June 29, 2025: Dover to London to Salt Lake to HOME!

We woke up before 5am to get going on time. It was honestly a very uneventful day. Dover was covered in a blanket of fog, and it was beautiful. Disembarking was a piece of cake, and they even had Michael's blacksmithing tools ready for us to collect once we were off the ship. We had a short walk from the boat to meet our driver, loaded our bags, and we were on our way back to London. This was by far the easiest disembarkation we've ever had. 

Port of Dover

Port of Dover

Heading to the Heathrow Airport

When we originally booked our flights to and from Europe, we booked round trip tickets to and from Amsterdam, and our flight home from Amsterdam was the day after disembarkation. However, by March, I was having a difficult time trying to figure out the best way to get our family from Dover to Amsterdam. I looked into a ferry across the channel and then taking the Eurostar. I looked at flying to Amsterdam from an airport in London. I looked into taking the Eurostar from London to Amsterdam. All these options were really expensive, and we would have to stay another night in Amsterdam. While I was excited to see more things in Amsterdam, all our transportation options would get us there way too late in the evening to be able to do anything there. So, when I was explaining to Brian my logistical struggle, we decided to look into flights out of Heathrow. Amazingly, there was a direct flight from London Heathrow to Salt Lake late morning on the 29th of June, the day we would disembark, and it was less expensive than our Amsterdam flight, got us home a day earlier, and solved our logistical problems. (We've been home three months today, and this still feels like a major victory for our trip). 

We originally booked transportation from the cruise port in Dover to Heathrow, but we knew that our timeline that morning would be tight, so we arranged for private transportation, which ended up being much cheaper, left earlier than Carnival's service, and was just all around more amazing. 

We got to Heathrow, unloaded our bags, checked most of our luggage (which felt SO amazing!) We expected that I would get flagged for a pat down, like usual, during the security check, but somehow, I escaped further screening, and the kids had to have additional screening. 

Waiting for Michael's shoes to clear security

We grabbed some food, and then I did some last minute shopping for our neighbors who helped us out while we were gone while we waited to find out what gate we were supposed to go to. Soon, they announced our gate, and on our way to it, we ran into missionaries at the airport, and we asked them where they had been serving. They said they were on their way home after serving in the Scotland/Ireland Mission, which is where Ella is serving. We asked if they knew Sister Lybbert, and they said they had just been serving with her! They had so many amazing things to say about her, and it was fun that they were on our flight back to Salt Lake. 

A senior couple from Ella's mission, on their way home

Michael was feeling better, though he complained about his legs aching. By the middle of the flight though, he seemed to be back to normal and even had some candy (in addition to real food).

We loved this message on our screens once we boarded: "You Made It." Delta, you have no idea. 

Flying home

The flight was uneventful, but very long, and we were exhausted. I can't remember who slept and who didn't, but we didn't put any pressure on anyone to sleep. We figured we would eventually catch up. 

We were so excited when we finally saw things we recognized. We were so beyond ready to be home! 

So excited to see familiar landmarks again

A few months before our trip, Brian found an app that would get us through customs faster, and he decided to try it out. At some point on our flight, he pulled it out and filled out the information. Once we landed, we got off the plane, used the facilities, ran into our neighbors who were on our flight as well, got our luggage, and by passed the long line of people trying to make it through customs, waited for maybe two people in front of us, and then had a quick check-in with a customs official. Two minutes later, we were heading to meet Lea, who kindly picked us up in our van. Our neighbors, who had got into the regular customs line way before we had all our bags together, watched us leave so quickly and texted us to find out how we got out of their so fast. All thanks to Brian. 

By this point, I was feeling terribly. I chalked it up to my heart not being happy about the whole early morning, long flight ordeal, but we think Michael had a bug that he passed to me. Our goal was to stay awake until bedtime, but I was feeling so terribly that I had to go lie down before bedtime. Lea took Brian to his dad's final June Concert in the Park down in Provo after feeding everyone dinner (I had groceries delivered to our house the day before, and my neighbor put them away for us.) 

It was so fun watching our kids find joy in the everyday things of our life here in Utah. They were so excited to see our van, our house, their room, and especially Gracie, whom Chelsea had dropped off at our house earlier that afternoon). They were all so happy to have space, to be in the U.S. and oh so many other things. We had an incredible trip, but there really is no place quite like home. 

June 28, 2025: Final Sea Day

(Written on June 28th by Brian)

After yet another rotten night, we were just all beat. Rachel and Michael didn’t wake up until about 10am, but Gabe was up by 8:30am bouncing around in our room a bit. He finally asked me if he could go get breakfast, so I snuck into the other room where they were sleeping and grabbed his sandals. I miraculously fell asleep again and didn’t get up until Rachel knocked on the door just after 11am. She felt awful when she realized we were still asleep, but I was glad she woke me up so that I could get breakfast before they closed. I went and grabbed some stuff for Devri and I, took it back to the room for her, and then went to go workout. It was a little rough since it’s been about a month since I lifted weights even though we’ve been walking 5+ miles most days until this last cruise. Afterwards, I changed into my swimsuit and laid out on the deck in the adults-only Serenity area. I even was able to nab a cabana. I also grabbed a Guy’s burger and fries for my last time (oh Guy’s, how we will miss you…).

Devri stayed in the room since her head was hurting her and read her book and even did some packing. Around 3, I grabbed some Guy’s fries for her and brought them down, then got to packing as well.

Meanwhile, Michael woke up not feeling great. He only drank some water all day and then came to the room at about 1pm and stayed their for the rest of the day. Around dinner time, he threw up and then came over to our room to get some fresh air from the balcony. His might be related to nausea as well, but this feels more like a bug since he even dry heaved a couple of times after he threw up everything in his stomach. He’ll sleep in our room tonight just to have fresher air.

The rest of us went to dinner and said goodbye to our servers, Dennis, Audeleen, and Dian. Audeleen was especially awesome as she had so much fun dancing with Rachel during the “showtime” they put on once every couple of nights. She even got up with the flamboyant sleeves on the tables in the middle of the room and danced sometimes, which was fun to watch. We forgot to mention that on Thursday or so (a few days earlier), Dennis brought out Gabe’s triple portion of ice cream and then started asking if we had been on other Carnival cruises. We mentioned some of the ones we’d been on and then said he’d been on the Carnival Panorama in 2023 out of Long Bleach and remembered that he served us previously since we weren’t able to get an early time dining and so we just checked in at a different time each day. We double checked the dates and they totally lined up. It was awesome (or scary??) that he remembered us from 2 years ago, but really fun that he made the connection.

Rachel with Gary. our Scottish cruise director

We now get one free drink per cruise, since we're all gold-level cruisers

Parade of our servers with the flaming Baked Alaska

With Dennis, Audeleen, and Dian

Since Gabe got stuck in the elevator for a few minutes, guest services dropped off a coupon for $30 in the candy shop on board. He went in with Oliver after dinner to pick out his selections for the plane the next day. Kudos to the Cherry on Top shopkeeper, she let him even go over on the amount a couple of dollars for free. Well done getting stuck in the elevator boys! Rachel even got some candy out of the deal. We would have asked Michael too, but the thought of any food was making him retch, so we did not.

Gabe and Oliver

We went back to the rooms and then packed up everything we could. We packed up Michael since he couldn’t really move and was in and out of sleep on our bed (it was really so sad, he felt awful), and then helped pack up the other two as well. The absolute best part is that Gabe was wearing his pajamas this morning again after they got washed for the second night in a row, and then he changed out of them and then a leprechaun from Ireland clearly stole them. Maybe Darby made it back over here just to pull one last trick this year. Hopefully we find them before the get off the ship in the morning. We even checked with housekeeping and they checked everywhere and didn’t see it.

Most elevators on the ship look like this

 

But one looks like this-someone thought they were pretty funny

We’ll all ready to go early tomorrow. We even listened to Kenneth Cope’s “Going Home” from the Doctrine and Covenants soundtrack that we both listened to in the past. In our mission, it was basically disallowed by the missionaries since it tended to make everyone so trunky (as in wanting to pack up their bags and go home immediately). Here’s hoping it all goes smoothly in the morning and that Michael feels better! And especially that Gabe doesn’t pull a fourth night throwing up, we certainly loaded him up with anti-nausea/anti-motion sickness medicine tonight to prevent it.

Gabe did not throw up that night, yay!

June 27, 2025: Cobh, Blarney, Old Head, and Kinsale, Ireland

(Written on June 28th by Brian)

On Friday, we got up around 7:30 to head out to finally touch the ground in Cork, Ireland! Our tour was booked with GetYourGuide, and when we opened the curtains in the morning on our balcony, we saw the big green “PaddyWagon” bus waiting for us on the dock. Our kids, however, did not wake up so early, mostly due to all the excitement the night before with Gabe. Michael was especially slow, until I basically bribed him. Really he’s been so amazing this whole trip, and had already earned big points for his amazing behavior the entire trip. He really only had one day where he complained about walking around, and that day he was actually quite sick. When I finally caught what he had and experienced the same thing, we were in London and were taking it a little easier there and I wondered how we even got him out the door when he felt like that. I felt like crud and didn’t want to move at all!

So when I told him that because all of his amazing help in the night with Gabe and for his great attitude the ENTIRE trip, maybe I could get him candy in the shop on board or a souvenir in Ireland. He got a little smug smile and immediately got ready. A little later he asked me to buy him a speciality wood chisel set that he was looking at on eBay instead of any candy or things in Ireland. Go figure. It probably came from his experience at Combe Mill where he saw them and had been researching them since (though I’m sure he would tell me he’s been looking at them for years anyways).

First view of Cobh, with our tour bus waiting for us, lower right

Towel animal zoo

We finally got everyone up, ate breakfast (Gabe only eating toast since he clearly was eating too much crud every day), and headed off the ship. The tour had a policy of leaving at 7:30am, but when the boat disembarked after 7:30am, they would wait until 30 minutes after disembarkation started. Our disembarkation was scheduled for 8:15am, and I even confirmed with PaddyWagon tours the night before that we would be fine. Disembarkation didn’t even get started until 8:25am, so we should have had until 8:55am to make it off the boat. Well, imagine our surprise when we got off at 8:45am (in plenty of time!) and there was no PaddyWagon bus at the dock anymore. As we both tried not to freak out, I turned on my internet and started calling PaddyWagon to see what was going on. 

After a few minutes of finally talking to someone and waiting for their call back, one of the local taxi drivers started asking what was going on and when we mentioned PaddyWagon, he said that he knew the drivers and they had all left (apparently 2 buses worth of them) 20 minutes previously. We pointed out another mother and son group that had also been left, and while talking to them another group of 3 came up and found they had been stranded as well. The driver introduced himself as Val, and said that PaddyWagon tours does this every week. They apparently overbook the excursion, and when the bus is full, they just leave, no matter if everyone is on or not. Fortunately, Val was really fantastic and offered to take us and the mother and (adult) son in his van for the same or a better tour. He promised it happens all the time and that we would get a refund. He even called PaddyWagon for us and made sure that we got the refunds going while we were in the van. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fit the other group of 3, but we ran into their driver later, and Val said that there ended up being nearly 20 other people that were in the same boat and got tours with the local taxi drivers. 

As we drove, Val told us that he actually is booked as a tour guide most of the time on TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, and even on Tours by Locals. Tours by Locals has been hands down our best tour guides on the entire trip, so we felt really lucky to get him. Plus, he was willing to accommodate the schedule to whatever we wanted to do so we felt no pressure all day to hurry through sites we were enjoying.

He started us out at Blarney Castle. He got us through the line extremely quickly (I honestly don’t know if he had connections or just knew where to go, but we skipped a massive line to get into the site itself). Unfortunately, he didn’t have magical powers that could let us skip the line to kiss the Blarney Stone, which is what Devri and I really wanted to do in Ireland, so we ended up waiting the 90 minutes to get all the way up to the top of the castle. 

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle would have been surrounded by a defensive wall, which enclosed an area of about 8 acres called the "bawn"

How they handle troublemakers at Blarney

The walls at the base are 18 feet thick to withstand any attempt to break through. The walls at the base gradually slope inwards as they rise, making the building more stable and easier to defend

While waiting, we saw a lot of really cool medieval castle, it was much bigger than it appeared on the outside! Our other 2 people in the group waited in line to get in the castle itself, but didn’t wait the additional hour to make it to the top since they didn’t care about kissing the stone. The kids also wondered why we were doing this, but Devri might have blatantly guilted them into remembering how she sat on a bench in Disneyland while they went on all kinds of fun rides since she couldn’t ride them without getting sick, and they stopped complaining.

Finally into the gate of the castle

Diagram of Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle, which dates from around 1446, is known as a tower house, a type of fortification built by Gaelic lords between the 14th and 16th centuries

Blarney Castle was the Ancestral stronghold of one of the most powerful of the ancient clans of Ireland, the MacCarthys

Passing through the great iron gateway with its interlaced bars, the visitor now has the experience of stepping into Blarney Castle.  A spyhole allowed all visitors to be scrutinized as they entered, and the Murder hole overhead allowed unwanted visitors to be attacked with a pike, sword, or with boiling tar or water. 

Ground Floor Room. This used to have a wooden floor above. This room probably housed servants or more junior household members

Ground Floor Room/ce;;ar

Up some steps, about to leave the Ground Floor/cellar

On level with the first floor, with it's fireplace in the background

The Great Hall, where guests were received and entertained, back when there was a floor separating it from the ground floor/cellar

East bedroom (I think)

Castles were designed to keep people out, not necessarily welcome them inside

Going up another spiral staircase

Staircases were designed with right-handed people in mind. Those defending the castle could hang onto the interior of the spiral staircase with their left as they descended, while swinging a sword with their right. Attackers eading up the stairs would be at a disadvantage

Slow progress up the staircase

Narrow staircases can also be more easily defended as attackers can only advance one stair at a time, and wounded attackers could easily fall back on his attacking companions

Itty Bitty steps

Nearly Time

The term "Blarney" means beguiling, misleading talk, and it gained currency during the 16th century as the MacCarthy of the day attempted to fend off the demands of Queen Elizabeth I. They told her they were doing as she asked, but that was a bunch of blarney. 

Looking down from the uppermost walk

So close to the stone!

To kiss the stone properly, you have to turn yourself upside down and then lean way back to kiss it. I always imagined it as a big round stone in the middle of some castle, but no, it’s actually a stone built into the castle wall itself, and it actually is on the outside of the very top. They used to hold people out over the outside edge of the castle to kiss it (back in medieval times, I assume). Today, however, they cut out the inside a little bit and fixed metal brackets to it so you can do it all from inside.

There are many legends about what the Blarney Stone actually is and why the ritual kissing is done. 

1) The stone was actually Jacob’s Pillow that he used when he saw the vision with Jacob’s Ladder (from the Bible) and was brought back during the crusades. 

2) The MacCarthy chieftain saved an old woman drowning in the river nearby, and it turned out to be a witch (witches can’t swim, of course) who identified that there was a stone in Blarney Castle already that provided magical powers and he could get them by kissing it. 

3) The MacCarthy chieftain was given the stone by Robert Bruce in thanks for so the support he gave by sending 5000 foot soldiers to help Bruce against Edward II and that it was part of the Stone of Scone, on whcich the Kings of Scotland were inaugurated. 

4) The queen of the fairies fell in love with the local chieftain or leader, but he didn’t return her love; he fell in battle and bled onto the stone, then she found him and her tears for her lost love mixed with the blood on the stone, soaked into it, and made it magical.

In any case, it is said that those who kiss it upside down are blessed with the “gift of gab”, or being able to flatter or convince others of what they want.

Gabe went first.

Then Michael.

Then Rachel. She was pretty terrified of this. After she got up she went “I didn’t actually kiss it,” but the worker said it was close enough and we moved on.

Then I went. Devri was trying to juggle a video and pictures, and apparently completely missed the picture since I “went too fast.” She should know how fast I move when I decide to kiss something, sheesh.

And finally Devri went.

I have to say that regardless of how strange this all was, I completely loved it. What a weird tradition! Hopefully we are now blessed with the gift of gab as promised. And even if Rachel didn’t quite kiss it all the way, then she’s probably good in the gab/charming/flattering department already. 

The chapel might have originally been the banqueting hall. It's the largest room at this level and has the finest architectural treatment with pointed arches on three walls

Looking down into the murder hole

After that, we got our photos and then it was time to get back to the van to go to the next stop.

North Wall

Making an Irish wish, as instructed by Val

We made a quick stop above the city of Cork to see the city itself from up above on Patrick Hill.

Val showed up that there is a race done there every year on this hill by Red Bull where people build their own push carts and try to ride them down the hill. He showed us a video, and after driving down we’re amazed that people don’t die on it. It was steep, as in San Francisco steep! The rest of the day we kept thinking how Ireland really reminded us what would happen if Idaho and San Francisco had a baby. No wonder people from Ireland ended up settling in Idaho.

Our tired, worn out babies

Our driver, Val, who saved the day! 

We next went to the Cliffs Old Head of Kinsale, near where the Lusitania was sunk. This was a stop that we 100% would not have gone to on a PaddyWagon or Carnival excursion because it was way out in the middle of nowhere and had no safety guards at all. But it. Was. Unbelievable. Seriously, this place was so windy it was quite dangerous. Over the edge was a sheer 1000ft drop off. I held onto Gabe as he got close to any edge, and Rachel stayed far away. Michael got really excited here and said it was maybe the most amazing place we’d been on for the entire trip, which is pretty incredible. He even crawled over to the edge and took pictures over where no one dared to go.

Cliffs Old Head of Kinsale

It was too bad that it was extremely cloudy and poor weather since Val said you can see along the entire coastline from there. It kind of reminded me of Star Wars 9 where they fight on the abandoned pieces of the Death Star in the water, except instead of the Death Star, it was just rocks. Don’t know if that makes sense, but it was pretty surreal.

So windy! 

Took 4 pictures to get one where our hair wasn't totally in our face from the wind

So nervous about this one

Death grip on Gabe

Still a death grip on Gabe

Taken by Michael from his position above the cliff

Taken by Michael from his position above the cliff

This just seemed so Irish to me

We got back in the van and headed to the Speckled Door restaurant, which Val knew. It was a little pricey, but well worth it since we had another great view (that the clouds mostly obscured…) and the food was top notch. We shared some meals and then headed back towards Kinsale. 

Restaurant we ate lunch at

We stopped on the way at a place Val called the Garden of Remembrance, but is apparently called Ringfinnon Memorial Park. This is a plot of land that an Irish nurse who worked in New York for 30-40 years in the burn unit bought for her house, but ended up turning it into a memorial garden for the firefighters that lost their lives on 9/11. They had planted a tree for each firefighter of all different varieties to show the varied races and diversities of the people who lost their lives.

It was absolutely beautiful, especially to find this amazing tribute to Americans in the middle of nowhere Ireland. We also would not have seen this on the big tours as it would have destroyed the place to have a huge group there. I personally got very choked up being there and reading the tributes and seeing the pictures of the firefighters. They have an event there every 9/11 to honor them as well.

After getting back in the van, we made our final stop at Kinsale, a little touristy town. There wasn’t much here except for some shopping, and Val didn’t talk very highly of it, so we basically just shopped for some souvenirs and that’s it. We all ended up getting something, even Rachel who had spent all of her money in Disneyland earlier on in the trip but ended up getting enough allowance by this point to finally buy some earrings. I got a shirt, Devri and Gabe got matching sweatshirts, Michael got a little license plate and a shot glass, and we even found some nice gifts for some people back home that were helping us out a lot while we were gone.

Gift shop in Kinsale

Earrings from Ireland

We loaded onto the bus, took a quick ferry back to where the port was, and loaded back on the boat. It ended up being more than we thought it would be for Val, but we felt very happy with everything he showed up and the experiences we had. It felt like a customized private tour, and was still half the cost it would have been for booking it on Tours by Locals. 

Museum/shop near the port

After thanking Val profusely for saving our day, we boarded the boat again, went to dinner with just Devri, Rachel, and myself. We also made sure Gabe didn’t eat any dessert all day since he had been throwing up the previous two nights. I should note that he didn’t have any problems at all during the day. In fact, he complained most of the day that he was really hungry, but he recognized that he needed to take it easy at dinner and just ate fruit and that’s it.

Us, our ship, and Ireland

A week before turning 40

Goodbye, Ireland

Can't walk away

Since Gabe’s pajamas were still gross from the previous night’s episode, we decided to do some emergency laundry. It was kind of a madhouse in the laundrettes, but we waited our turn and finally got a load done. Not in time for Gabe to go to bed, but oh well. As we were walking in the hallways, we felt like we were drunk (though clearly we were not…) since we kept swaying from side to side. The seas were extremely rough apparently! I kept hitting the wall it was so bad. Seriously.

We headed to bed and crossed our fingers that Gabe would have a better night. Alas, it was not to be so. Just as we both turned off the lights and rolled over to go to sleep (seriously about 20 seconds after I put in my earplug to really go to sleep), Gabe knocked on the door and told us he threw up. We went to his room and found a complete disaster. He had tried to make it to the bathroom, and hadn’t made it. It was all over the floor just in front of their bathroom. Since I had had only about 3 hours of sleep the previous night due to this kind of thing, and Devri slept through some of it (most of it hopefully?), she took the charge this night. We immediately pulled Gabe into our room and he went to sleep there. After not getting any response from the house keeping or guest services lines on the phone, we finally called the emergency number, and we were able to talk to the nurse on duty. She asked some questions, and we decided not to have him see a doctor right then. He had been 100% great during the day, but only had trouble at night. We figured it was really caused by the rocky waves at night, especially since tonight was so awful.

Around this time, we realized that Michael still wasn’t in bed. I went up to go find him in the Lido deck hanging out with friends. I told him he had a few minutes until they cleaned up the room and then headed down to go back to bed while Devri waited for the cleaners. I found out the next morning that Michael came back and the cleaners still had not come yet. They ended up coming at about 12:40 (about 40 minutes after we called), and of course just after Devri left Michael waiting for the cleaner and tried to go track someone down. After they cleaned it up, Michael went to bed and Devri decided that the launderette was probably pretty quiet at 1am so she went to take care of the laundry immediately. She didn’t get to bed until around 3am.

Only one more sea day left and then home!