Waterford Tall Ships Festival. 30 June - 3 July

decies

Yes and much appreciated ( not in the doghouse from me)

decies

Weather girl live on rte from tall ships ( very easy on the eye)

Psychedelic

mojor wrote: »

Any radio stations broadcasting from the quay today? Wouldn't mind tuning in.

http://www.rte.ie/radio/tallships/

deisedevil

What a fantastic idea it was to block all possible routes to the train station.

deisedave

Living on Manor Street, Watching the guards stop people without permits everyone seems to be chancing it see do they get through. Which means there is a massive build up of traffic because people have to get told off and turn around, but they have let some without permits passed

MitchKoobski

"...s'cloudy.....couple of boats.....s'grand like yno?"

...Mitch there with the weather..

deisedave

I noticed a certain group of people who live in caravan on roads have seem to be moved on for the duration of the tall ships. I saw the special branch moving a few of them on yesterday and there all gone now, Johns park looks so much better without the mess:D

dayshah

deisedave wrote: »

I noticed a certain group of people who live in caravan on roads have seem to be moved on for the duration of the tall ships. I saw the special branch moving a few of them on yesterday and there all gone now, Johns park looks so much better without the mess:D

But shouldn't we be welcoming Dutch tourists?

deisedave

dayshah wrote: »

But shouldn't we be welcoming Dutch tourists?

:D Actually speaking of which I drove out to Dunmore for a spin last night and the amount of camper vans parked by the harbour was mad, anyone know where the camper vans are likely from

gbee

Daysha wrote: »

They'll all be motoring from the start anyway, .

This is always a disappointment, last time in Cork there was a partial parade of sail off Cobh Town, then all sails was recovered and the boats and ships moved off Roche's Point to drop sail for the start of the race.

Mel C

New user so please don't kill me for asking (not sure if this is the right place to ask!!)

but does anyone have 2 SPARE tickets for the WATERBOYS!!!

I'd give my left arm right now!!!

Muchos thankius.

decies

I hear fireworks???

Finnbar01

decies wrote: »

I hear fireworks???

Yep, you did. Don't understand, what the heck are they doing leaving off fireworks in the middle of the day.

Jubo

Short notice - but if anyone wants tickets to Bryan Ferry tonight, I've got 4 I'm not able to use.

igorbiscan

Hi all, anyone got any idea where it would be a good spot to watch the ships on Sunday morning heading out to sea?.Thinking in the Dunmore-East area,hopefully in a quiet enough spot,might even camp there Saturday night,thanks..

mikeym

Does anyone have pictures of the ships alongside

Grindylow

<edit: tickets got thanks for the pm to Jubo >

Was in there today and the atmosphere was electric! Had a good chat with Keith Barry and Enda Kenny, so it was great!

200motels

igorbiscan wrote: »

Hi all, anyone got any idea where it would be a good spot to watch the ships on Sunday morning heading out to sea?.Thinking in the Dunmore-East area,hopefully in a quiet enough spot,might even camp there Saturday night,thanks..

Hook Head would be a good place

longshanks

B Ferry, the dancer, black wans, cider, yes boy

mailrewop

Anyone know where they plan to set off the fireworks, is it near the bridge or up by the Tower.

marlin vs

I went to Brian Ferry and the gig was brilliant, but got ripped off in the Kings bar €4-50 for a pint of Beamish normally €3-30 guess where I WONT BE TOMMORROW

decies

Bryan Ferry great thanks to aboutobebanned for tickets.

dark crystal

Bummed I didn't get to see Bryan Ferry tonight - was he any good?

Couldn't get a babysitter - apparantly they won't allow buggies at the gigs, so I couldn't go.

Am hoping to get to see my sister play with the Waterboys tomorrow night, but we'll have to hold our son the whole time, so not sure if we'll be able to go...

decies

Really good dark crystal he put on a great show it's as if he was back in the 80,s again. Impressed . Anybody see the firework display I saw just bits of it as I was going home , it seemed very short, is it worth checking out after the waterboys tomorrow ?

cocoshovel

Anybody see Cassidy today in the Plaza? Some great band. I'm really disappointed they're not playing again during the week.

Also, does anyone know what time the daytime fireworks are at tomorrow (and night) and if they Aer Corps CASA aircraft will be doing a low fly over again. I was in the park while that was happening and missed it all except for a tiny glimpse. Cant seem to find much on the website about it.

Aquos76

cocoshovel wrote: »

Also, does anyone know what time the daytime fireworks are at tomorrow (and night) and if they Aer Corps CASA aircraft will be doing a low fly over again. I was in the park while that was happening and missed it all except for a tiny glimpse. Cant seem to find much on the website about it.

Would imagine that the fireworks during the day and the low fly were only for Thursdays opening festivities, however the fireworks tomorrow night and also Saturday night will commence at 10.45pm.

CantGetNoSleep

Anyone hear anyything about the Ard Rí being on fire?

Aquos76

Only what was posted on WLRfm website

http://www.wlrfm.com/news-and-sport/waterford-news.html

cocoshovel

It doesn't sound too serious. I did notice that there was about 3 or 4 people on top of it today. Id say they were media, photographers or ES etc.

KM88

We visited today from Kilkenny. 2 adults 2 teenagers.

Overall, very impressed indeed with the way the whole thing was organised.

Parked in the Red car park at about 1PM. It cost €10 for parking, a copy of the official souvenir brochure, shuttle into town for 4 people and shuttle back at about 9PM. No queues for carpark or for either shuttle. Very good value.

The event itself was also very well organised and staffed. Signposting was clear, lots of friendly volunteers around, not too crowded. The town was clean and I've seen more drunks in my local than I saw in the whole of Waterford all day! There were bins everywhere, none of them overflowing so no reason for anybody to litter - and nobody did! Well maybe a few did but there were litter-pickers constantly on patrol, which kept the place looking spotless. There are lots of well maintained Portaloo-type toilets which were clean and without queues.

There was a great variety of stalls, especially food stalls and a lot less tacky tourist gimmicks than I expected. Maybe the food and drink was a shade more expensive than it needed to be but certainly not outrageously so. Bulmers was €4.50/pint, Paella €5, Chicken Kebab €6, Sausage & Chips €5.

We went on board several boats on the North Quay and no queue was longer than 20 minutes (but that might change as the crowds build over the weekend). The boats were immaculate - we should all live on a boat for a while to learn how to be tidy and organised. Boats on the South Quay are much more difficult to access but I'm not sure if anything can be done about that.

Waterford is perfect for this kind of event - plenty of space both on water for boats and on land for people. Pedestrianising the whole festival area was absolutely the right thing to do. The City looks and feels much better when you can walk around the craft village and the food village etc at leisure.

In the whole day, I saw nothing contentious except for one stall-holder on the South Quay who accosted someone for taking a photo of his stall without asking permission first.

We didn't wait for the fireworks at 10.45 this time (though we did in 2005), mainly because it had already been a long day but partly because of the threat of termination of the the shuttle bus service.

If I had one suggestion, it would be that the policy of suspending the shuttle bus service "on ground of public safety" either be refined or explained more clearly. I do understand the reason for it having been there in 2005, but the current policy sounds a lot like a warning to visitors to "get out of town before 10PM or else ... ".

Overall, Waterford certainly did itself proud. It's a wonderful, friendly and picturesque city, the ideal venue for the the Tall Ships. The City looked great, the organisation was superb, the parking and transport arrangements were excellent, value for money was good, everybody was friendly and the weather was perfect.

What more could you want?

If you didn't go in 2005 and you haven't been yet in 2011, go! You'll love it, even if you don't like boats!