Another short night and a new port to explore

  Dublin, Ireland
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

We arrived in Dublin, Ireland almost an hour late.  Remind me to speak to the Captain about time management!  Skies were overcast, a little breezy and the high was about 58 degrees.  After breakfast we disembarked and secured a taxi for a ride into the city.  I don't know if it was a conspiracy or what, but every taxi we approached supposedly was already hired.  I reboarded the ship and asked the Concierge, Ricardo, to call us a taxi.  Huh, suddenly a whole swam of taxis appeared!
 
John's laptop had refused to boot up the first day we set foot on the boat even though it was working fine in London.  Since we wanted to download our camera memory cards every night, we hoped to get the problem fixed here in town.  Concierge Ricardo found a computer store located in the northern working-class area of Dublin.  Our cab driver knew the area well because he grew up there.  In fact, the store was in the old schoolhouse that he attended!  We dropped off the laptop and the driver took us back downtown leaving us at the Dublin City Hop On Hop Off bus stop.
 
We rode the entire route once while listening to the driver's entertaining commentary on what we were seeing.  The second time around we got off and toured the Old Jameson Distillery were Irish whiskey was first produced in 1780. 

Old Jameson Distillery

At the tour's end we were rewarded with a Jameson Whiskey signature drink blended with either cranberry juice (English), ginger ale (Canadian), Coke (US) or straight up.  John chose Coke and I enjoyed the ginger ale version.  Let me just say that their "samples" were very generous portions - possibly a 6 oz glass.
 
So we staggered, I mean, walked, back to rejoin the bus tour to our pre-arranged taxi meeting point.  Unfortunately, time was running short and we had to secure a new driver.  Bad news - the computer was diagnosed as having a bad hard drive.  Good news - there was no charge.  More bad news - the ship was leaving within the hour and we were on the far side of town during rush hour.  More good news - we arrived at the ship with 10 minutes to spare!  Yoo-hoo!!
 
We hadn't eaten since breakfast so we grabbed a hamburger at the Poolside Grill then headed back to the room to watch the ship sail out of Dublin port.
 
Later that evening at dinner John had his now usual Caesar Salad, Roast Turkey and Chocolate Imperial with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  I chose the San Francisco Crab Cake for appetizer, Spinach Salad, Boneless Marinated Chicken Supreme served with steamed green beans, carrots, broccoli and (gag) cauliflower and No-Sugar Chocolate Ice Cream.  Did I mention that Celebrity makes all of their ice creams daily right onboard?  Every day they have the standard chocolate, vanilla and will have a different selection of sherbets and other yummy flavors like strawberry or cinnamon.
 
After dinner we checked out the casino and each played $10 on the video poker machines.  John lost his money within 5 minutes and watched me play a few minutes longer until my money was gone.  Since were obviously weren't meant to be millionaires, we watched roulette for a while then waited with high hopes that we'd win a raffle prize.  I came within 2 digits of winning a nice Celebrity prize package, but someone else got to enjoy it instead.  We left the casino dejected, empty-handed and $20 poorer.