Day 10 -- 6/10 - Edinburgh, Scotland

 By 6:30am we were safely anchored just out the historic Forth Bridge at Queensferry.  Due to the strong currents, we would be affixed at the stern by tugboat as required by port regulations.  The Forth bridge is a very scenic railway bridge built in the 1800's and is designated a UNESCO heritage site because of its engineering marvel.

After breakfast, we headed to the photo gallery to pick up our tender tickets.  We were told to immediately head to the tender deck which we did at 8:50.  We were halted at the stairs and told to go sit in the Piazza. 8:50 became 9:05 and no tender and many more people showed up and we found ourselves behind the newcomers as everyone wanted to be first without regard to any priority of when arrived.  So we moved and stood by the entry.  There was mass confusion and tension as 9:05 became 9:15. And we watched passengers and the entertainer from last night take the elevator down.  Finally at 9:20 we were allowed to go down the stairs where there was another mass crowd.  I tried to explain to an officer what a mess it was upstairs with no water shuttle tickets, but she would not listen.  This was now the second time we've experienced this on this cruise.  Princess really needs to be consistent and use tender tickets when they say they are going to.  We're veteran cruisers and fully understand tendering and are also aware that many cruisers do not share the same values of civility or priority or lack thereof in queuing. Tendering when tender tickets were used worked so smoothly.

Fortunately Princess used two shoreside tenders and they held a lot of passengers and we made it on.  The water was a bit choppy and there was a slight cold breeze as we sailed under the gorgeous Forth Bridge.  There was a 10 minute delay at the tender dock before we finally went ashore.  At the end of the dock, shuttle buses were waiting and we paid £27 per person for a combo shuttle ticket to town and the Green line HOHO bus. Otherwise it was 12 pounds for the round trip shuttle.

The shuttle to town took around 30 minutes and dropped us off at St. Andrews Square in the heart of the city near the Waverley Train station.  The walk to the HOHO was touted to be 5 minutes, but it realistically takes 10 minutes and took us about 20 minutes because of a need to find a restroom along the way which we found in the Waverley Mall and cost 30 pence.

Once on the bus, we found seats on the top deck on this overcast Saturday.  There were lots of people in town on the weekend and streets and venues were very crowded.  The loop was a good one and allowed us to see a majority of the sights (and there are many!).  Back at the first stop we went to the food court in the mall to get a quick lunch and settled on a Döner shop which was quite good.  

After our lunch I turned on my GPS MY CITY app and we chose to do a Harry Potter themed walk which took us all over the downtown primarily in what's referred to as the 'Old City'.  One of the coolest finds was Greyfriar's Bobby statue and gravesite.  Bobby was a small dog that stood guard over his owner's gravesite for 14 years and is given as an example of loyalty.  People would feed it and when Bobby died, he was buried outside Greyfriar's Church because he couldn't be buried with his master in the Church's cemetery.  After we finished our walk, we re-boarded the Green line bus and rode it back to the beginning and to stop #2 where we could see the Chihuahua Cafe.  Here, one can eat one's meal and pet chihuahuas. Afterwards we boarded a nearby shuttle back to the tender dock.

At the tender dock, we looked around a bit and finally boarded a Princess Water Shuttle back to the ship.  We changed clothes and went to the Allegro for our customary dinner which was quite good.

The Princess Theater entertainment was Chris Ritchie who is a Neil Diamond impersonator.  He was spectacular and looked and sounded like Diamond whom we have seen in concert.  From there we attended the Officer Karaoke and the Passenger Karaoke which were also quite good.

This ended our last Scotch port and we'll have a sea day tomorrow.  Unfortunately we lose an hour tonight to get everyone on Paris time.  We'll get it back after our one day in France and before Southampton.