Monday, September 1, 2025

Day 9: Sea Day (Monday, 01 September 2025)

Cruise Compass

Dinner Menu: A Taste of the UK

Today’s Weather

Location at Start of Day

View From the Port Webcam

Location at End of Day

When first thinking about the trip I had assembled a lot of self-led walking tours of various ports because, with the exception of our Alaska trip, we’ve generally avoided official shore excursions and I expected we’d follow the same approach this trip.  However, as we got into 2025 I started to have a change of heart, and Greenock was the first port where I proposed a sponsored excursion.  Specifically, I found an option to take a bus trip in order to see Stirling Castle. This was an “official” RCCL shore excursion, so we finally got to experience their process for ship-sponsored tours.  The excursion was 4:40 in length, departing at 9:00A, which suggested that we’ll only have about 2 hours at Stirling itself – but we’d see how it went!

It actually went quite well.  Our received our tickets in our stateroom upon arrival, and then reported to the Theater around 830A where we were giving an excursion number label that we adhered to our clothing.  When called, we were escorted down to the gangway and onto our bus, which drove us over to Stirling.  We had a driver and a separate guide who narrated the bus ride to describe what sights we were passing by and gave us history and factoids about Scotland.  He also called ahead to pre-arrange entry tickets to the castle so we didn’t have to wait in the ticket line.

Upon arrival at the castle most of our bus (including us) opted for the guided tour.  Our guide, Joni, was a bundle of energy and gave us a great (mostly outdoor) tour of about 55 minutes, ending about 2 minute before heavy rain hit.  That gave us the excuse to buy some snacks and eat under shelter before we took in a couple of quick exhibits and returned to the bus around 1215P for the trip back, arriving at the ship around 210P. 

After a quick WJ snack, we went down to Schooner where we met Christine, a travel agent from AZ, who we’d see several more times on the trip.

Tonight’s show was the RC Singers and Dancers.  The usual hit-and-miss with the singers, while the dancers seemed pretty good.  Only 8 dancers on this ship, so a smaller complement than usual.  There was an “oops” moment where one of the male dancers almost dropped his partner on a lift, but not a major spill.

We had our first onboard time change tonight, with clocks being set back one hour at bedtime.