British Isles Explorer Ocean Cruise

Day 12: Saturday, April 18, 2026 - Belfast, Northern Ireland

The day's statistics:
⛅ Weather: Overcast, then rain. A lot of it. Upper 50s
👟 Steps: Linda 5,500; Steve 7,658

This morning we awoke in our fourth country of the trip.
Wake, shower, prep, breakfast, return and get ready for this morning's excursion.
While getting ready, I took a look out our balcony and our cabin was port side.

Our guide for today's excursion - Historic Belfast City - was Gillian, and our driver was Alister.
It was a relatively short drive, starting along the waterfront a little before traveling through town a little to our first destination.


Along the way we learned that Northern Ireland is 95 miles long, and 25 miles wide - about 2,375 square miles. That happens to be about the size - in square miles - of the state of Delaware. Belfast has about 355K residents and the entire country has about 1.9 million. About two-thirds of the residents own their properties.
We arrived at the gates of parliament, and only had to pause a couple minutes as the guard opened the gate for us. The bus passed through and we proceeded toward the main building. Lining the drive are a number of lamps that were given as a gift from Canada - they have little moose heads on them at the base of the lamp..


It turns out that, due to the nature of Northern Ireland's Parliament, there was no seated government from February 2022 through February 2024.
The parliament building is 365 feet wide - one foot for each day of the year, and 6 stories tall - one for each country in the United Kingdom.







A quick selfie.

It was a brief photo-op stop - ten minutes or so. We boarded. And then sat for a few.
One of our guests was missing. Gillian went out to find her. She had walked... too far away? Eventually she boarded and we were underway again, driving back across the property on the way out, even glimpsing the old castle through the trees.


Right outside the gates was a bank where the workers used to cash their checks right after getting them.

We passed a statue of C.S. Lewis - who was born in Belfast, and the author of the Narnia series.

Throughout the city there were a number of murals - a couple captured through the filthy rear window...











The countryside and the city is essentially separated by the Lagan River, which we crossed, and continued into the city.






When we toured Berlin, we saw a large portion of the remaining standing Berlin Wall. While Belfast didn't have a war-based wall, they had what was called a "Peace Wall". The wall was set up to separate predominantly Catholic neighborhoods from the Protestant neighborhoods and were scheduled to have an end-life. Over time, the walls were painted. A few years back, the residents elected to KEEP the walls as they had grown to become accustomed to them.
There was a really long section of wall (yes, I could - and probably should - have moved to the other side of the bus).







After passing through a gate, we came across another section of Peace Wall - this time on our side of the bus - that was even longer than the previous one. And we stopped briefly - another ten minutes - to debus and get some additional pictures.
Frankly, the artwork on the first portion was far better than the second.






When our time was up, the passengers that debussed - neither of us did - returned to the bus. Except for one passenger. It turns out the same passenger that sort of wandered away at the parliament building sort of wandered away here at the Peace Wall too. Gillian went and found her, and we left a few minutes later than we were supposed to. Again.
Continuing on, and elsewhere.












This is the largest Celtic Cross in Northern Ireland, and it is at Belfast Cathedral, which is also known as the Cathedral Church of St. Anne.



While it isn't evident from the picture - and I don't mean the lens optical illusion effect - this clock tower is leaning a little.

Onward.



Ulster Hall, which we seemed to fly past, is where Led Zeppelin first played Stairway To Heaven.


Then we arrived at Queen's University. It happened to be parent day, or selection day, or whatever, but there were a number of [potential] students and parents about, as well as some music, and giveaways.

Gillian told us we to be back on the bus at 10:30. We were given the two options, explore on our own, or follow her as she takes the group to the botanical gardens. As the group made its way through the main entrance and into a courtyard, some travelers may or may not have had to use the facilities while the group continued on. Eventually, the VOXes became out of range and we spent the remaining time on our own.
After we were already at the bus, we saw that there were three young ladies doing an Irish jig too.









Everyone promptly boarded this time. And we began our way to the next destination.









The next destination was Belfast City Hall. We drove around three sides of the hall, arriving at the far side.





Just inside the gate was a Titanic Memorial. This is the only Titanic Memorial in the world that lists every - every - name of every passenger - all 1,512 of them - on the ship that died in one location.


The inside was adorned like both a US capital building (though this IS a capital building...) and a church (with the stained glass windows).














There were a lot of statues on the grounds, but there wasn't enough time to get pictures of them all.





Right after getting back on the bus - though there does seem to be cloudy blues skies in the picture - it started raining again.
We headed back to the ship, crossing back over the river and toward the port.









Belfast is the city of "H & W", aka Harland & Wolff, which is the company that built the RMS Titanic, for the British shipping company White Star Line. The Titanic Museum [here] is in the shape of a four-point star as seen from above.

Closer to the ship was the Titanic construction dry dock.

White Star - like H & W - still has a presence here. Afterall, there was ONE ship that was built that "made the headlines", but there were a lot of other ships that were successful.


An old station.

These two cranes, known as Samson and Goliath, are two of the largest cranes in the world. Samson is a about 106 metres (348 ft) tall. Goliath is only 96 metres (315 ft) tall... These now-famous[ish] cranes are a skyline staple. Our guide told us that sometimes they play a game on tourists and tell them the cranes have "H & W" which is "Hello & Welcome".


A nice Ferrari parked in a dealership parking lot.

The above Ferrari was in the lot of this Porsche dealer. I don't count dealership parking lots in the "exotic car count" either.

Across the inlet is Cave Hill. Some think it has a profile of a sleeping giant. I don't see it...

The three-hour-plus tour wrapped up. We grabbed a quick selfie at the terminal building before embarking.

Embark, drop off items, head to lunch at the World Café.

We put on our afternoon list of things to do, going to the St. George's Market. It was only a half-dozen or so blocks from City Hall, which was across the street from the shuttle drop-off spot.
It was still raining. And we spoke to a fellow passenger that actually went there and said it was "just OK. Nothing special." So we decided to not bother, and take it easy this afternoon. Relaxing, card playing, whatever.

After a cup of coffee in the Living Room, I noticed the food at the bar was different - not muffins, or open face sandwiches.

The ladies were playing in the atrium too. We sat in the Living Room (rather than on the second or third floor) to listen a little.

The ship is well appointed, with design, art work, and decorations in many different places. One particular example of this is this access panel in a seating on the other side of the atrium from the Living Room.

And just like that, it was time for dinner.
Both sides of the menu (though I am certain I already got the "Always Available" side before...).


Linda had Roasted Sweet Potato Soup, Grilled Scallops & Shrimp, and Irish Coffee Ice Cream.



I had Lentil Soup, Hearty Lamb Stew, and Double Chocolate Soft Cake.

8:00 trivia in the Explorer's Lounge again.
We teamed up with Marty and Sally again. We did a little better, but only got 11 of 15.
It was getting late and once again we had a nice view of the sunset.

Another show in the Star Theater was scheduled for 9:00: "Southern Sounds".

Unlike ABBA, Stage Door, The Beatles, and others (not that there is anything wrong with that), the Southern Sounds show was unique to the Neptune.
We didn't think we were going to enjoy it as much as we did.

We made our way back to our cabin, relaxed a bit, washed up, and went to bed.

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