Suskies

We left a couple of days before the cruise, partly for the peace of mind of getting to the ship on time if the flight was delayed and partly to have a day in Barcelona. We used United frequent flyer miles to splurge on business class seats, and we got the best deal (used the fewest miles) by flying out of Newark on TAP Portugal. We checked in smoothly and were in the business class lounge a good three hours before departure, which was delayed about 90 minutes because of the plane’s late arrival. The plane was older; the business class seats reclined about 170 degrees but were smaller and narrower than United or USAirways business class. So we got some sleep but not a lot. We did sleep through breakfast, waking up just before landing in Lisbon to change planes.

We are back from a spectacular Grand Mediterranean cruise on the Regal. I’ll post each day separately.

Some background: We’re in our 60s and have lost count of the number of cruises we’ve been on over 34 years. This was our fifth Princess cruise; we’ve also been on the Emerald, Crown, and Caribbean.

We picked this cruise because we wanted to do an eastern Mediterranean itinerary that included Venice, Athens, and Istanbul. Surprisingly few itineraries include all three of those! We usually take week-long cruises, so as we planned this 12-night cruise we were careful to try to pace ourselves—we wanted to relax as well as see the sights.

I’m not super tech-savvy, but on this trip I wanted to see if I could use my Kindle in place of paper maps and guidebooks. I ended up sticking with the paper guidebooks—I find them easier to quickly flip through to find the description of whatever I’m looking at—but the guides at http://www.TomsPortGuides.com were a great addition—they describe in great detail exactly where the ship docks in port and how to get from the port to town.

We couldn’t use Google maps because our phones don’t work in Europe, and my Kindle works only with a wifi connection. But the free Maps.Me app for my Kindle, with offline, zoomable maps, was fantastic. I bought the “pro” version which let me mark on the maps the spots we wanted to see and add notes for each spot I marked.

Just for fun, we checked cruisett.com before we left, to see how many other ships would be in port the same day as the Regal. It turned out to be pretty in accurate—there were almost always one or more ships than what the website listed.

For those of you new to Princess, here's how they get you: The food in the International Cafe is free, but the beverages are not. The only free beverage you can get there is water. If you want free iced tea, coffee, or lemonade with your food, you have to go up to the Lido deck and bring it back down.