Disney Magic-Newcastle England

Today (June 7^th) we are arriving in Newcastle, England for the Disney Magic’s Inaugural visit!

Newcastle was once a major shipbuilding and manufacturing hub during the Industrial Revolution.  It was founded about 2,000 years ago as a Roman fort and now Newcastle is known as one of the trendiest places in the United Kingdom.

The ship arrives into port about 7 a.m. and I must say it looks like it is going to be a beautiful day.  Mickey has brought the bubble with him!

Our Port Adventure is scheduled for 10:45 a.m.  Pete, Faith and I are headed on the Adult Only excursions to the Durham Castle and Angel of the North.

We drive through the city where they have 7 different bridges over the River Tyne.  Newcastle is a beautiful place.  The sun is shining.  Our tour guide Laura tells us that one week ago she was wearing her rain hat, her winter coat and rain boots, so thank goodness we were not here last week!

Our first stop is the Angel of the North monument.  The Angel of the North.  There are 3,153 individual steel pieces in this sculpture.  The sculpture was erected in 1998.

Why the Angel of the North?  The monument says because we have never seen one and there are three functions for this angel:  1) a historic one to remind us that below the statute the coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years; 2) to grasp hold of the future expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age; and 3) to be a focus for our hopes and fears.

After our stop to Angel of the North we are headed towards Durham where we will walk through the village and up the cobblestone walkways (uphill) to the Durham Cathedral.  The Durham Cathedral is famous for its incredible architecture.  It was built as a monastic Cathedral and the present building dates to 1093.  The Cathedral is still a working cathedral today and many prayers and services are done here on a daily basis.  They have done very little renovation work on the castle.  You can’t take pictures inside.

Outside the Durham Cathedral there is a large door with a knocker on it.  In the Middle Ages the Cathedral provided a refuge for fugitives.   Anyone who had committed a serious offense could claim sanctuary by knocking on this door.  The fugitives were given 37 days to organize their affairs.  They had to decide whether to stand trial or leave the country at the nearest port.  Here I am knocking on the door.

We have an excellent tour guide by the name of Brian Young. He is a retired geologist, quite famous in England and has a rock named after him called Brianyoungite.

Now the cool thing about the Durham Cathedral is that scenes from Harry Potter were filmed here including the Quidditch matches and the snow scenes

In addition, the classroom of Professor McGonagall was here and there are actually some kids from our cruise on one of the excursions in that classroom

Next, our tour guide Brian gets asked by the Librarian of the Durham Cathedral if we would like to go up to the Library to see their collection of 30,000 books dating back to the 1400’s.  This library is closed to the public and they only allow a few historians and researchers into the library.  We are thrilled to have this opportunity to see this area.  The librarian and her two assistants have set out 6 books an opened them up to specific pages so we can see.  One book is an autograph book where a girl collected autographs of visitors and she has a picture an autograph of Napoleon.  

I wish we would have been able to take pictures in the library, but it was just a thrill to go through the big doors and see them use a set of keys that were those old big keys they use in castles!  (I guess that is how I can describe it).

There were hundreds of bibles dated back to the 1400’s.  The bookcovers were amazing and the books seem to be in incredible condition.  We were looking at books that were hundreds of years old.  Bookshelf after bookshelf.

We weren’t allowed to touch anything understandably so, but this was one of the highlights of the day to see this collection that so few people get to see.  (Mickey does open up doors that no one else gets in to!)

After the Library we said our goodbyes to our tour guide and walked our way back through the cobblestone streets to our bus to make our journey back to Newcastle.

The port adventure was amazing and I highly recommend it to any adults.  Additionally, there is a variation of this tour for families.  

When we returned to the ship, there were hundreds of people from the local town hanging out to see the ship.  Goofy and Pluto came out and waved to the crowd from Deck 4 and then Mickey and Minnie came out also.  Captain Andy blew the Mickey whistle numerous times.

When we left, we went further down the river.  We couldn’t turn around where we were at, it was not wide enough, so we turned around and came back up the river Tyne towards the ocean.  There were people lined all the way up the river until we reached the open sea.

Even the keeper of the lighthouse waived goodbye from the very top at the entrance to the River Tyne! (of course we were exiting!)

The Show in the Walt Disney Theater is the Comedy of Pete Matthews.  I’ve seen him a number of times on the Disney Magic these last couple of years.  But he is really funny.

Then off to Bingo for Michael and I.

Dinner in Animator’s tonight.  We have the show dinner.  Love the new show with the improved resolution.

After that it is off to work on the blog and to try to upload pictures…….

That’s it.  Goodnight from the Disney Magic!