I’d booked the 11:50 ferry so there was no real rush to leave The Quay. We aimed for a 10:15 departure, managed 10:30 after a hearty smoked fishy breakfast.
Easy run to Holyhead though and enjoy the benefits of “club class”, being waved through onto the ferry ahead of the rest. It all seemed very well organised.
Club class threw food and drink at you, not that we needed it – note for our early morning return leg. A very gentle ride – less sway than a Palladino train – even though it was heaving with rain.
Arrived in very wet Dublin – trusty satnav taking us to the Fitzwilliam quite quickly. Surprisingly pokey room for the superior price, following a long wait for the room to be made ready – spent 1430 to 1530 chatting with Patrick the concierge. Also freezing cold room and this was explained as eco-policy to keep the heating off until 20:00 – agreed to turn it on at 18:00 and provide us with an oil radiator rather than the poxy fan heater they originally offered.
Feeling quite miserable, we ventured off in the rain to catch the Book of Kells before closing time. We wandered back via shops, Brown Thomas for example.
The radiator still hadn’t arrived by the time we got back, so I got onto the guest relations manager, Jaarko, who ran around sorting some stuff out for us and apologising profusely.
We took dinner in Citroen, the mezzanine restaurant, where the food was very good. Daisy had beef (steak-like) with the marrowbone and I had gigantic prawn skewers – no starter or desert – but Daisy had Irish coffee in the bar, while I finished off the wine. The Fitz insisted on picking up wine bill for our trouble earlier which was nice but we prefer to buy our own wine and have no trouble.
Photographs from the whole of our trip to Ireland are gathered in an album on Flickr, click here.