I Made a Decision But The Queen Said No

After giving my dilemma situation some thought (and making sure Fran could meet me on the 19th) Brandon and I decided to take the free night at the castle and just meet up with Fran on our first day. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we could still do everything we wanted while also staying an extra night at a kick-ass hotel.

Before I begin my rant, perhaps you haven't heard but Queen Elizabeth II (QE2) and Prince Philip will be visiting Ireland May 17-20. Obama will be there on the 23rd but we'll be on the other side of the country by then. I've known about this for a while and thought it was just a neat coincidence until I realized what a big deal this is for Ireland. Apparently a British monarch hasn't visited the country in almost 100 years. Some people are looking forward to it, others not so much. At any rate it will make the city pretty hectic to be in for a few days. There are some planned protests and threats of terrosit attacks (thank God my grandmother doesn't know or she'd be freaking out!) so Ireland is pulling out all the stops when it comes to security. I heard they have about 8,000 police workers on hand for this event. There's road closures and detours and checkpoints, the whole nine. And up until today it never occurred to me that her visit would create such a hassle for our vacation.

So this morning I got an email from my co-worker. You see, Pf.izer has a site in Dublin (they have a site in almost every country it seems) and my co-worker just flew there this past weekend on business. She's going to be there for two weeks and received a few email links from another person on things she should check out while she's in the area. One of those links was to the bus tour that Brandon and I had booked for our first day in Dublin. I had been planning to go on this sightseeing tour but in order to receive a discount I booked (and paid for) our tickets online a couple weeks ago. But if you just clicked the link you would see that due to the road closures from The Queen's visit, the bus tour isn't running on the day that we'll be in Dublin. In fact it's closed down for three days! I was so pissed. I had a confirmed booking and this company didn't bother to email me and let me know that we wouldn't be able to take this tour. I had to find out from someone else and it's a good thing she remembered our plans or I would have shown up at the ticket office on Thursday and no one would be there.

The silver lining of this whole situation is that we at least won't be in Dublin when QE2 is there for her scheduled events. By the time we get to Dublin she'll be visiting in another town, though I think she's lodging somewhere in Dublin so there will still be road closures and tight security for us to deal with. Another place we plan on visiting, the Rock of Cashel, is going to be closed for five days just because The Queen is going to be there for a few short hours. It's craziness. Luckily for us the Rock opens back up the day we're scheduled to go there, so we don't have to miss out on that too.

So I think we're going to have to wing it on our first day in Ireland. My itinerary for that day just flew out the window. Our planned trip to Dublin Castle will likely be squashed due to the high security, though I still plan to visit Ha'Penny Bridge (they surely can't close a bridge, can they?) and to St. Patrick's Cathedral. I hear the Guinness Storehouse will be closed but the Dublin Zoo will be open so maybe we can find something else to do that wasn't on my almighty itinerary. Either way I think we'll have to skip the third night at the Ballynahinch so we can make our way back to Dublin and see all the stuff we missed on our first day. And maybe meet up with Fran again!

Things may not run too smoothly when we get there but I suppose they have a way of working themselves out.