1st Time with Princess

After 20 plus cruises we decided to do this one. Our decision was because of the itinerary and the cost (the more you save the more you can cruise). We boarded in Southampton in the UK. Luggage drop-off was just a little confusing. that could be because this was our 1st time with Princess and didn't know that there were several areas to drop-off your luggage but only one was correct. We choose to pick up our Medallions at the ship which meant that we had to wait a bit in a lineup, but not to bad. After that we had to wait about 30 minutes to board (longer than our last 4 cruises for sure). Once off the ship we could drop-off our carryon luggage in a dinning room that was greatly appreciated. We had a lunch in the main dinning room then explored the ship. Our sail away was delayed as there was a group whose flights where late getting in. This was a port heavy cruise with only 3 days and because of the itinerary and weather the pool area was hardly used. We had a inside cabin with a unusual layout as it was sideways compared to other cabins. With this layout the cabin seemed larger (or maybe it was). We are hardly ever in our cabins except to sleep and change so its suits us well. 1st day at sea a little rough and rainy. All of the ports were great. I am not going to review them as you will have to do your own research. We did find that they were generally easy to get around though you did sometimes either take a tender, bus shuttle or train to get to where you want to get. I will mention that we rented 2 cars. One in the Orkney Islands that I highly recommend to do. There are 2 companies that rent cars near where the shuttle bus drops you off. See the Island at your leisure. They other was in LeHarve. Once again 2 companies about a 10-15 minute walk from the ship. We rented because we wanted to see Juno Beach and excursions to go there were $$$$$. If you have 2 couples renting a car is a real deal. On the ship the shows in the Main Theatre were mainly VG. one disappointment was the 1st magician/slight of hand. His act was not the best. However on a plus was Cruise Director Aaron and associate Jed. They are probable the best we have ever seen on a ship. We ate mostly in the Main Dinning room at the aft of the ship. Never felt rushed and service was very good. The food was also very good. Disembarking the ship we did a carry off. Princess divided the carry offs into 4 timeslots which greatly reduced congestion. Big plus. A big shout out to the crew on board who looked after a Medical emergency timely and professionally. Hope the person is OK.

Sept 4 Regal Princess British Isles Cruise

Introduction This was our first ever European trip and cruise. The British Isles cruise offered by Princess has always been on our to-do list but we’ve never seemed able to get around to doing it. The Caribbean and Florida has been our staple cruise destination for 20 years and so this year we had a long hard look at our normal plans and decided that we’d forgo Florida for the next few years and hit those areas in Europe and the UK that have been lurking in our plans for years. We kicked it off with the 12 Day British Isles on the Regal Princess leaving from Southampton on September 4. Arrival and Embarkation We flew from Halifax NS, Canada to Gatwick on Westjet and grabbed the train to Southampton. We arrived at Southampton Central station, grabbed an Uber to the Condo we rented for 2 days. We always fly in a couple of days early for any cruise – I don’t see the point in risking a cruise for the sake of a couple nights hotel or condo rental. We spent 2 nights in Southampton but took the day before the cruise to visit Winchester which was a splendid little town to wander around in, despite the gloomy weather. It was a very quick and cheap train ride from Southampton to Winchester and we enjoyed the day, stopped for a lunch, picked up a couple gift items, took a ton of pictures and tried to recover from the jet lag. Sunday morning we took an Uber to the port, it was a quick ride and cost 10GBP. We arrived at the port, were easily and efficiently directed to our appropriate luggage drop-off location. At 10AM sharp, the doors opened and we dropped our luggage off and headed inside. Within 15 minutes or so we received our medallions and were directed into the priority waiting area, which was kinda small for the number of us but no big deal. We were on the ship by 10:45am. The entire process was as smooth as we had hoped for. I want to take a minute to give a special thanks to @John Bull for all his tips and comments on my many questions on Cruise Critic. His advice was bang on on every question I had. I especially appreciated the directions on the trains which might have been otherwise overwhelming. Ship Condition This was our fourth time on the Regal Princess and our 15th Princess cruise – yay us. The Royal Class ships are our favorite ships. We’ve been on the Regal, Royal and Sky and we just like the layout more than any other ship, including the new Sun Class. The ship was in tip top condition everywhere. I didn’t see one area of the ship that I thought needed to be addressed. Well done Princess keeping this lady in fine shape. Food Because of a food allergy, we dined each night in the Allegro dining room at the same time, around 6PM. Each evening the Dining Room Manager for the section we were in, visited us with the menu for the next evening and ensured there would be no issues. Overall I found the food in the MDR pretty good. There were a couple appetizers - beef carpaccio and another dish I cant remember that were exceptional. The only miss all week I felt was the veal. It wasn’t great. Desserts were great all week and we did order steak from the steakhouse that was cooked to order and hot. We did breakfast in the MDR only 3 times I think. Most mornings we were up and gone by 9 at the latest so we hit up the buffet usually. Breakfast was ok in the MDR – Eggs Benedict was hit or miss, usually a miss. I had to send them back twice before the final day when I was asked how I wanted them cooked. Huh? Aren’t they always supposed to be runny? Lesson learned for next cruise. Buffet for breakfast was as you’d expect. The usual fare although they did serve eggs to order which is nice. Toast is warm stale bread so I usually make them put a fresh slice through twice and then go pick up my breakfast. We did one dinner in the buffet about mifd cruise when we needed to take a break from running all day and rushing back to get dressed for dinner. It was ok. Overall, I’d give the food a solid 8 out of 10 with few misses and a few excellent dishes. Itinerary This was the itinerary we had planned for years and what a great itinerary it was. First stop was Edinburgh and its a tender stop. Despite my concerns about getting off late, we were able to get one of the early boats over and grabbed a bus to Edinburgh from Hawes Pier. I was happy we got there early. We were able to spend some relatively quiet time walking around before the crowds hit. We started at the top of the Royal Mile and worked our way down. Victoria Street is a must with all its colored buildings. We stopped for a brief coffee, some pictures and picked up a few items. Then it was onward down the Royal Mile until we had lunch at the Whiski Bar and Restaurant. We eventually found ourselves at our destination – Palace of Holyroodhouse, the King’s residence when he’s in Edinburgh. Next up was Invergordon. We took a bus to Inverness and that city was a surprise for me. I wasn’t expecting much but it is a beautiful city. The weather was warm and Sunny and we quite enjoyed the day and had lunch in the Victorian Market. The walk around the River Ness is beautiful and worth the time invested. Kirkwall Orkney was next. I was really looking forward to this little town. The highlights for the day were St Magnus Cathedral and the Highland Park Distillery tour. If you are a whisky drinker, this tour is worth doing. It was lead by a very knowledgeable retiree (Callum) of the distillery and the free tasting afterwards was very nice. The weather all day was absolutely gorgeous. We really lucked out all through this cruise in truth. A day at sea followed by Glasgow was next. The day at sea was a welcome break from 3 solid days of walking and touring. Greenock is the port for Glasgow. We took a train into Glasgow and spent the day there seeing the sights and walking our legs off. It was your usual big city stop until we remembered that on the previous day at sea, someone gave a talk and the topic of St Mungo Cathedral came up. We had a couple more hours to kill so we thought, what the hell, lets check it out. I was absolutely floored by the place. It was an incredible church to see and made the day really. Don’t miss this place if you find yourself in Glasgow. Next we found ourselves headed for Belfast – we did a self guided walking tour again with a stop to see City Hall (beautiful), Belfast Cathedral and a lunch at The Deer’s Head Saloon. Dublin was next after a short train ride from Dun Laoghaire (pronounced laree) which was our second and last tender stop. Trains are great all over the British Isles and for the most part cheap. A round trip was under $9 for each of us. Only way to travel. Dublin was a little overwhelming if I’m being honest. So many people everywhere but we had a great time doing our own thing - another 9 mile walking day. Of course we did the touristy thing and visited the Temple Bar district and had a beer in one of Dublin’s oldest bars - The Temple Bar (of course). We paid a visit to Butler’s Chocolates and Cafe, had lunch at the Hairy Lemon and toured St Patrick’s Cathedral. I think next time we’re here perhaps a hop-on hop-off shuttle might be a good option. We could have visited a distillery or the Guinness Brewery and saved our feet, although walking off what we’re eating on the ship isn’t without merit. Cork was next and another train ridethis time from Cobh, the docking port. Cobh is nice enough that you could spend a day there but we decided to take the train to Cork until 1 and the return to Cobh and spend the afternoon there. We visited The English Market in Cork. It was a treat for the senses. A beautiful market that was founded in the late 1700’s - it retains that charm today. Fishmonger, butchers, poultry market and several other places selling breads, sausages, spices - you name it. It’s also a meeting place with a restaurant on the top floor. We missed lunch there next time. We then spent the day wandering around with a stop at Butlers Chocolate cafe, a lunch for some chowder at a local pub and a surprise stop at a Franciscan Church in the heart of the city - we stumbled on it during our walk. Lighting in the church was almost nonexistent. Wonder if that is by design? The afternoon was in Cobh with a walk around and some picture taking at Deck of Cards houses and a tour of St Colmans Cathedral. Busy day - another 8+ miles put on our sneakers but worth it. Last but not least Le Havre. We decided we’d take advantage of the great train system and head out to Rouen - Jean D’Arc territory. It where she met her final demise. Rouen is a beautiful city and cathedrals seemingly everywhere you turned. The largest, Cathedral de Notre Dame de Rouen is spectacular. Construction of some buildings around where the church is now started in 396. Rouen is a wonderful city to walk around. Plenty of cafes and restaurants. It is a picture takers paradise. I can’t say enough about the train systems in the UK and Euro Zone. Don’t be afraid to figure them out or ask on here or reddit for that matter and use them to your advantage. In Le Havre we ran into a few people who were unsure of what to do in Le Havre. A quick 10 Euro cab ride to the train station and you can go to so many places in France and spend hours there. Staff Great staff all around. Room attendant was excellent, our waiter and restaurant manager ensured our dietary restrictions were taken care of. Cruise Director staff were pretty good. We went to a few things in Princess Live. We watched one comedian who was funny but we never made it to any shows in the theatre. It is such a heavy port intensive cruise that by the time dinner is over and we have a couple drinks, it was time to hit the hay and get ready for another day. Pool Deck No problem getting a deck chair near the pool,

Wonderful 50th Anniversary Cruise

We sailed on the Regal Princess out of Southampton, England for a 12-night British Isles Cruise. We found the cruise to be exactly what we wanted for our 50th anniversary family celebration. We used International Friends as our transfer to Southampton with a stop at Stonehenge on the way. The transfer (they picked us up at our hotel) and embarkation was remarkably smooth. We didn't arrive at the port until after 2pm, so there was no line and not that many people waiting. International Friends transferred our luggage on to the ship. Our cabins were ready when we boarded the ship and most of our luggage arrived outside our cabin door with in 2 hours. Our family had 4 reserve collection mini suites on Baja deck. These suites were centrally located, and we felt very little ship movement. We had 3 people in each of the 4 suites and still found these cabins to be spacious. There is a large closet area and bathroom as you enter the cabin. I'm sure we over packed, but we had space to unpack everything and our suitcases fit easily under the bed. There were 9 drawers and a mini frig in the cabin apart from the closet area. The cabin included a long sofa, that folded out into a twin bed at night and there was a heavy curtain that separated the two sleeping areas. The room lighting took a minute to figure out, but there were light switches for each side of the cabin. The kids decorated all of our cabin doors with hearts, stars and anniversary magnets and no one complained. But to be honest on this cruise I didn't see a lot of decorated cabin doors. After checking out our rooms we went in search of food and the main dining room serving lunch was closed, because it was after 2pm. We went to Horizon's buffet and everyone found something they liked. The flow of the buffet area is somewhat disorienting and it's easy to forget where you started or which side of the ship you were on. We found seating hard to find in this area every time we went there. Later that night we were assigned to the Concerto dining room for dinner. Because we were a party of 12 they moved us to the Symphony dining room because it had a larger table. With the reserve collection special dining options were available each evening and they made sure those dining options were available to us in Symphony. Our waiters were amazing, my grandson has nut and shellfish allergies, and they reviewed the menu with him each evening for the next day, and we never had a problem. The other dining venues we tried were the Crown Grill, Alfredo's and Sabatini's. We have a lot of vegetarians in our family and Sabatini's was our favorite. It felt like a 5-star restaurant with the 5 courses. I still regret that I didn’t order the dessert sampler. I also highly recommend the Margarita pizza at Alfredo's, it was delicious, and we ordered it twice on this 12-night cruise. Ocean's now medallion delivery became our -go-to- after returning to our room from excursions. Drinks and food arrived to our cabin shortly after being ordered. Ice still frozen in the drinks. We loved the medallion technology throughout cruise. On the night of our actual 50th anniversary the waiters sang to us and brought us a special, chocolate, incredibly delicious dessert. Someone in our family recorded this and now I find myself watching the video daily. My grand kids were teen/kids club age. The teens loved their club and went there almost every day of the cruise. There's a hot tub in that club just for the teens. There were about 25 teens on the cruise, and they got to know each other and even formed a text chat group. Interestingly many of the teens reported that they were on this cruise with Grandparents. My youngest granddaughter did not enjoy the kids club as much. She may have been disappointed that she wasn't old enough for the teen club. We had dinner around 7:30 each evening then went to the 09 or 09:30 show. We saw magicians, jugglers, mentalists, solo singers and production shows. I don’t think we missed any. The more “off color” comedians are scheduled later in the evening and some of the 12 of us even stayed up for those shows. Personally, I loved the production shows the best, one was a historical tour through Broadway/West side musicals, and it was outstanding. We would see the performers around the ship, and they interacted with my grandchildren. We were a little disappointed in the port lectures, we thought we would learn a little about the people, culture and history, and they were more geared to –don’t miss this museum or that shop. We went on a Tours by Locals tour of Orkney Island that was led by Mark and Mary Cook and was truly outstanding. We saw so much including neolithic sites, a henge that was hundreds of years older than Stonehenge and other beautiful parts of the island. We booked this excursion a few months before the cruise. In Belfast we did a Viator tour that took us to the Giant’s Causeway and the Titanic Museum. This was certainly one of the best excursions of the trip. We hiked the red trail of the Giant’s causeway, it took about 1.5 hours and were surrounded by so much beauty, it was awe inspiring. My husband and I are in our late 60s and we made it, but we were the last one’s getting back to the bus! The younger members of our group also said this was their favorite excursion. The titanic museum in Belfast is also very good! There’s a ride in the museum that takes you though the building the ship. I also booked this excursion months before the cruise. In Cobh we went the 2nd titanic museum where you are assigned a passenger’s name. This museum really captured our attention, because we cared about our passenger. It took less than an hour, but several members of our group liked it better than the huge titanic museum in Belfast. We took the train to Cork and then a 15 min cab to Blarney Castle. We loved Blarney, the Castle gardens and the shops. There’s a wonderful sweater shop on that property that sold beautiful sweaters made in Ireland and shipped them to your home. 4 of the 12 of us purchased sweaters, plus many other souvenirs. I purchased our tickets to both the titanic museum and to Blarney Castle prior to the cruise. In Portland, England several of us went on the Princess Cruise, Abbotsbury Swannery and subtropical gardens tour. It was a nice walk through the gardens, and it was amazing to see so many swans. There were many cygnets that hatched this season with the flock. We enjoyed the drive through the English country side too. Our tour guide provided good information about the farming industry in England. I purchased this tour, before the cruise, but it never sold out. Most of our group took the free shuttles to the beach at Weymouth and had such a good time. There’s an amazing long walkway with shops and restaurants, right beside the beach. There are also rides along the beach. The weather was nice so our group was able to swim in the “other side of the” Atlantic. After we got back from the morning Swan tour, there was time for us to catch the shuttle and go and see the beach too. In Le Havre, France we took the Bee Le Havre, bus to Honfluer and had a wonderful afternoon. We ate an outside café and had the best sandwiches ever, for a reasonable price. That town is remarkable and looks like it’s right out of the pages from any 15th century novel you have ever read. The ship was promoting tours to Paris and the Normandy beaches that were 2.5 to 3 hours away and I knew our party wouldn’t tolerate being on a bus for 6 hours on the final day of our vacation. We were happy with the short ride and then the beautiful walk through Honfluer. There’s an ancient wooden cathedral in the center of Honfluer that we enjoyed seeing. Packing up and getting ready to disembark is never fun, but in our case it became chaotic. We were given luggage tags to put on our luggage before it went into the hallway. We didn’t realize that our luggage tags all had different numbers. So when we were called to disembark, we went to the area we thought our luggage should be and only one suit case showed up. We eventually figured out that we had to search other areas, but this delayed our meet up with our transportation to the airport. What I thought would be enough travel time (08:30am off the ship/1:30 pm flight), turned out to be so close with this delay, finding and loading up 12 people’s luggage and traffic that when we got to the gate our flight was boarding, but miraculously we all made it on our flights. Despite this little hiccup at the end this was an amazing vacation and celebration of our 50 years as a family. It was wonderful that we could all be together, be so well cared for by Princess Cruises, explore new places and enjoy such incredible family time. Highly recommend!