Carrickfergus; Friday, 06 June, 2025

I had a half days leave booked as the flight was annoyingly just after 5pm, so too early to work the full day, but quite late in the afternoon – so I experimented with using Crossrail and the bus from Hayes and Harlington which wasn’t as cheap at the usual route via Feltham (best avoided for the summer due to mega roadworks in the area), but was much cheaper than catching the Elizabeth Line all the way into the terminals. In the end the £9 saving probably isn’t worth the 35 minutes longer it takes as the bus meandered around Hillingdon, but at least it killed a little bit of time and still ended me up at Terminal 5 with nearly 3 hours to spare.

After a quick journey through checkin and security I headed to the lounge for a late lunch and early dinner, given it wouldn’t be until late evening before I got anything to eat again, having opted to go on the cheapest hand baggage only economy fare for this trip – just a small backpack, thankfully in the overhead as I’d booked an emergency exit row.

Despite pushing back a few minutes late and a lengthy taxi to the other end of the airfield, and a wait to get onto the runway, we had a quick journey over the Irish Sea and pulled onto stand at George Best Belfast City Airport five minutes ahead of schedule, which, once disembarking started, gave me 16 minutes to get through the airport to make the 7pm bus into the city centre, in the end – even with a quick comfort break – I had nearly 10 minutes to spare, this is not a big airport!

I caught the bus into the centre of Belfast and hopped off close to the former Belfast Central station, now renamed Lanyon Place since the opening of Grand Central station a few years ago, arriving with 10 minutes to spare before the next train of the evening out to Carrickfergus.

It was a smooth journey out along the edge of Belfast Lough with some pretty impressive views as the train left the city and then as it skirted the edge of the lough, before arriving at Carrickfergus station, from where it was a 10 minute or so walk down to the hotel to checkin.

After dropping my stuff off I headed out of the hotel over to the neighbouring Sainsbury’s to grab some things for dinner before going for a wander around the harbour and castle area to take some photos and videos before returning to the hotel to have a bite to eat and then turn in for the night.