Cruising Around Liverpool and Scotland

In my previous post about our cruise travels around the British Isles, I discussed the nostalgic music heard on our Celebrity ship between stops in Ireland. During the second half of our journey, we ventured out onto the mainlands of England and Scotland. Of course, the big attraction in Liverpool was the Beatles museum which takes one on a trip from the band’s earliest days until their break-up and subsequent solo careers. It’s a fine place to visit even if the Beatles aren’t your thing.

Perhaps even more relevant was the British Music Experience. This is in a museum space not far from where we learned about the Beatles. Each “aisle” is arranged according to a certain period of British music history: the 50s, 60s, 70s, etc. I was in my happy place as I moved through the 80s with the early days of MTV and all the significant artists from that time including The Human League, The Police, and The Clash.

In the center of the museum there was a stage set up for a hologram experience. The one we saw was of Boy George singing Culture Club’s first big hit, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me. It was bizarre but effective.

The museum also had interactive spaces where visitors could try their hand on guitars and drums. My friend Jeff recorded my attempt at the latter…

It sounded much better in my headphones. I won’t terrorize you though with my try at singing Elton John’s Rocket Man in a soundproof booth…. Some things are better left in that space.

Liverpool is quite the lively city with lots of tourists and plenty of places to shop and hear music on the streets.

Back on the ship one could watch the film, Elvis Presley in Concert on a wide screen and sing karaoke in Quasar – a bar that used to offer a fun DJ and plenty of cool tunes to dance to during our previous cruises. Music trivia continued on one of the ship’s upper decks. Frank and I attended one focused on the music of “divas.” These included Cher, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, Adele, Madonna, etc. The place was packed. We missed going home with a prize thanks to a Beyonce song that neither of us knew.

One of the most interesting experiences we had was a dinner in one of the ship’s specialty restaurants. Le Petit Chef at Qsine features a limited menu but the attraction is the animated “musical” that gets projected on the table in front of each person. It was a lot of fun and the four-course dinner was amazingly good.

Of course, at our three stops in Scotland tourists were treated to the music being performed by various solo bag pipe players. When we left the country for the final time people applauded one man sending us off from the shore with a traditional melody.

All in all, one wouldn’t go on a cruise around the British Isles expecting to hear a lot of progressive and contemporary music. There are, no doubt, plenty of clubs in places like Liverpool and Glasgow that offer late night music but the ships tend to head away from the shores around the dinner hour. Oh well, this was fine for us as it got us to bed well before midnight to feel somewhat refreshed for the next day’s adventure.

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