In 1964, I sailed on Holland America's MS Nieuw Amsterdam from New York to Rotterdam. The crossing on this classic Art Deco passenger liner from the 1930's was one of the most memorable events of my youth. Forty-six years later, I took a short Caribbean cruise on the "new" Nieuw Amsterdam. I enjoyed the "trip down memory lane" so much that when I saw there were plans for a mid-summer 2011 "classic crossing" from New York to Rotterdam, I was tempted to go. The first stop was to be in Ireland, and I had always wanted to visit the homeland of my great-great grandfather. Alas, it was not to be, but the idea of combining Ireland and an Atlantic crossing on the Nieuw Amsterdam continued to percolate. My big chance came a year later: when I saw that "my ship" was doing a southern crossing from the Mediterranean to the U.S., I started plotting how to make it work. At first, my goal was to make the trip without flying at all, but that was going to take too much time and money. So my plan evolved into the "Almost Plane-less" trip to Ireland and Scotland; or "Trains, trains, ships, buses and cars but only 1 plane." This little book is the story of that adventure. Along the way were many sights and intriguing conveyances, but the best part was the characters I met, duly described herein.