10 Nights British Isles Cruise

Wonderful birthday cruise

My wife had never visited the British Isles before, so we decided to rectify that with a cruise to celebrate her birthday. It was magical for the most part. Normandy being on the itinerary was a major factor in choosing this sailing. I got a great deal on an aft suite so decided to splurge a bit. The cabin and it's enormous balcony was incredible. The crew was very friendly and extremely helpful at every turn, especially the staff in the Concierge lounge. We found the ship to be in excellent shape overall, despite what some other reviewers have said. Food: buffet was buffet food. Excellent breakfast at Sabatini's, not as good for dinner. Crown Grill was excellent all 3 times we dined there (enormous lobster tails!). Main dining room was very good. We also splurged on the Chef's Table dinner - an experience not to be missed! I have to take exception with a previous reviewer who said "the captain decided to skip Liverpool." Winds there were excessive and the floating dock was bouncing all over the place to the point where the port authorities wouldn't allow the Regal to dock. Certainly very disappointing but understandable. I received a surprise invitation to tour the bridge, where I spoke to an officer who told me the captain was beyond upset at having to miss Liverpool. The minor delay at Glasgow was caused by exceedingly strong currents that actually caused one of the tethering ropes to snap. And, yes, the 3 AM announcements looking for a passenger were annoying. Oh, well. All in all, a great and memorable cruise. We have 3 more Princess cruises booked and hope they all turn out as special as this one.

Loved our Regal Princess Cruise

My husband and I went on this cruise instead of flying because my friend is terrified of flying. We figured it was going to be the longest trip of our life as we had gone on cruise to Mexico a year earlier on a different cruise line and we were happy to end at seven days despite having a good time. We like to drive and adventure that way. Well, we were wrong. The Regal Princess was a beautiful ship with very professional, hard working, and delightful personnel. Our room was comfortable and clean. There was no request too small for our room steward (even if I wasn't the one making the requests) - remember we were there for 15-16 days. The Cruise Director and his staff were funny and the shows were fabulous - we saw every single show and played all sorts of games. The lecture speaker was so informative and had us ready to go before we docked for the day adventure. The food was very good. Okay, so my only irritation was with the pastry chef. I love dessert and I gave up after a few tries. Hopefully they will correct that by checking into what is going wrong in this specific area especially since the other meals were really good. Overall, I absolutely would go on another Regal Princess Cruise. Get a cabin with an unobstructed view with a balcony. It was lovely.

12 Nights in the Southern Caribbean on the Regal

Now that the kids have grown and are often vacationing on their own, my wife and I have typically cruised with her brother and his wife and this was the most recent of several we have taken together. Having the wisdom garnered from over 30 cruises on most of the mainstream cruise lines, we pick our cabins carefully ensuring that there are cabins on decks both above and below us and try to get two close together. We chose this cruise because of its length, 12 nights, and a southern itinerary with an equal number of port and sea days. While the ports are fine, we have been to most of them many times, so the relaxed days on the ship are our favorite part of the cruise. Just for context, the last several trips have been on Celebrity which has been our cruise line of choice for over a decade. Our last Princess cruise was in 2012 and it was a total disaster. A thruster problem kept us on the dock in San Juan for 6 days and we swore we would avoid Princess in the future. However, the price, the itinerary and a positive referral from our son and his fiancee, who had cruised on Princess in December, convinced us to give the cruise line another chance and, admittedly, our previous cruise on the Celebrity Constellation had been a bit disappointing. The ship departed from Galveston and ended in Fort Lauderdale. We had arranged private transfer from Houston to the port. Watching the long lines and chaos at IAH experienced by those who had booked transfers with Princess made us grateful for our choice to prebook our own. Now for the cruise itself. First the negative. Unlike the speedy embarkation we enjoyed with Celebrity at the piers in both Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, the check-in at Galveston was a bit chaotic with long lines and some confusion with our documents and medallions. As well, the departure area is old and run down (unlike the sparkling new cruise port facility nearby built by Royal Caribbean). Once checked in, the real problem began. As soon as we boarded, we were taken aside by a staff member and told there was a problem with our "credentials". After several minutes, we were informed that there were problems with the cabins we had selected and there were no cabins available for us and we were told to wait until everyone had boarded to see if any cabins would be freed up by "no shows". My first thought was "here we go again, another Princess disaster cruise". So we hung around the ship lugging around our carry on and hoped for the best. One of the first things we usually do after boarding is visit the dining room and try to determine our dinner table location. You can imagine our our frustration reached an even higher level when we were informed that there was no seating reservation for us as our cabins had been cancelled. This trip was quickly evolving from a "well planned" journey to a repeat of the negative experience we had encountered with our last Princess cruise in 2012. It was clearly time for a calming drink, so we hit the bar to await news about our cabin status. To top off the afternoon, after we had imbibed our cocktails, we were presented with a bill for the drinks. The waiter had failed to advise us that, even though we had purchased the Plus package that included up to 15 drinks a day, the benefit did not begin until after the ship left the port of Galveston. Could anything else go wrong!!! OK, now for the positive. Sweeping to our rescue in her superhero officer's uniform was the ship's Administration Officer, Fernanda Castaneda. She informed us that she had found us two cabins and although they were not near each other, one had an obstructed review and was on the dreaded Deck 8 (i.e. above the deck with the shops, bars etc.) and the other was a cabin with a partially obstructed view, we at least had a place to sleep that night until she could make better arrangements. She also agreed to fix the problem with dining reservation. The next day, our travelling companions were relocated to Deck 10 in a cabin equivalent to cabin class we had booked. Unfortunately, we spent the cruise in a cabin where the balcony overlooked the top of a lifeboat but at least we now could at least unpack and get settled before our arrival in Cozumel, our first port. Now, for both couples, our cabin situation was far from what we had planned for and envisioned, but in the end it turned out be inconvenient, but far from the disaster we feared on embarkation day. And as for the dining room problem, miracle worker, Fernanda, managed to get us seated in that part of the main dining room set aside for suite guests at a private table for four right next to a window! Our waiters, Chen and Herbert were phenomenal and, while my wife constantly criticizes me for being a "fussy eater", we found the food to be excellent and copious with multiple choices each night. Even the buffet, not always my favorite, was constantly good and the specialty stations were well staffed. The ship was almost full, but the line-ups were not the problem we have encountered on other cruises. Fernanda also managed to secure for us a partial refund and a future cruise credit as compensation for the problems we had encountered. So now, are we Princess fans and Fernanda is our hero. The entertainment may well have been the highlight of the cruise. The production numbers were well done and the variety shows were by and large entertaining and high quality, but my absolute favorite was the rock opera "Bravo", perhaps the best production number I have ever experienced on a cruise ship. While other reviews have been critical of the "Ocean Now" service which allows passengers to order food and drink service using the phone app and your Medallion, we found the service to be very good notwithstanding the fact that the ship was virtually full and the passengers were predominantly older adults and most had a drink package that must have kept the waiters hopping. Cabin service was excellent as always and unfortunately, I have misplaced the card with the name of our cabin steward, but we were in cabin D606 on the cruise and the cruise line can identify him and he gets kudos from us! The ports were fine. Curacao and Aruba were especially good. We returned to the Paradise Beach Club in Cozumel with an all-inclusive day pass (always a great way to spend the day for those of us who have visited the port many times before) and did a beach day in Tortola. Both tours booked through Trip Advisor. In summary, while there is no such a thing is a bad cruise, there are some better than others. Our previous negative experience with Princess has been totally redeemed. In spite of some early disruption with the cabins, the voyage was exceptional, the ship although older and smaller (our preference) than the new mega vessels is beautiful and well maintained. We give the cruise 9.9 out of 10!!!!!