The last time I was remotely near Liverpool was as a 16 year-old, when I organised a coach trip to the British Grand Prix, held that year at Aintree. Fellow cruiser Mal has said to us several times that the World Cruise should add Liverpool to the itinerary, so we were interested to see whether or not we agreed.
We docked in time for the 8am schedule and I’d had a far from good night, but the corridor Tannoy announcement was the real wake up call. (By the time we have switched on the TV set and found the correct channel to hear announcements, they have finished. I’ll explain the TV system in a later piece on the Royal, as it is totally different from the other ships.)
I managed with just a banana and a vegetable juice for breakfast, but either the cement pill worked or whatever had upset me had gone – or both, but I wasn’t taking any chances...
We’d docked on the port side and it seemed as though there were dock staff everywhere. We followed the queue towards the nearest footbridge out of the dock where we were directed by the port staff Jobsworth 1, to turn right, following the path the full length of the ship, where Jobsworth 2 turned us around and sent us all the way back to Jobsworth 1 at the first bridge! You’d think that even without two way radios, semaphore or a wave would have communicated the correct bridge to use. So, we walked virtually the length of the ship yet again, to exit the dock base and then go towards the front of the ship to the dock security exit gate. Ho hum. The joys of travel.
About 30 yards further on, there was a taxi rank and also a solid block of cars we subsequently found out were queuing for the Isle of Man car ferry.
There were two HoHo bus options, the usual Red City Sightseeing and a yellow bus. There was a crowd at the door of the red bus so we opted for the yellow for a change. Good choice. Just £6 each and a live commentary from Tony. He sat upstairs at the front and although not in the same league as Dublin’s Greg, he was still very good.
We can now understand why Liverpudlians are so proud of their city. Although much is made of the Beatles and the Liverpool Football Club, as we really enjoyed what we saw of the city. Unlike the hemmed in by skyscrapers of New York, Liverpool manages to be a big city, but the centre also has lots of fairly open spaces and many magnificent buildings.
A great tour and a good commentary, that finished a short block back from the wharf. At long last Liverpool has really made something of their most famous sons, The Beatles, not just with Beatle souvenirs and tours, even a hotel, (see pic) but with ‘The Beatles Story’, adjacent to the inner dock.
A word of advice here. Buy your tickets in advance! We didn’t. So, having queued for half an hour, we had only just reached the foot of the steps leading into the building housing the exhibition and with the prospect of another 20 minutes - just to get tickets, whilst people with tickets just sailed past in ever increasing numbers, we gave it away. Although we like the Beatles, we are not in any way obsessed, so we retired to the warmth of the adjacent coffee shop. No need by now to say who that was.
Suitably warmed, we basically explored the inner harbour area and found that unlike most tourist spots, shop prices were on the cheap side - and that even included art prints as well as clothing and accessories. Whilst Paula was spending a small amount of money, I watched the action on the water, as this was the day before a Red Bull, (Albert) Harbour Reach event. Although this would probably include jet-skis, what we saw was a very clever powered zip line with water-boarders jumping ramps etc. Some of the lads were practicing. Rather them than me, but if nothing else, this Albert Dock area was a great place to spend time. We didn’t need the shopping centres but the sweet shop had a very good display of jellybeans as a portrait of the Beatles. There are several displays and exhibitions plus a large modern museum in the area and one exhibition was ‘The International Slavery Museum’. We passed on that. There were several decorated ducks ready to be placed around the City auctioned for charity. We won’t be bidding.
We totally agree with Mal that Liverpool should be on the World Cruise itinerary. The city has much to be proud of and is a match for almost any European City and like several UK stops, the city has far less graffiti than most would expect.
Back on board, I was happy to have survived. We didn’t lunch as such, we had nana naps. I grabbed a bowl of soup later, being very careful. To be fair, the soup was that good - chicken gambo (their spelling) and with some added ‘pulled pork’, I did have two bowls. Delicious.
Now I am not too sure how many the Royal’s theatre holds, but I am guessing at about 700. With over 3,000 passengers, why oh why, did they only have two performances of arguably, one of the best acts on any ship, the Beatle’s Tribute? Lesser acts may have had 3 shows, but with only 2, no wonder the theatre was overflowing. We were almost 30 minutes early for the first show, and to get a seat along the centre line, the upper block was already full, so we went down to the lower block, three rows from the front.
A tremendous show, as expected. We have now seen this group 3 times and we are sure 1 or maybe 2 of the performers have changed, but it made no difference. A total standing ovation – even from the younger bloke sitting immediately in front of us, who never applauded a single song, or made any indication that he enjoyed it, as throughout the whole performance, he seemed more interested in hiding the fact that he was slyly puffing on an e-cigarette. He probably only stood because everyone else did…
There is no better place to watch a Beatles tribute show than Liverpool, so full marks to Princess for getting that scheduled.
We then had a wander up on deck - wrapped in blankets, as we hadn’t seen the dancing waters display, this time, to Frank Sinatra. (The Princess Patter says that tomorrow, the theme is ‘Rain’ – weather permitting…).
It was very cold up there and Paula is continually prodding me and reminding me that I was taking her away for a summer.
Another new port for us tomorrow – Belfast, scene of so many problems in the past. We haven’t booked anything, so again, if the weather is OK, probably another HoHo bus.
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