Disney Magic's Inaugural Visit to Greenock

Today (June 11) we arrive in the Port of Greenock for the Disney Magic’s Inaugural visit.

Greenock is a historic industrial town in the center of the Lowlands of Scotland, 25 miles west of Glasgow.

Supposedly, the town developed around a large green oak tree which eventually became known as Greenock, although there are no green oaks in the town’s coat of arms.

Greenock was a small fishing community in the 1500’s and became the site of the first dock on the River Clyde in 1711.

Most ships came to the port bearing sugar.  In 1850 there were more than 400 sugar ships docking at Greenock.

Today Greenock is known for its views.  Most of the town is on the north facing clopes, offering magnificent views of the Firth of Clyde to the mountains beyond.

We have a port adventure called Gourmet Glasgow.  We are going to be eating our way around the town, learning all about the great food offered here.

We take the 25 minute bus ride to downtown Glasgow, where our tour guide Maddie directs us to the subway for our first stop on the tour.

We are actually with the owner of the Wee Food Tour, Maddy.  She does this tour daily with small groups around Glasgow.  Our afternoon of tastings were experienced in six different restaurants, speciality shops and independent, family run businesses that are experts in their dishes and products that they make. We wrapped our mouth around over 20 different food items that even some locals have never tried!

We go to the West End on Byres Road and our first stop is a restaurant called the Ubiquitous Chip.  This is one of the best restaurants in Glasgow, and I can see why.  The place is very busy for 1:30 in the afternoon.  This is an old morgue which has been turned into a restaurant.  Here we have focaccia bread Venison haggis, vegetarian haggis, Neeps & Tatties, Stovies and Highland Crowdie.  There were all good.  I really like the Stovies the best.

Faith, Janice Michael and Chuck

Stovies are the first ones, then the haggis, which was okay.

We walk a couple of blocks to our next stop, George Mewes Cheese where we sample Barwheys, Cheddar, Anster, Bonnet and Lanark Blue cheese.  To clean our palatte we have a Scottish shortbread cookie.  They were so yummy I bought a tin of them!

Now we walked a couple of more blocks to The University Café.  The café has served scots-italian home made ice cream since 1918.  We had five kinds-vanilla, gingerbread, strawberry, peanut butter and Nutella.  My favorite was the Nutella.  The family came to Scotland in 1918 and brought their italian ice cream with them!

We then load on our bus to take us to the other side of down to Guido’s Coronation Café where we sampled Pizza Crunch (this would be a margherita pizza deep fried) and Im Bru (their famous drink) and a deep fried battered Mars Bar.  Loved the deep fried Mars bar.

As if we haven’t eaten enough already our last stop is Café Gandolfi where we have Cullen Skink and Stornoway Black Pudding.

Back on the bus we go to head back to the ship, Maddy hands us Tunnock’s Tea Cakes and Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers.  I haven’t eaten mine yet, but she highly recommends them for gifts.  Then we get a bag of candy from Glickman’s Confectionery which includes Cream Tablet, Macaroon Cake, Lucky Tatties, Soor Plooms and Candy Balls.  I haven’t tried any of those yet because I am still full from all the food we ate today.

Maddy was an awesome tour guide and shared her knowledge of Glasgow with us.  She is actually from the USA but came to the UK and has lived here for number of years.  She started her business two years ago.  This was the first cruise ship excursion she has done and she said she loves Disney so that is why she committed to this excursion.

We arrive back to the ship at 5:50 p.m. and all aboard was 5:45 so we hustle back on the ship.  We have Scottish bagpipers and some VIP’s right where the ship is docked to play for us and wave us away.

Then the whole town has shown up along the streets to watch us sail away towards our next port of Liverpool.  It is amazing how many people love seeing the Disney ship and what a big deal it is to these small towns.

Right after sailaway we hustle off to the Walt Disney Theatre for Junnk for the family show tonight.  They were awesome.  Got pictures with the guys afterwards.

Had just a short time before dinner, which tonight was in Cariocas.  Had the English Shrimp Cocktail which was one of the regional favorites along with Chicken Kiev for the main entrée.

Decided after dinner to work my way back to the stateroom, quickly type my blog while it is fresh in my mind and then head to bed.  We have an early morning tomorrow as we have a huge all day private tour in Liverpool that we are looking forward to.

So for now that’s the end of another day.  Loved our visit today and the weather basically cooperated not bringing any rainy mist til right when it was time to get back to the ship.  However, it was a cool day and a coat was needed.

So………..Goodnight from the Disney Magic!