Holiday in Ireland!

Saturday 29th May

I was glad I had packed thoroughly the night before, as I was suffering from hay fever and waiting for my anti-histamines to kick in! All packed and ready to go, we filled the car and headed out at 8:15am. The weather wasn’t too good, this time the weather forecasts had been right! It rained pretty much all the way to Holyhead.

We made good time, reaching Bangor in north Wales by 11:45, stopping off at a service station. I thought we would take about an hour to reach Holyhead, but we got to the ferry terminal by 12:30 at which point I ate my lunch in the car whilst waiting to board the ferry.

Finally we boarded and we had plenty of time to find a seat - if we could find one, that is….! We ended up parking in lane 6 on the far right which turned out to be the lane for large people carriers. We weren’t actually supposed to be in that lane, but the man telling us where to go was standing in lane 4 at the time and we heard his yelp of desperation as we decided NOT to run him over..!

We got out the car and headed up the stairs to investigate the ferry and its facilities. First off (and I didn’t manage to get a photo of this because I thought the abundance of people as we entered AND exited the ferry would think me very strange indeed, PLUS lots of moving around to get from A to B meant it would have been difficult to pause long enough for a photo), was a sign on the door which stated “Crew Only”….but the graffiti “of doom” between these two words made me laugh. I doubt anyone else saw it though. I know I should have taken a photo, but it was hard to stop with all the commotion!

So, it turned out that only two decks of the ferry were worth being on, unless you had booked a room for your 3 hour journey. Hmmm. It seems to me there were an awful lot of rooms on that ferry just for a 3 hour journey. More seating could have easily fitted up there….but hey, perhaps these ferries don’t just sail between Holyhead and Dublin. I have no idea.

The main deck where everybody seemed to be, was a hub of activity, from screaming children to most people wanting to order and eat their lunch (late lunch, as it was around 1:30 at this point) as soon as possible. There were enough places to get food, but it was the seating which was the issue, we thought. Most people seemed to rush in and order their late lunch straight away which meant that, by the time most people were on the ferry, there was very little seating available.

And this didn’t just apply to the seating near the food places. On this deck there was a “lounge” which must have consisted of about 50 comfy seats in total, and the “Stenna Plus” seating area which you had to pay extra for had around 150 plush seats. Of course. This is how they make their money. We then decided to go down one deck, and suddenly it was very quiet. Hardly anyone was around on this deck, and a very large redundant area in the centre used to be an eatery with lots of seating for diners was totally empty. What’s more was another “Stenna Plus” lounge which had a poster stating that “Stenna Plus is now located on deck 8”. Nobody was checking tickets here like they were on deck 8, so we went in and found the entire area pretty much empty and wonderfully quiet.

So we took our seats by the window and gradually the area started to fill up with more passengers as they stumbled upon the secret quiet deck 7. At 1:50pm we sailed off, and the rain had stopped but it was considerably foggy. Not a thing could be seen. We usually always go outside on the deck for the majority of ferry journeys, but today it was wet and foggy so we sat inside. The sea - thankfully - was very calm with the odd gentle swell, and I felt my eyelids drooping as I dozed on and off.

Until 3pm when it was announced that “Magic Matthew” would be performing on deck 7 in the lounge. Lots of children came to visit and take part of course, and he was a huge hit. It was a little noisy but it wasn’t too bad. I decided to get a hot chocolate for myself as I usually do on ferries, and a tea for Mathew. I was concerned about dropping it on the stairs as I had to go up to deck 8 to get them, but I was fine. Until I got back to Mathew and set down the tea on the table, only for it to slip and tumble on its side and spill all over everywhere!! Fortunately it missed his brand new book reader and he thought it quite amusing which was a relief for me, because it basically looked like I’d said “here you go!“ and thrown it down on purpose!

After we cleaned my first clumsy incident of the holiday up, we settled back down in our comfy seats and “Magic Matthew’s” act lasted half an hour, but some children decided to extend his entertainment until around 4pm when it began to turn quiet again and I could finally concentrate on reading my book until it was time to get back into the car and arrive in Dublin.

After getting onto the main motorway, we thought it was very strange that it was so incredibly quiet, there were only 3 cars within the space of a mile. The roads were easy to use of course, driving on the left hand side as we do in England, although it did feel like we were actually in a different country. The layout seemed very continental, having seen roads in France and Germany, it was more similar to that than English roads.

After driving around some of the smaller roads around our destination of Ardcath, we eventually found the right road to go THROUGH the place and found our accommodation for the week. The owner greeted us and showed us around the quirky little converted barn, it was small, only enough room for two people and not a great deal in the way of storage space! BUT it was cosy, with a log fire, stone walls with little recesses in which there were books, DVDs, CDs, mirrors were leaning against the walls in the corners, and every little space was pretty much utilised by something useful like a wine rack or a clock.

We unpacked, called home to say we’d arrived safely, had some salad and finished off our late dinner with a fresh home made scone and jam which the owner had left for us to enjoy. I thought he reminded me of Louis Walsh, he had a very similar face! He lent Mathew a decent road map of Ireland so we wouldn’t get lost again, and we settled in and unpacked.

No curtains in the roof-windows - or rather, sky lights - in the ceiling above the bed….I hoped we wouldn’t be woken too early by the sun and the birds the next morning!