Fred Olsen & a few Guinness!

On 15th December we headed to Liverpool to join Fred Olsen Boudicca for annual Christmas Conference for 3 nights, the 1st night the ship stayed docked in port in Liverpool.  This is a great city and the dock is right in the center opposite the Liver Building so within walking distance to the city.  We didn’t have time to see Liverpool as we drove up in the morning leaving at 7am to arrive by 11am.  Luckily the traffic was on our side so we arrived early. Myself & my colleague Teresa travel together as we live near each other so always nice to have company when driving.

We boarded the ship around 11.30 and went straight for lunch as our conference was starting at 1pm – we had chance for a little look round beforehand. Boudicca is a lovely small ship and I was very impressed with the staff, the food & the entertainment. The pools were of a good size too – not that we used them as it was freezing!  I am going on this ship for a mini cruise at the end of March so won’t tell you too much about the ship as I will do a full tour on it in March.

We headed to the theater as this is where conference was being held with a cheeky glass of wine in hand from lunch – well it was almost Christmas!!

Conference was great – we love to get together and have a review of the year and some always helpful training from other cruise lines that join us on board.

This 1st night we had a fancy dress night and this year’s theme was 80’s – if you remember last year it was 70’s and we went as The Scooby Do Gang – well this year we decided to go as Pac Man & the ghost which is an 80’s arcade game which I used to play as a kid. This was great fun and seeing everyone dressed up in the different costumes was great. Here are a few of the costumes:-

Heidi Hi

ET

Even Tiffiany was in the house!

The next day we were in conference all day and it was Christmas Jumper day which again is great fun – I went with a full Mrs Santa suit – ha ha!! This was really comfortable and quite warm.

I wore it a few times over Christmas so really got the wear out of it – it’s now put away till next year!!

We also had our group photo taken this day – can you spot me?

The highlight of this trip was visiting Dublin – we arrived here on the Saturday 17th for the day, we had a private tour bus booked for our group which I was a bit wary of as was an old rickety thing but was good fun, the guide was hilarious and had us laughing for the full 2 hours.

It was freezing cold so we were all wrapped up and I was thankful I’d taken my hat & scarf!!

The tour covered the city main attractions and the Guinness factory, we didn’t stop anywhere as was just a quick tour. I have been to Dublin before but is is still lovely to see.  As it was so cold we had a quick walk around the market then headed to Temple Bar area to have a Guinness – we spent a few hours here which was great fun with colleagues and live music playing – I could have stayed all night but headed back about 3.30pm on our free shuttle otherwise we could have stayed but would have to pay to get back to the ship & we had all inclusive on board so why pay for drinks – ha ha!!

The 1st Guinness went down very well so we had a couple more – whoops!

This is the Coventry ‘branch’ of Cruise.co.uk as we call ourselves!

It was our last night on board so we met for dinner and a few drinks ( i didn’t have much as was driving the next morning) – overall this was a great few days, I loved the ship, the conference was great fun and Dublin was amazing & look forward to where we will go this year!!