured seats in the front inside of the little ferry named for the island.  That meant when we arrived at the island, we were last off of the boat.  It's a short walk up the hill on a paved road to the entrance to the fort.  Our guided tour wasn't until 1:30pm and we had arrived at 12:30 so it didn't make any sense to wait that long to start a tour of the island.  I had downloaded the guide, but that turned out to not be a helpful tool, so we ignored it and set out to tour the former fort, now turned prison, in a clockwise direction.  The fort is designed in a 6 sided star shape for defensive purposes.

For me the highlight was finding the complete 6" gun at Bastion #2.  I was able to take a "James Bond" type picture looking down the gun barrel from the breech end.  The rifling was quite distinct.  Most of the rest of the displays documented the treatment of prisoners over the years.

We had to be back at the ferry dock at 3:15pm for our ride back to the city.  They were very strict on who could ride on each ferry as the boats were sold out. On our walk down to the dock, we sampled local blackberries.  They are smaller than what we have at home, and were just coming into season. While waiting at the dock, I enjoyed a great conversation with an  Irishman who was visiting with his daughter and her family for a few days.

Once we arrived back at the city, we found a local grocery store to purchase a couple of 2 liter bottles of sparkling water (soda water) for the crossing. We also found, for the first time, liquid flavoring for the water (like Mio we have in the USA).  It was, of course, still drizzling.  Since we were just here 3 years ago we didn't hike the hill to the cathedral or the colorful houses, but we went in search of some authentic Irish stew.  After a few restaurants, none was to be found unless the last one which directed us to two of them:  The first required backtracking and the second, The Last Drop, was on our way to the ship.  Along the way after not initially finding it, an Irishman we met on the street confirmed that the restaurant was the place to go and gave us better directions on how to find it.

At the restaurant, we found the item on the menu, ordered it, and thoroughly enjoyed it along with some traditional Irish soda bread.  This restaurant was located just ahead of the bow of our ship.  After finishing this comfort food which turned out to be our dinner, we walked to the ship and re-scanned back onto it in the continuing drizzle. While onboard time wasn't until 7:30pm, we were back just after 5pm.

Back in our stateroom we removed our wet outer garments and hung them up to dry and I put my umbrella in the shower to dry. We then chilled out until time to go to the evening 7:30pm entertainment which was Mikey Votano from Australia.  He sang songs mixing a current song with a song from the past, played the saxophone and ended playing the piano.  It was an okay show for me, but it wasn't the best in my opinion.  The previous night's show was much better and more on target for the area of the world we were currently in.

We then attended two game shows and I participated in both.  The first was a blackjack game mixed with trivia.  Fortunately I was dealt an ACE so any face card or a 10 would allow me to win.  Most of the trivia were music clips which I'm not good at.  In the end two of us were left and the other player knew music trivia, so he busted me out.  The second game was called The Sky Is The Limit.  I was paired with a crew member and I couldn't see the question that had to be answered but my partner could and she bet on how many items I could identify. The other two players partners did the same thing and the player with the highest number had to answer the questions.  I won the first round by naming 18 flavors of ice cream in 30 seconds.   We did a number of rounds of this before reversing roles.  I played conservative and allowed the others to play and they generally lost.  Thus I scored their points and in the end to the host's surprise, I won!  The prize was a Princess backpack which I have been wanting.

Afterwards I went back to the room to work on my blog and Angela stayed to sing in karaoke.  Tonight we get an hour back which will be good.

I should note that this was our last European port and we have 5 sea days ahead of us until reaching Canada.  The ship left a bit later than I expected, but setting the departure time is above my pay grade.