We returned to Sky Princess in Belfast cruise port late in the afternoon after a day’s excursion that had seen us visiting the Giant’s Causeway and stopping to take some photos of the Antrim coastline. We didn’t have time to look around Northern Ireland’s capital city because the docks weren’t really close enough to walk in, but should we find ourselves on a cruise that hits this part of the world again we’ll make sure to do so.
Often, when we’re returning to a cruise ship in port we’ll look out for our cabin so that we can point at it and say “There’s our cabin.” If you cruise then you’ll probably do it too. It’s like spotting a cow in a field and saying “Look! A cow!” It’s just one of those things you end up doing when you cruise; file it there alongside waving at people from your balcony as one of those activities that you don’t feel compelled to do when you’re flying or taking a bus somewhere. Cruising is a different way to travel.
Anyway, we couldn’t see our cabin because we had an aft balcony, so we were able to board without any pointing-at-things delays.
Cruise ports are generally not very attractive places, and particularly so when they’re simply additions to more traditional commercial docks dealing with huge amounts of cargo and ferries. We’ve seen worse, but Belfast certainly counts as one of those ports only a mother port could love. Puddle-covered tarmac, silos, cranes, a general feeling of isolation and despair.
Now, where Belfast cruise port does excel is in its wildlife. You’ll always see birds at ports – mostly gulls, of course – because birds are nature’s natural lovers of cruise ships. They just love the effortless way in which ships glide over the oceans and seek out interesting sights or new experiences. It’s far less common to see seals, though, but we got lucky after we’d returned to our room to freshen up a bit and have a drink on our balcony ahead of departure time. We ended up watching at least two seals swimming, floating around a bit, and sometimes going on extended dives for the best part of half an hour. A little bit of research indicates that these were harbour seals which, quite frankly, was a waste of researching time and I really could have guessed it if I’d given it a little more thought.
After Sky Princess started to move away from Belfast cruise port – and after the Love Boat theme blasted out across the deserted, industrial landscape – she made a 180 degree turn as she had been facing westwards and needed to head east. This brought into view the P&O cruise ship Azura which was in the docks undergoing maintenance ahead of her own post-pandemic cruising restart. Azura, to us, will always be known as “the poo ship” thanks to the – at time of writing – two short cruises we’ve had on her six months apart and the presence of a persistent odour both times near one of the lounges. It’s the sort of thing that could put someone off ever cruising on a particular ship again, but we like to give ships time to change, and perhaps one of the many refits and refurbs she’s had in the intervening years has addressed the problem, so – again, at time of writing – we are due to give Azura another chance to impress us in 2023 when we’ve booked a week in the Mediterranean hitting Italy and Croatia on her.
The sun was behind the hills around Belfast as we pulled out into the main channel away from Northern Ireland and towards Liverpool across the Irish Sea. Belfast cruise port may not have been pretty, but the sunset and dusk views back towards it as we left certainly were.
And so to the evening aboard Sky Princess. It won’t surprise anyone to discover that this followed the pattern of most evenings aboard cruise ships for us. There would be drinking, and there would be food. First up was a pre-dinner cocktail in Take Five. We were too early for the band but the venue was still a relaxed, quiet place to just take the weight off your feet and try some of the fabulous cocktails there. When the band aren’t playing there’s also a jazz jukebox you can select tunes from, although each time I tried it on this cruise we ended up leaving the lounge before the tracks I’d picked came up.
Our evening meal was our first chance to try out Bistro Sur La Mer, a new eatery on some of the more recent Princess Cruises ships. My wife enjoyed everything she had but I wasn’t so lucky with my choices; the paté en croute in particular was just this side of revolting, with a questionable texture conjuring up impressions of pencil erasers embedded in corned beef gelatine that came close to triggering my gag reflex. I also wasn’t enamoured with the location of this speciality restaurant with it being right off the piazza and subject to a lot of ambient noise. Still, there are more food options to choose from so we’ll definitely give this place another go.
Just because we fancied somewhere different to have some evening drinks after dinner we tried first the Crown Grill Bar, then the Vista Lounge. The first location was quiet, peaceful, and offered interesting cocktail options; the latter was more vibrant, with music playing, people dancing, lots of people-watching opportunities, but a more limited drinking range to select from, it being mostly limited to the core drinks you can typically get through the app.
In the next post in this Sky Princess UK cruise travelogue series we’ll hit Liverpool, the city in which I went to university more years ago than I like to be reminded of.