Rosslare, Ireland to Swansea, Wales

Sunday, June 1, 2014

We got up early at 6:30 AM. Kay prepared breakfast for us at 7 AM and we planned to leave no later than 7:45 AM to drive to the harbor. We were scheduled to take the 8:45 AM Irish Ferries ship from Rosslare to Pembroke Dock, Wales.

We left the rental car in the port and waited with the other foot passengers to get on the ship. We were unpleasantly surprised when we had to take two long flights of stairs down to the bus. It was quite challenging to get the kids and all of our luggage downstairs. Ugh.

We got on the bus and other passengers confirmed that the bus stays on the ferry. Therefore we did not have to carry our luggage all the way up on the deck. We just took our valuables and food.

We found a place to sit with an electric outlet so that Stevie could play his game. Hannah went a couple of times to the kids play area but did not have a good time. A little girl (3 ½ years old) appeared friendly at first and took Hannah by the hand. But it soon was apparent that she just wanted to drag Hannah around and would not let go of Hannah’s hand. I helped Hannah get away (in most polite way I could) and we stayed away from the play area after that.

The ferry arrived in Pembroke Dock on time. We thought we would get British Pounds at an ATM or an exchange office at the port, but we did not realize that Pembroke Dock is basically the middle of nowhere. Somehow we got lucky and a cab came up as we exited the building. He would not accept Euros but he would drive us to an ATM near the train station so that we could pay him.

The train station was also pretty small – truly the end of the line. We got there around 1:30 PM and our train (one of about 3 trains that ran in there on Sundays) was not leaving until 4:45 PM. There was a little pub opened at the train station until 2:30 PM. We decided to eat there and stay as long as they would let us. The cab driver said this pub was OK but warned us not to go to another pub around the corner. He said it was pretty rough and not safe for kids.

We attempted to buy tickets using the machine (there was no ticket office) but – of course – it did not take our credit or debit cards. The machines only take cards with chips. The waitress in the pub said we would be able to pay for the tickets with cash on the train.

When the pub closed, we went to wait on the platform. The good thing was that we had a bench and spot out of the rain. The bad thing was that the station smelled of urine and feces. You know how they say not to use train toilets while in the station? Well, people do … it was all on the tracks in front of us, toilet paper included.

Our train did arrive and we got on about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave for Swansea. We reserved a hotel in Swansea about half mile from the station and we could not wait to get there. We are all tired of travelling and ready to go home.

We arrived in Swansea after about 2 hours on the train. When we got off the train, we bought tickets for the next day to get to Southampton. The only hick up was that since the kids ride free, we only got 2 reserved seats. We figured we would deal with that the next day and took a taxi to the hotel.

The hotel room was nice and clean but the free internet turned out to be free only for the first 30 minutes. We went ahead and paid 3 pounds for 24 hours of internet access but it was annoying that the hotel advertises free internet access. We have been looking for hotels with internet access as we have been planning our future stops as we went. So the internet access has been very important to make future hotel and rental car bookings as well as researching train routes and schedules.