DeloreanGirl

Gurrr, it looks like the links to my Liverpool photos arent working.

Liverpool album: http://photobucket.com/cruiseliverpool

Regardless, here is my trip report about our day in your town. I gave you much credit!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34177791&postcount=84

OMG Emily!

 

Is it possible to email your entire review in one document? I would love to save it and read it again before we sail. Of course we won't have your FABULOUS photos.

 

Please let me know if that's possible. I'm at trcoopermail@aol.com.

 

...

Emily:

 

Thank you again for your inspiring review! I have painstakingly copied and pasted your entire review into a word document and you have now become a "tab" in my 3-ringed binder!! :D I can hardly wait until next year and our British Isles cruise!

I created a file of just the text of all days in MS Word format, but it's too big to attach here. If anyone wants it, feel free to e-mail me.

Otherwise, this is how I presented it to friends and family: links to just the posts....

Part I: Introduction:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34145061&postcount=1

Part II: Packing, Prepping & Perspiring

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34145821&postcount=5

Traveling: Planes, Coaches & A Ship – Oh My!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34150748&postcount=23

Day 1: The Room, the Food & Officer Eye Candy

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34152891&postcount=32

Day 2: Chancing Guernsey

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34161015&postcount=49

Day 3: Visiting Ancestry in Cobh, Ireland

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34165678&postcount=62

Day 4: Lost in the Streets of Dublin

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34173025&postcount=69

Day 5: Liverpool – The City That Completely Surprised Us

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34177791&postcount=84

Day 6: Belfast – Titanic, Titanic, Titanic!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34184664&postcount=111

Day 7: Greenock – In Which We Finally Find Sunglasses

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34185163&postcount=115

Days 8 & 9: At Sea Day & Loch Ness

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34187442&postcount=120

Day 10: Edinburgh: The Most Beautiful City, Ever

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34199591&postcount=130

Days 11 & 12: At Sea Day (Ultimate Ship Tour) & LeHavre, France

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34210574&postcount=150

Disembarkation & Two Days in London

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=34213025&postcount=154

Photo albums:

All of the England ports:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4050564310016.2167789.1459238567&type=3&l=9d7a299327

All of the Ireland ports:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4051161564947.2167803.1459238567&type=3&l=357c6bb250

All of the Scotland ports:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4057411241185.2167946.1459238567&type=3&l=49acf310c4

France:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4075791940691.2168361.1459238567&type=3&l=28e9fe1684

London, England:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4069618586361.2168221.1459238567&type=3&l=5149112b46

Great review and great detail! I can't tell you how many times our instructions after exiting a ship or train were inadequate.... especially a train station..."proceed to exit and you can't miss it across the street"... However you get off the train and there will be signs for three different street exits all going in different directions. Your review provided a real blue print for future British Isle cruisers. Thanks

 

Rita

Oh yes, I agree. This is why I am so very thankful Google Earth and Google Maps was invented. I virtually "walked" around town (such as Inverness) online so that I could see where things were. I knew "to turn left at the church" or "it's right across from that empty building". Technology is amazing. :rolleyes:

Thanks again Emily. Hey Princess I'm sure you're reading this thread. Hire her!

 

BTW did you see the British Isles video I posted last year?

1.) Thanks! I'll print out your post and slide it under the door at the Princess/Cunard building across town. :D

2.) Video.... hmmm.... I want to say yes because I'm obsessive about hunting down stuff like that and your screen name sounds very familiar...

Do post the video again though, I'd love to see it!

I have enjoyed your cruise review and hope you will be writing another very soon, please say you have another cruise booked for your worldwide fans :D

 

Karen

I'd love to do Princess' "Pacific Coastal" next. It's downright embarassing that I was born and have lived in So CA my entire life and have never been to Santa Barbara or San Francisco :eek:. Plus, my hubby likes "cold" vacations (hence, UK & Alaska) and really wants to see Astoria, Oregon.

Emily, I agree with others that your travelogue is the best I have read on CC it is truly outstanding.

 

I also thank you for your wonderful review on Liverpool, I am ex Liverpool & live on the other side of the water on Wirral peninsular.( opposite from where you docked).

Scousers as we are called by the rest of the UK are as you say are very passionate about their City & I admit as an old man, reading your review brought tears to my eyes, as I am so proud of what said about our City.

 

If you had stayed longer you would also have found the wit of the scousers, because although famous for the Mersey Sound (the Beatles etc.,)we are renowned as the City of comedians.

 

I hope you don't mind me pointing this out, but on looking at your photos, you have named two of the photos as Cunard Buildings, these are The Mersey Docks & Harbour board the Cunard Buildings is the middle one of the "Three Graces".

 

Once again thank you so much for your wonderful reports.

Thank you for correcting me there! The Photobucket uploads took so long because every picture was in full resolution, that I simply copy/pasted a lot of the captions on there while the thumbnail pics were tiny. I had a feeling I might have pegged a few wrong.

My husband loved the Liver Building with the Liver Birds. I thought it was great that you could actually buy a Liver Bird souvenir!

almost as sad as you were to depart from london, we are to finish your review ! :o

 

i am advising everyone on our BI cruises next year to study this thoroughly - wish you could join ours !!!;)

 

you said you would be happy to help even one person,

it would not surprise me to know that hundreds of travelers will be

inspired, encouraged, and aided in soooo many ways

by reading your fantastic amazing travelogue !!:)

 

ann & jim in so calif

If I could, I would join you in a heartbeat! We could even fly over there together since you live in So Cal (ha ha). Thank you very much for the kind words. Those castles aren't going anywhere, so hopefully the 2012, 2013, 2014... cruisers will see that this is a fun trip and worth doing.

Thanks Emily. Loved your humor, pictures and honest assessment. Will miss visiting with you thru your post. Hope you have already planned another wonderful cruise. I found it helps with post cruise depression. LOL

Now it's onto the Shutterfly scrapbook! So I suppose I'll be able to re-live it one last time...... ;)

I'm hoping to start a blog in the near future. I think it would be fun.

What, you didn't have them mush your peas?!

 

Let me say this as one of your virtual travel buddies before the trip who met you later - Kim and I were blessed to have met you and Mike, to have made use of your valuable information, especially at Inverness/Loch Ness, and to have spent a little time together. Your travelogue is top notch, as are you guys. Thanks so much for putting this together for us to enjoy - it will help us re-live it forever, and help remind us of the many new friends we made.

 

And, I will definitely be looking for more summaries in the future from you -- even if we are not fortunate enough to share them with you physically, we will definitely take part "virtually".

 

Greg Collins

Thanks so much, Greg! You two were wonderful, funny, upbeat traveling companions -- the best type to have! Hopefully DJ didn't exhaust you too much. If you think I can plan, that man has stamina like no other! And you have the fun cruise-related job already. :p

*grabs Kleenex*

*dabs eyes*

Disembarkation (boo…hiss…) and Two Days in London (hurray!):

I love the second to last day on cruises, no matter what line, when you start getting the Disembarkation paperwork. It’s like they can’t prep you early enough to get your bootie off the ship. Granted, I know they have to kick you off. I’m glad they kicked the people before me off so that I could have a fantastic vacation in C218. But alas, it was our turn to leave this beautiful vessel.

It was a strange feeling, the whole disembarking part. I’ve been planning this trip for thirteen months. THIRTEEN MONTHS! I completely forgot that life goes on after you come home.The cruise was a giant beacon set in stone and I totally didn’t think of anything going on after it was over.

What message board posts would I read? What tour companies would I e-mail? What am I going to do with the work hours spent daydreaming? What about my digital countdown clock? What about the dog-eared pages in my Rick Steves London book (which I got autographed by him in person!) Does this mean I can’t listen to Riverdance or Bill Whelan or bagpipes anymore? And for God’s sake, what will I do without my trusty red binder?!?!

My lip quivers just thinking about it.

It was now time to put our clothes back in the suitcases. To clear off all the souvenirs from the writing desk. To pull the drapes closed one last night and sigh, knowing that when it’s dawn, the ship will be parked and there won’t be a gorgeous town outside my window in the morning. Instead, the clanking and beeping of working dock sounds and the smell of diesel fuel will remind us that we’ve come full circle (literally), and are back to our home port of Southampton.

Simple Debarkation:

Debarkation is pretty flawless. Princess has done a great job of color-coding everyone based on where they are going and what they are doing. A day before you debark, you will receive a Debarkation packet along with paper luggage tags that are a certain color with a number on them. Our luggage tags were “GREEN 2”. Everyone who was “GREEN 2” were people that were booked on the “Southampton To Victoria, London” coach. Others had other colors like: cream, blue, orange, red, purple, etc. Some decks got off the ship super early. Other decks (the lower ones, I think) didn’t have to debark until nearly 9am. They want you out of your room by 8am. We had a feeling this would mean that the buffet would be nuts, so we swiped some bananas and muffins the day before and ate those as breakfast to tide us over. It was the smartest choice we ever made. (Room service is never available on debarkation day.)

All lines have the rule of “leave your luggage out at night before you disembark”. I shouldn’t have to type this, but if you are new to cruising please set out an outfit to wear the following day and keep all medications and important documents on you. I would love to place bets on how many people wear their pajamas down the hall in the morning or frantically call the front desk hoping to retrieve their luggage from the cruise terminal down below. I’d drop a good $50 that it happens to more than a few people on every cruise.

There is a perforated tip at the end of the colored luggage tag. Tear it off and hang onto it. They say you’ll need it to debark but nobody ever asked for our tag tip for “proof”. We could’ve grabbed our luggage and used that coach as a free ride to London for all we knew by casually walking with the crowd.

Everyone is assigned to sit with others of that color/number in certain dining rooms at certain times. In our case, I think we had to be in the Island Dining Room at 8:30am. We got there and only had to sit for 5 minutes before they called “GREEN 2” and before we knew it, we were on our way alongside 40 others as they led us off the ship (insert sobbing noise here) and into the Southampton terminal where your luggage was nicely separated by color. We headed to the “GREEN” area and found our suitcases and rolled them out to the coach that was waiting for us alongside many, many other coaches. Each coach has a paper in the window that clearly marks which coach is for which color/number.

If you are taking care of your own post-cruise transportation, you will be in a color-coded area with others doing the same. If you have booked a Stonehenge/Bath tour, you will be in a color-coded area as well with the folks on your bus doing just that. I don’t remember the ship ever feeling “busy” on that last day. It wasn’t mayhem at all. For those who want to “self-disembark”, you are free to do so at the should-be-illegal hour of 6am.

We crawled onto our bus and I noticed that it was quite new. Nice seats with leather trim, modern lights, sound system and intercom buttons overhead similar to an airplane, and a bathroom in the back. The driver announced that it would be a 2-hour ride into London and he hoped there wouldn’t be much traffic.

“Psshh…..whatever. Two hours? That’s way overblown. It’s not two hours into London on a Thursday at 9am. We’ll be there in ninety minutes!” I scoffed.

It took two hours. On the dot.

Good thing I packed that snack bag!

Here is the fork-in-the-road part of the trip report finale’. I don’t know quite what to write about at this point because not everyone is going to London post-cruise. So I suppose I’ll talk about a few London tips:

Victoria train station and Victoria coach station are two different buildings. They are near each other, but luckily do not share one roof which is probably a good thing because Victoria train station alone is as busy as the center of Times Square. For those taking the bus from the ship back to Victoria Coach station in London, you will be dropped off at the Arrivals area of the coach station. From here, you are free to take a train, Tube or bus elsewhere, or explore London for awhile.

In our case, we had 2 days left to kill, so we wanted to see London. I booked a basic room at the Park Plaza Victoria and it was the most wonderful hotel ever. I highly, highly, highly recommend it! It is right next to Victoria Station (rail, Tube and coach) and we later learned Is central to lots of sights.

After dropping our bags off in the room, we looked at the map and realized that we should simply walk around and get our bearings. I knew we had to get a Travel Card if need be to ride the Tube should anything be far away.

It was pouring rain, mind you. But we didn’t care. This was London. It rains all the darn time. This was part of the ambience. We trekked outside and learned that the streets of London are much narrower than we thought, which meant that everything on the map was closer than we imagined. Within the hour, we had taken a tour inside Westminster Abbey and viewed Parliament and Big Ben. I’ll never forget the moment I looked up from my umbrella and saw the giant clock above me. It will forever be etched into my memory.

I had done it. I had created this vacation and here I am, at the foot of Big Ben in the rain, and it was glorious.

The rain continued and so did we. We fell in love with Pret A Manger, something we don’t have in California but need oh so much. It is the most brilliant invention of a store, ever. We refueled with a hot BBQ pork sandwich, diet soda, crisps and carrot cake and had all the energy in the world to take on the city. We went back to the room, took off our soaked jeans, socks and shoes and changed into dry outfits.

The rain had stopped. This was our moment! We ran all around the Westminster area. We saw Buckingham Palace (in shambles 48 hour after the Jubilee), The Mall, Admiralty Arch, Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery.

It was stunning. I was in love. Badly.

I spent the evening in the hotel watching BBC news. I loved everything about Britain. LOVED it. I marveled at their dry humor, their bluntness, their overly-cheery commercials. Everyone was so nice. The food was good. The city was so extremely pedestrian friendly. The cars stopped for you at crosswalks. Everyone said “cheers”. I was sold.

Around midnight, some team must have won some game because there was cheering and reveling in the streets. And like that – it was quiet again except for a random police siren driving by letting you know that you were in the heart of a big city.

The next morning, it was raining again but the cheery folks on BBC said it would clear up later. Luckily, it did. Mike and I had pre-purchased tickets for “The Original London Tour” HOHO bus plus tickets to The Tower of London. I am so glad we chose this particular bus company. We did the T1 line which stops at the major sights and has a live driver. It was a brilliant choice because the driver was able to warn us about traffic up ahead (we never encountered traffic at any other point of the ride) and by knowing this, we were able to get off the bus before hitting traffic in The City.

The views up top are great. It is open air which is wonderful as far as photography goes. No flashes in the window reflections! Apparently it was slow that day because we had nearly the entire top of the bus to ourselves. We were able to see Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Royal Mews, London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral and The City with lots of great views in between. The bus is very zippy which I loved. It didn’t lag on in traffic that day. Mike was glued to the camcorder the entire time. We got off at St. Paul’s Cathedral and ate at “Ye Olde London Pub” which was (seemingly) authentic and excellent. We couldn’t go to London and not eat bangers & mash and fish & chips!

I really wanted to eat at the Sherlock Holmes pub or Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese but we didn’t have enough time and honestly forgot about where they were on the map. After lunch, we walked from St. Paul’s Cathedral across the London Bridge, alongside the Thames and some awesome outdoor shops and restaurants, up to the Tower Bridge, across the Tower Bridge, and over to the Tower of London. I could not get over how WALKABLE the city is. We hadn’t even used the Tube yet!

The Tower Bridge is simply stunning. Alongside Big Ben, it is the quintessential “Ohmygod I’m in London” moment. And having watched all of the Jubliee festivities on the ship, it made me appreciate it even more. The architecture is gorgeous and the bridge is truly as beautiful in person as it is in photos.

From there, we visited the Tower of London which was very amusing and fun. I didn’t see any Beefeater tours going on, but I did get my chance to take a photo with one. The weather was part drizzle and part sun. As mentioned earlier, the “four seasons in a day” theory is absolutely true.

We caught the 5:20pm Thames River Cruise which was included in our HOHO Original Tour bus tickets. It’s a great way to get from the far eastern edge where the Tower of London is , all the way back to the start, where Big Ben is. I say “all the way” as if it’s a long journey. I’m sure its 1-2 miles, max. The guy giving the live commentary on the river cruise did a great job. I would hate to repeat the same stories 50 times a day but he was quite funny! The sun stayed out and cast a beautiful light onto the river and city.

I couldn’t believe that we hadn’t ridden the Tube anywhere. We had walked nearly half the city on our own and took the HOHO and cruise for the other half. We HAD to ride the Tube! So we purchased tickets and rode it from Westminster to Victoria. A whole two stops. But hey, we did it. And no, there was no announcement saying “Mind The Gap!” Darn.

We spent our last night packing, once again. It was the first time ever in my life that I was sad to leave a vacation. On other trips, I have been thankful for seeing beautiful islands, crystal clear waters, white sandy beaches, or amazing geography. But this city was hard to leave. I was enthralled and in love with the black cabs, the accents, the streets, the buildings, the monuments, the history, the culture, the way of life. I was ready to give my 2-week’s notice via postcard and stay in London.

However, we had friends, family, jobs, and a beagle to get home to. And after a good nights sleep, we were ready to tackle the long flight home on Saturday, June 9th. The process heading westward couldn’t have gone more flawlessly:

The hotel hailed a cab which arrived seconds later. The cab ride took a whopping 10 minutes to Paddington Station. I pre-bought Heathrow Express tickets which I highly recommend as it was fantastic. The train was sitting there at the station, doors open, ready to go on Platforms 6 & 7. The seats were comfortable, the car was quiet, there was free WiFi and television, and we were at Terminal 3 only fifteen minutes after departing Paddington.

Heathrow was well laid out. Security was enforced but all officers were cheery and friendly. The employee at the American Airlines ticket counter had a vacation home only 2 hours away from us and we chatted about Southern California. The flight was on time. And T3 at Heathrow, by the way, basically looks like the inside of a Nordstrom’s department store with airline gates. Want to buy some perfume? How about a $300 scarf? What about expensive chocolates? Or a leather briefcase? Heathrow has it all. Incredible!

The 10-hour flight to Dallas was uneventful. We tried to sleep but failed. We watched TV shows and movies on the shared screens on the plane. We stretched our legs. It was nice still hearing the British accent on the flight home - a lingering reminder of the best vacation we’ve ever had.

Once on the ground in Dallas, our flight's passengers dispersed and we were hit in the face with Americana all over again: tank tops, flip flops, the Southern accent, Budweiser shirts, cowboy boots and restaurants in the terminal with fried chicken and chocolate shakes. Yep, hello America.

We ate lunch at TGI Fridays and I marveled at how large our portions are. I chuckled at how giant the plastic cup of Diet Coke was. It brought back memories of the day before when we had such a tiny glass with only 4 ice cubes. Mike took advantage of the free refills over and over. We ordered salads and I remembered how it was only yesterday that we did the same at a restaurant in London and learned that they don’t really have multiple salad dressings there – just vinaigrette.

Over at the bar, women chatted while waiting for flights. One lady had a camouflage hat on. It made me proud to still be American and proud of our troops, especially being in the South at the moment. When we left, a lady in a nearby gift shop commented on my hooded “London, England” sweatshirt. She must have thought we were from London. I laughed it off and said we were on our way home to Cali.

Four hours later, our half-empty flight back to California boarded. It was getting dark and the sun was nearly set on the far edge of the runway. I checked my watch and noticed that it would have been 4am in London. My eyes grew droopy and I fell asleep for the first time on an airplane as we hopped across a few states into Sothern California. Arriving late at night and the temperature being so hot was a wake-up call. So was driving on the right side of the road!

Like any amazing experience in life such as a graduation, wedding, or birth of a child, I wanted to remember this vacation. As a kid, we never traveled outside the state, so for me to break out of my shell and coordinate this giant trip was a huge step for me. If someone told me that I’d be visiting 4 countries in 2 weeks, I never would have believed them. I went from hating flying to flying nearly 12 hours each way with zero problems.

There were too many stories to tell. Too many pictures to upload. I didn’t even know where to start when people would ask, “How was your trip?”

So I wrote this report.

It has been of immense fun putting together this trip report over the last six days. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would reach 12,268 views! I simply wanted to write a trip report because nobody really wrote one in the past to this extent about the British Isles (that I could find), and a lot of us had so many questions. I also wanted to shed light onto an itinerary that doesn’t get much love. If one person out there is able to have a smoothly executed British Isles cruise because of something myself or others on Cruise Critic have typed, that makes me happy.

This forum is so brilliant. To think that strangers from all over the world can come together with a common hobby or a common trip and learn from each other and go on to meet each other is so amazing. Cruising may get a bad rap for being catered to the “Newlywed or Nearly Dead”, but how else would I be able to see so many fascinating ports with such ease? Where else can you open your curtains in the morning to a different part of the world? Where else can you eat a 4-course meal every night for free, or watch theater shows just steps from your room?

For those of you who are interested in taking a British Isles cruise in the future – do it. It’s such a rare and well put together itinerary and nobody else can touch it right now except Princess. You’ll see unspoiled countryside, the way it was meant to look. You’ll see charm and culture and people who are proud of their history. There's something for every age group.

This was our sixth cruise and it was our best cruise. This was made up of a combination of things: itinerary, service of the Princess staff, dining room food, and value for your money. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Thank you so much for reading this report. I hope you have found it to be helpful, insightful, amusing, or just plain obsessive as I have! I know there has to be others out there like me that crave information and perhaps there's a nugget or two in one of these chapters that aids you on your trip.

I’m always around, so if you have any questions about any part of this trip, feel free to e-mail me. I love to help!

Alas, it is 1am and I must hit the hay as I have work tomorrow. Work, you know, that place that pays me so that I can go on another cruise…..

To view all my London photos, you can visit:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4069618586361.2168221.1459238567&type=3&l=5149112b46

To view ship pics and all of England: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4050564310016.2167789.1459238567&type=3&l=9d7a299327

To view all of Ireland: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4051161564947.2167803.1459238567&type=3&l=357c6bb250

To view all of Scotland: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4057411241185.2167946.1459238567&type=3&l=49acf310c4

Next Chapter = I don’t know, what is the next chapter? That’s the best part. ;)

Emily,

 

I have just spent the last 90 minutes reading your wonderful travelogue. It brought back many memories of cities we have visited, and those that we haven't, your writing has made me want to get there as quickly as possible. eg. Belfast and Liverpool.

 

It is a pity that you didn't get to Honfleur as it is a beautiful French town. We caught a taxi with another couple and had him come back for us about 4 or so hours later. We didn't pay him until we arrived back at our ship. It was one of those memorable days that you remember forever.

 

I too am fascinated with anything to do with the Titanic and this year we will be visiting Halifax so of course we will be visiting the cemetary. A couple of years ago, we had the most amazing Titanic exhibit here in Melbourne at our Museum. You had to pre-purchase tickets which stated the exact time you would be visiting and it was extremely well done. There were cabins set up as First Class and Steerage and so much memorabilia. If you ever get the chance to see it, you will love it. It has only been to very few cities in the world.

 

Thanks again for a wonderful report and great photographs. You are a great writer with a fantastic sense of humour.

 

Jennie

Thank you, AussieGal!

I hope that I can bring a bit of spotlight and excitement to an itinerary that doesn't get a lot of hype. If it helps one person plan their vacation to the British Isles or re-take it again, then that's fantastic! (I would love to print this all out and staple it to my resume for Princess one day - ha!)

"I've been on six cruises, two were yours, and I've given you $14,000 in sales by talking four couples into sailing on this itinerary. Where do I sign?"

Mike and I have been to two big Titanic exhibits. One was a traveling one that was in Vegas for awhile and we saw it at the science center here in Los Angeles. It was a pretty big exhibit. They had lots of items recovered from the bottom. I want to say that they had the horn. I know they had hats and boots. They even had a giant chunk of the ship in one room under heavy security. It was fascinating. In fact, I think it's still in Vegas because Mike mentioned wanting to drive out there to see it again.

Sea Day: Ultimate Ship Tour! & LeBlah…I mean, LeHavre, France. (Day 11 & 12)

By now we were on our 11th day of the trip and, while still absolutely loving every moment of it, were getting tired and spent the day enjoying the ships activities and food. {Observation:} As far as MDR food goes, I personally had the best salmon I’ve ever had in my life and the cheesecake was phenomenal. The only meal I wasn’t thrilled with was the breaded veal and my hubby didn’t like the “Floating Islands” dessert. Otherwise, every meal we consumed in the dining room at night was superb.

I had heard rave reviews about the “Ultimate Ship Tour” from others on Princess ships so I knew it was something that my husband and I would be really, really excited to do. From what I read, they only allow around 12 people (but I did hear groups as little as 10 and as much as 20 have gone) so we wanted to make sure we got our names on the list the moment we boarded the ship in Southampton.

Luckily for us, the list hadn’t even been created yet so the nice Austrian kid (I call him a kid because he looked 12) at the Passenger Services desk added us and called our room to confirm we had made the list. Also lucky for us was that two of our Cruise Critic Roll Call buddies ended up in the group as well (hi Jeff and Melissa!)

{Tip:} When they ask you to write down your size on the list, you might want to put one size smaller than you normally wear (as far as S/M/L/XL goes).

I don’t want to give away most of the secrets and surprises of the “Ultimate Ship Tour” because it is WAY TOO COOL and you must experience it for yourself if you have any fascination in how a cruise ship operates. So I will only list the places that they take you and will leave the other surprises for those who choose to go on it. It is $150 per person which I know is steep, but what you see and what you get are very much worth every penny and the tour is 3 hours long. A security guard and ship photographer follow you the entire time and he take pictures in certain places. You aren’t allowed to bring cameras and you must dress appropriately since you’ll visit some chilly places and other passageways so closed-toe shoes and a sweater are a must. You get 15 minutes in each “section” where someone from that department will give you a speech and Q&A in each part of the ship.

After meeting at the lounge and guided by the Assistant Cruise Director, you will see (in no particular order):

- Backstage, stage lifts, props, dressing room with available dancers. {Photo op!}

- Bow area, ropes, anchors (and the officer we met looked exactly like Colin Firth….)

- Galley and kitchens, meet the head chef, see how all food is prepped and made fresh daily. {Surprise gift here!}

- Laundry, dry cleaning organization, steaming and pressing, towel and sheet folding machine, giant washers and dryers. {Surprise gift here!}

- Printing office, see how Patters are made. {Surprise gift here!}

- Photo lab, learn how 20,000 photos are orgainzed and distributed and see the machines. {Surprise gift here!}

- Medical ward, meet the head doctor, ask crazy questions, see all the rooms. {No free fun pills, we asked.}

- Food storage, giant refrigerators, all the boxes of cold foods, explanation of food ordering, meat freezer.

- Engineering room, marvel at all the buttons and beeping. This is where I opened my big mouth and asked about Caribbean Princess’ broken left propulsion engine which the head engineer glazed over at first. I also asked about the lack of azipod motors. Lets just say he had no idea that there’s a website full of folks that were onto their every move. {Photo op!}

- Crew quarters, hidden hallways, fun stuff.

- The Bridge. Wow! So awesome! A good half hour with the Captain and First Officer. Caviar, appetizers, champagne, a small speech about how everything works, a Q&A session, and a bucket-list moment for Mike and I as we soaked up as much alone time with Captain Manfuso as possible. Someone brought up the Costa Concordia disaster and they are very mum on the subject (probably because Costa and Princess are under the Carnival Corporation umbrella). I had some questions about the stabilizers and asked the Captain what his favorite itinerary to sail was (Mediterranean). The view from the bridge is stunning and we could have spent forever up there asking endless questions. {Photo op!}

So that, without giving all the goodies away, is the “Ultimate Ship Tour”. I’m sure I forgot a stop in there somewhere and I’ll sit bolt upright at 3am and remember it. But if you have any sort of passion or fascination with cruise ships, this is the crème de la crème of tours. I’m so glad we put our money towards this instead of a land excursion. It was cruise ship geekery at its finest and I highly recommend it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LeBlah, I mean… LeHavre, France:

Anyone who was on my May 26th Roll Call knows that I went through various stages of enthusiasm about our France stop. For the first 8-9 months, it was, “We’re gonna do Paris! We’re taking the 2-hour high-speed train! It’s only $30 round-trip! This is awesome! I’ll just run from sight to sight!” Then, I did the math and realized that between the train schedule and riding the Metro and walking from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame left me only 2.5 hours to see the city. In my mind, it seemed fun and doable but one month out from the start of the trip I became restless and exhausted and didn’t want to chance not making it back to the ship on time and being stuck overnight in a country that hated Americans.

So I changed my tune. I decided that Paris is best visited when you have, gee, a little more than 150 minutes to give to it, and decided that we’d visit a local area which is much less stressful: Honfleur. I was excited to visit a small, seaside town that looked charming with its old wooden church, sailboats, and vintage carousel. Then, when it came to researching how to get to Honfleur, there were more snags. Buses weren’t as plentiful as I thought and I worried about trying to get on one without knowing the language, cabs were really pricey and wouldn’t return e-mails, and I was left booking the Princess excursion which only went from 8am to noon.

It wasn’t until we got our excusion tickets on the ship did I realize that, a.) I’d have to wake up at 6am to get showered and dressed and to breakfast and down to the meeting area, and b.) It included a 90-minute walking tour which ate into the free time you had to spend there. Mike and I technically had no idea what Honfleur was and we were insanely tired from the day before and weren’t thrilled about getting up super early to go to a town we didn’t know about with a walking tour of things we’d never heard of. We ended up making a pact that we would use the last day to sleep in, do laundry for the last time, and visit LeHavre because, “there’s gotta be something cool to do in LeHavre, right?”

Oh boy.

Even Ken Broadhurst, the port lecturer, tried his best to make LeHavre sound appealing.

We had a leisurely breakfast and stepped off the ship into the port area and onwards into the tourist building. They have people there to help you with tours and rentals and there is also a tiny gift shop where you can buy a mini Eiffel tower and say you’ve been to Paris.

(I didn’t do this, I promise, but our dining room server did for his wife. Ha.)

There are free bus shuttles into the center of LeHavre. We, of course, didn’t notice this until we were 10 minutes into a 23-minute walk into an unappealing town.

Fantastic.

Luckily, the French were nice enough to paint an Abbey Road looking pathway on the ground that led us from the cruise ship into town. And by town, I mean a boulevard that I think resembled a main street. It was called Rue de Paris so it had to be nice, no?

We walked around town and I made it a goal to create the most pseudo-realistic France adventure I could think of. Such as:

Seeing the Siene River!

Spotting the Eiffel Tower!

Visiting the Notre Dame! (True story, it's really called "Notre Dame")

Witnessing people smoking and drinking, how very French!

Looking at “fleurs” and sidewalk chalkboards!

Photographing a café!

See? It’s all right here. You totally don’t even need to see Paris! Look at the money I just saved you!

[…end sarcasm.]

Most of the stores we passed by were closed. I’m assuming they adhere to the same siesta timing where things are shut down between noon and 2pm every day. I couldn’t even get my croissant that I was looking forward to getting. Darn.

Let’s just say we picked up some French chocolates for our parents at the tiny terminal gift shop and hopped back on the ship to eat lunch. And it’s a good thing we did, because as we were chowing down on deck fifteen, the skies got dark and sheets upon sheets of rain started pouring down.

Oh man, we dodged a bullet.

I later read a post from someone who went on our Honfleur tour that said that “the guide out and out hated Americans”. Lovely.

Paris, Rouen, and other French ports deserve all the time you can give them. They are beautiful cities and I wish we had more time to visit them. We had two more days after the cruise was over and we chose to spend them in London just as others had chosen to spend theirs in France. If for some crazy reason we ever are lucky enough to wind up near France again, we will give Paris all of the love and attention it deserves.

Au revoir for now, France...

To view all of my LeHavre photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/lehavre2012

For all of the Princess Patters, including LeHavre, you can visit:http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = "Johnny English Reborn" (Mr. Bean), "The Phantom of the Opera" (silent movie), "Dolphin Tale" (my husband's friend's wife did the theme song for this movie!), "Pink: Funhouse" (concert)

Theater: "Midnight In Paris" (movie), "Farewell Showtime".

Next Chapter: Disembarking & Two Days in London (an Addendum)

OMG Emily!

 

This is absolutely THE BEST REVIEW EVER! DW and I had to cancel the May 14 sailing at the last minute due to her illness. We really really really want to do this cruise later this summer - or next year if we have to wait that long.

 

Is it possible to email your entire review in one document? I would love to save it and read it again before we sail. Of course we won't have your FABULOUS photos.

 

Please let me know if that's possible. I'm at trcoopermail@aol.com.

 

P.S. You should be a travel writer, if you aren't one already...

Hi there,

Thanks for the compliment, that's so sweet! In a perfect world, that would be a dream job if I was to stay home with a future baby. Seeing as the Princess headquarters is in my town, I'd love to work for them after starting a family. I suppose "I just like helping people" and I have a passion for cruising, so perhaps I'm only good at writing about experiences that I've been on. If that meant that someone would pay me to go on cruises and write about them -- sign me up! :eek: :D

I just emailed my parents a huge email that has each chapter's link in URL form (just the post and not all the inbetween comments). So I could send that to you. That way you would only have to read the posts and not scroll through the pages.

I write my reports in Word and then copy/paste them and add photos in CruiseCritic later. Unfortunately I throw out the Word file when I'm done. However, I have to copy/paste all the text anyway to put into my Shutterfly scrapbook. So I can send you just the text if that's all you want?

Wow - what a review! You have such a knack for writing. I have enjoyed this immensely. It really is making me feel like I'm on a cruise' date=' because just like when we are on vacation, I'm starting to feel sad knowing it will soon be over! :( [/size']

I'm feeling sad that it is over. I still have my itinerary and photo tacked up on the corkboard here at work. I'm not ready to take it down yet. :(

Emily, you are such a talented writer -- "where are you sailing to, France?", made me laugh out loud. We are sailing on the Caribbean Princess on 13 August. Love, love, love your travel log. Thanks for all the great info.

Angie

Thanks!

Not to sound all Miss America, but "if it can help just one person, I'll be happy"!

Nobody really wrote a detailed trip review from last year's British Isles sailings that I know of. Most of us had tons of questions not only about the ship but about the ports, transporation, currency, airport, etc etc. and I was hoping that this review would help answer some of that since it's a pretty big journey. :o

Were there taxis waiting at the tender dock? Did you hear anyone say how much the taxi ride was?

 

Really loving this, thanks.

I thought I heard a guy say "Shuttles here, ten pounds" but I wasn't sure if it was legit or not. Thanks to nostalgiaguru's comment, it looks like they were.

Emily, if you go to the Princess Roll Call board and sort by number of replies, the Roll Call for this cruise that you started over a year ago is the sixth most active roll call ever on the board! I think that's cool! Thanks so much for getting us together and organized - we owe it all to you!

 

Roll Call thread http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1396977#

Sixth most active roll call ever, really?!?! WOW! :eek: Maybe it's because a few of us are still chatting even after the trip is over?! I'll have to take a screen-shot of that statistic, that is awesome!

We came down to see the CB on 4 June at Sth Queensferry as it was the 1st anniversary of us boarding her in NYC for our Honeymoon cruise in the Carib.

 

Weird seeing her on our doorstep.

 

Watched her rotate and depart but sorry never thought of videoing it.

 

Stills attached. As you can see there was a wee Tug helping her round.

 

[ATTACH]237003[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]237004[/ATTACH]

 

 

I'm glad that you enjoyed Edinburgh so much. We tend to take it a bit for granted.

 

You are lucky you were on the stop of 4 June, however. CB was due back in Sth Queensferry on Saturday (16 June) but skipped the whole stopover. The weather was absolutely horrendous so I guess it was not safe to negotiate the Firth of Forth (although I have not seen an explanation anywhere).

 

Sorry for everyone who travelled so far but missed out on Edinburgh. But as we say "if it's not raining, then it is just about to". You don't come here for the weather.

 

By the way, the review and photos are great.

Thank you for the photos! I'll be saving them. So the cruise after us missed Edinburgh altogether? :eek: :( :( That is so sad to hear. That sailing has been cursed with problems. First mechanical, then skipping Liverpool. Oy. I think their voyage just ended so I'm curious to see if anyone writes about it. Ugh, poor June 7th'ers.

Actually wait, the June 7th people had a mechanical issue and their entire cruise itinerary was bumped ahead by a day. Maybe they ended up in Edinburgh on June 17th?

Also, the captain said that we got to do the 360 spin with help from the tug because "there are buoys out here and the tug company owns the buoys". Cleverrrrrr....... ;)

Edinburgh: The Most Beautiful City, Ever. (Day 10)

If there is one port in which you do get off the ship and make your way into the main town, please let this one be it. Edinburgh is worth every minute of effort you put into getting to the city, for it is GORGEOUS.

The cruise ship anchors in the Firth of Forth, right near the Firth of Forth bridge in which trains rumble across every 15 minutes. It’s the second and last tender day to get ashore into the small town of South Queensferry.

{Observation:} I noticed on the back of the Patter it says “allow at least 45 minutes for the tender ride.” What? Who? Where are you sailing to? France? The shore is right there...you can see it! It’s not a 45-minute tender ride. It’s 7-8 minutes, tops. So don’t freak out if you read that on the bottom of the Patter.

I saw three tenders working this day to drop off passengers. There was also a large boat, the “Maid of the Forth” that can hold quite a bit of people which looked to be hovering near our ship, ready to help out.

The tender pulls up alongside a giant cement docking ramp in South Queensferry. This town looks to be small but we didn’t have time to visit it as our day was to be spent solely in Edinburgh.

How to get into Edinburgh, let me count the ways?

This caused way more hoopla than it had to, so here is what I found:

1. Princess Cruise Line Transfer: $59.00/per person just for the 30-minute bus ride.

2. Princess Cruise Line Excursion: $79-$179/per person depending on the tour.

3. Private taxi or van, price split among passengers.

4. ScotRail train: 4.40 pounds/ per person for a 12-minute ride.

Can you guess which one we did? I’ll give you two guesses but you’ll only need one.

Yep, we took the train.

What scares people off from taking the 12-minute journey into the center of Edinburgh are “The Stairs”. Yes, worthy of caps and quotes, “The Stairs” are much talked about and people loathe and fear “The Stairs”. Even the professional port lecturer, Ken Broadhurst (who I wish I could record reading the dictionary because his voice was so soothing it could put me to sleep, in a good way) was speaking to a group of people near the Shore Excursions desk one night and when he mentioned the train and that people would encounter “The Stairs”, they would gasp and shake their heads as if it required a passage along a wooden rickety bridge with fiery lava and dragons below.

Unless you have a cane, wheelchair, or oxygen machine with you, I’m going to go out on a limb here and let you know that “The Stairs” are not that bad. Yes, I know some people have mobility issues. Yes, I know some are incredibly out of shape. Heck, I’m horribly out of shape. But once we saw the stairs, it was one of those, “Wait… this is it? This is them? This isn’t that bad!” moments.

The story (or shall I use “legend”?) about the stairs is that there are 109 of them that are steep. Honestly, it did not feel like I walked up 109 steps and there were worse and steeper stairs in Greenock and on the Caribbean Princess herself.

To get to Dalmeney train station, you exit the tender dock, head to the left up the road until you see a sign with an arrow and then walk into a wooded area until you reach the steps. The stairs are simply flattened dirt squares with some wood holding them up. They are very wide, so that you could stand on each “step” with both feet and rest if you wanted to. You are surrounded by a mini forest with birds chirping and there is shade all over. You can see the top of the stairs from the bottom of the hill.

Once you reach the top of the stairs (you can do the Rocky dance here, go ahead) there is a bit of a nature walk through a wooded area with a dirt path over to the train station. Do not get sidetracked and veer off towards the right into the subdivision. If you find yourself in the subdivision, you veered off path. Simply go back to the wooded dirt path and you will reach the train station. The walk from the tender boats to the train station is probably a ½ mile.

What I’m about to attach below is (I’m trying not to pat myself on the back here) EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. If you are in any way, shape, or form going to take the train, here is your DeloreanGirl hand-drawn and approved walking map. You’ll thank me later, as you’ll be getting to the station correctly and not getting lost in the subdivision as I saw others almost do.

Once you are at Dalmeney station (and by “station”, I mean a kiosk that takes credit cards only and a train platform – no employees) you put in your card and purchase a “return ticket”. Simply touch the screen and tap the upper left corner where it says “Edinburgh Return Trip” which should cost roughly 4.40 pounds a person. Wait for it to print and make sure to collect your train tickets for both rides in the tray below. It will print out 3 orange paper tickets: One is for your trip out to Waverley (Edinburgh) Station, one ticket for you to hang on to for your return back to Dalmeney, and then a receipt.

Walk over the bridge and wait on the opposite side of the ticket kiosk for the ScotRail train. Then, hop on and enjoy the super fast ride! The train will make two quick stops at small stations before reaching Edinburgh Waverley Station. One is called South Gyle and the other is Haymarket. Just hang out and wait for the doors to open and close. There is no verbal announcement of what station is next until you get near Edinburgh. Waverley is large and indoors and I believe it’s the end of the line.

Once you arrive in Edinburgh Waverley Station, you’ll notice it’s a bit under construction. They have big signs saying “WAY OUT”. Just follow those and you’ll reach the large open-air exit. Once you walk up a flight of stairs, you’ll be greeted to the bustling streets of Edinburgh and the beginning of the most photographically beautiful city I’ve ever seen in my life.

I don’t even remember how I found my wait to the castle. We passed by the giant park and the part of town with the museums (and bumped into some UK Cruise Critic members – hi!) then simply made our way uphill and to the right until we saw the castle walls.

As mentioned in the first post of this review. Please, please, please, please do yourself a favor and buy your Edinburgh Castle tickets online before your trip. The line to buy tickets outside the castle was easily over an hour long. It looked miserable. We simply walked through the arched entrance of the castle on the left hand side where an employee scanned the barcode on our e-mail and that was all it took to grand you access to the castle. Well worth buying ahead of time!

For lack of better words, Edinburgh Castle is like the Disneyland of Scotland. It’s incredibly popular and people from all over the world come to visit it. It was a bank holiday for the Queen’s Jubilee when we were there so it may have been more crowded than usual, but not so much that we felt overwhelmed. There’s not much more to explain about the castle. It’s truly amazing and there is lots and lots to see. We didn’t spend as much time there as I thought. I was expecting to have lunch there and drop a good 3+ hours but honestly I think we felt we had seen it all (including the 1pm cannon fire) in about 90 minutes or so. We went inside some of the mini-museums but did not wait in the long line for the Crown Jewels. They were already building the huge, sturdy bleachers for the Military Tattoo in August!

Once we were finished with the castle, I was very excited to head down the mile-long stretch of the picturesque tourist trap known as The Royal Mile. This is the part of our day where Mike and I had our jaws on the floor. The entire stretch of The Royal Mile is downright gorgeous. I would crash CrusieCritic’s server if I were allowed to post all the pictures here that I took. The way they have preserved the old part of town and kept it looking as if you were in a 1700’s fairytale is astounding. You can truly stare down the street and imagine yourself with a horse and cart or walking down a cobblestone road with troops. It was incredible.

We stepped in and out of each store. They all carry pretty much the same things (plaid scarves, Scottish fudge, shot glasses, tartans, postcards, t-shirts, etc.). When you reach the end of the Royal Mile, you will find yourself standing in front of the Palace of Holyrood House which is where the Queen stays when she is in town. I regret not buying tickets for this place as it looked fascinating. The gift shop nearby had charming souvenirs and tons of Buckingham Palace soaps and lotions that I wish I had grabbed. Across from Holyrood House resides the Scottish Parliament in the newfangled modern building which I personally think is a huge eyesore.

At this point, we headed back up Calton Road which parallels the main roads and leads back up to Edinburgh Waverley station. Leaving from Edinburgh Waverley is very confusing because Waverley is massive (like a small airport) and there are electronic signs everywhere for trains going all over the country. I believe Platform 1 is the platform you need to find the ScotRail train back to Dalmeney (South Queensferry). There are employees all over the station that were very helpful. I panicked fearing that we might be on the wrong train until I saw the handy dandy blue Princess Cruise Line tote bags being carried by others on the train.

{Observation:} Whenever you think you’re lost in a town, just follow someone with those bright blue Princess tote bags!

Our train had a bit of a malfunction and we had to sit on it for a while before it started up and headed back towards the Firth of Forth. Once off, we trekked through the shady woods and back down the stairs towards the quaint town of South Queensferry and into a very short line (3 minutes, I clocked it) back onto the tenders.

What’s really fun about being anchored in the Firth of Forth is that the ship did a complete 360-degree turn (in place!) with its thrusters before heading back out to sea. It was really neat to be out on the balcony and see the rear slide one way and the bow pull to the other side. If only someone on land had a time lapse camera!

I can’t remember much of what went on that night, but I do know that we were extremely excited about the next day, our Sea Day, as we were one of the 12 lucky enough to do the “Ultimate Ship Tour”!

To view all of my Edinburgh photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/edinburgh2012

For all of the Princess Patters, including Edinburgh, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = “We Bought A Zoo”, “Metropolis”, “In Time”.

Theater: “The Kings Speech” (movie) and “International Crew Show” (I would tell you how I feel about this one but I’d lose readers.)

Next Chapter = Second Sea Day & Ultimate Ship Tour! (Day 11)

Thank you so much for your thesis! I am thoroughly enjoying every morsel of information and entertainment. I'm also a planner -- "Have binder, will travel!"

 

We're scheuled for the CB Norwegian Fjords/Iceland cruise this summer, but since reading your review I keep trying to figure out how we could do a B2B with the British Isles!! After all, we'll already be in Southampton:p. We may have to wait on that one, however, I'm traveling vicariously through your review.

 

Thank you:)!

if you can possibly swing it - $$ and timewise, while you're already there, do it !!;)

I agree with lomalindacaa&j!!

Thanks so much for all your time posting this. I will be on a transatlantic in September and we stop at Dublin, Belfast and Greenock, so really loved your description of those ports. Did you by chance keep copies of the "shopping maps" that they usually pass out on ship? Could you post those along with your Patters, if you have them? :D

I didn't save them, sorry. Actually, I don't think I saw shopping maps, really. There was just a paper insert inside the patters that had a story about the port with some currency information or highlights and the map on the back. It didn't have numbers for shops like Caribbean cruises have. In fact, I was thrilled to go on a cruise that didn't involve Diamond International or Del Sol.

If you wanted to do shopping on this itinerary, you had to figure it out on your own.

Guernsey = didn't see souvenirs but i'm sure they are in the shops on the main street

Cobh = small souvenir stores on the main street

Dublin = busy city with lots of stores, not sure if they had touristy stuff but I'd assume they do

Liverpool = the Albert Dock area had shopping

Belfast = didn't get to head into Belfast proper

Greenock = no souvenir stores but there is a mall in the heart of town

Inverness = we were out of town that day but Inverness is supposed to have shopping

Edinburgh = shoppers paradise down the Royal Mile

France = no matter where you go I'm sure there are stores

Sea Day Free Day and Loch Ness! (Days 8 & 9)

Is it sad that I truly don’t remember what we did on our first Sea Day? Maybe it was because it was the first free day in A WEEK where we didn’t have to be up early or walk four miles or get wind burned or wonder how to pack the backpack.

Nope, today was the day I was going to sleep in, take a nap, eat some quality food, rinse, repeat.

I think the highlight of my day was noshing on an amazing plethora of free food and watching “The Muppets”. Oh, and let’s not forget John Nations, the juggler. Normally you’d think, “A juggler is a juggler”. And I did too. Until I figured I should get my money’s worth by seeing some of the acts on the ship, which led me to crawl out of my coma and head down to the Piazza where Mr. Nations had all the main stairways packed to the gills in awe of his skills. And I must say, if he cut his hair and lost the crazy shirt, he’d actually be super attractive. To top it off, he’s a good ol’ boy from the Carolina’s with a nice personality to boot.

As for the next day, Inverness…

I had pre-purchased tickets online for the 3.5-hour “Sensation” tour through Jacobite (pronounced jack-oh-bite), one of the leading Loch Ness tour groups in Inverness. I’ll spare you all the details, but I will say that Jacobite’s team is top notch. Their communication (both through web, email, and Facebook) is courteous and instantaneous and they have a very slick company with lots of choices for tours ranging from hour-long simplistic boat rides to 6-hour journeys through bus, museums and boat. I was really excited to spend a few hours in Loch Ness with them!

My first glitch was that we arrived into Invergordon on a Sunday which meant that there was only one train running that day into Inverness and it in no way meshed with our cruise schedule. My only other option was to purchase the Princess “Inverness On Your Own” coach transfer for $49/pp as this would drop us off in town at 10am and pick us back up around 3pm. My Jacobite “Sensation” tour was 10:15am to 2pm. Whew!

They day couldn’t have gone more flawlessly.

We made friends with others in our Cruise Critic group (hi nostalgiaguru!) to share the Loch Ness adventure with and we all got our tickets in the Princess Theater to board the coach and in no time were on the road into Inverness. Normally I’d grit my teeth at shelling out $50 bucks a person for a bus ride, but the scenery between Invergordon and Inverness was GORGEOUS which made it worth it. It was truly and completely what you would expect the Scottish Highlands to look like -- green and peaceful with rolling hills full of cows and sheep.

The bus ride into Inverness sure doesn’t feel like the 45 minutes stated on your ticket. I’d clock it at a good 30-35 minutes. What they don’t tell you (and I had to find this out from the nice German man at the Shore Excursions Desk) is that the Princess coach drops you off on “Castle Road”. I needed to know exactly where it dropped us off because I had to find my way to “Strothers Lane” to be picked up by the Jacobite company. (This is the part where I am extremely thankful that I printed out Google Earth maps of the city back home and brought them in my binder!)

The town of Inverness is beautiful with a large river running through the center of it. There is a very cool castle (Inverness Castle, perhaps?) at the top of the hill which I believe is now a courthouse. Armed with my maps, our little group ventured through the quaint streets until we found the TK Maxx store (yep, TK not TJ) and the Jacobite van was sitting there early waiting for us. It couldn’t have gone more perfect.

{TIP:} For those of you who are thinking of doing a Jacobite Loch Ness tour: When you go to purchase your tickets online (for whatever tour of theirs you choose), make sure to pick the “Bank Street” pickup instead of “Strothers Lane” like I did. I picked Strothers because it was next to the bus station and I thought the Princess bus would park at the bus station. Turns out, the Princess bus stops on Castle Road which is literally steps away from Bank Street. In fact, I think Castle Road becomes Bank Street.

Our Jacobite driver, Kenny (who I heard was the best to have through prior comments on TripAdvisor), drove us 9 miles alongside Loch Ness until we reached Clansman Harbor. From there, we exited the van and climbed aboard the Jacobite Queen for our 30-minute ride up Loch Ness.

{Observation:} I heard Princess runs a Loch Ness tour that also boards the Jacobite Queen and visits Urquhart Castle. I don’t know how much the cruise line was charging, but we paid 29 pounds per person for Jacobite and that included the tour along Loch Ness, the 30-minute boat ride up Loch Ness, one hour in Urquhart Castle, then over to the Loch Ness Exhibition Center for an hour, then back to town. We thought it was a really swingin’ deal.

It started to sprinkle when we boarded the Jacobite Queen. I wasn’t worried as I had a feeling it would blow over. Luckily, 10-15 minutes into the ride, it did. Chugging up Loch Ness was another “pinch me, I can’t believe I’m here” moment. I mean, who really ever gets to say they’ve been ON Loch Ness??

From there, the boat pulled up to Urquhart Castle where we disembarked and were able to climb all over the castle and Visitors Center for an hour. The views were stunning.

Our driver, Kenny, met us in the gift shop and we got into the van to head a few miles down the road to Drumnadochit which is the home of Nessie. They have a little interactive museum that we all went through (the manager is a Cruise Critic member!) We found it surprising that the entire museum tried so hard to disprove the Loch Ness legend. You’d think they’d try to keep the myth alive. We all raided the gift store and I picked up a funny Scotland hat along with some Nessie toys for nieces back home.

From there, we all hopped back in the van and headed back to Inverness while listening to Kenny’s deep Scottish brogue speak about Scotland’s history along the way. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as we only had to wait for 20 minutes for other passengers alongside the Princess bus in beautiful Inverness before heading back through the highlands to the ship in Invergordon.

The pictures speak better than my words, and I wish Cruise Critic would let me upload more than six photos per post! I would have to say that the Loch Ness day was my favorite day of the cruise. If you have any interest in visiting Loch Ness, please look up Jacobite or contact me about it. I would highly recommend them. Their Facebook page is filled with all sorts of goodies and contests and prizes.

The town of Invergordon was nice enough to throw us another sail-away concert with their bagpipes and drums. The crowds flocked Deck 7 as well as the upper decks and balconies. The pipe band played song after song and locals cheered and waved their beautiful blue flags. As the thrusters activated and the ship backed away, passengers kept cheering and yelling for them to “play one more!” As requested, they did. We sailed away to a faint version of “Scotland the Brave”.

I’ll never forget how awesome it was to be alongside the entire deck cheering and dancing. The Scots are fiercely dedicated and wonderful people. We absolutely loved them and loved their country!

To view all of my Loch Ness photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/lochness2012

For all of the Princess Patters, including Inverness, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = Lionel Richie concert, “Hugo”, “The Sting” and “The Help”

Theater: Mentalist/Mindreader Alex Crow

Next Chapter = Edinburgh: The Most Beautiful Town, Ever. (Day 10)

Emily, I cracked up at your repeated reassurances about the ride at the museum not being high up. You clearly know your audience here: I get nervous standing on a curb! I had no idea the new Titanic museum was so amazing; your description has definitely made it a must-see for me. And getting to see the drawing office -- way cool. Ever since I saw the movie, I've had such a crush on Thomas Andrews (okay, maybe my crush is really on Victor Garber, the actor, but still . . . ).

Oh good! I was totally going to bring up Victor Garber but I didn't think anyone would know who he was! Indeed, now that I'm older I would definitely choose Victor Garber over Leo DiCaprio any day! :D

Every time I touched the wooden drawing board, I heard the dialogue from the movie in my head:

"This ship can't sink!"

"I can assure you...she will. I give it an hour, two at most. She will founder."

*sigh*

On the stateroom TV they were playing "Sleepless In Seattle" which he was in as well....

Emily, I tried to go the personal tour route, but Princess was the only tour that allowed you to go inside of Lennon and McCartney's homes. So, being a bit fanatical, we splurged on this one. Still overpriced, but I will have to say Princess uses the best tour guides on their tours. Ours was Marie Maguire, the most popular tour guide in Liverpool, a lady who grew up with Ringo. She was excellent, the two of us traded old rock and roll stories during our breaks. She has actually been quoted as a Beatles expert in several publications, including a 2011 book called Liddypool that I just purchased, about the Beatles' Liverpool history.

 

So, overpriced, yes, but worth it to me. I will say the same about our Princess excursion to Paris, overpriced, but excellent. These were the only two Princess excursions we purchased, and have no regrets. We rationalized that we had saved enough money at the other ports, that it was worth it!

Oops! Thank you so much for correcting me! For some reason I thought you had found a small group to get such close access. I'm glad Princess was able to do that for you too. Yay! (Did you go nuts in any gift shops?)

Chapter 9 = Greenock, Scotland: In which we finally find sunglasses! (Day 7)

Since we had no interest in taking the long ride into the bustling city of Glasgow, we decided to use the Greenock port as a day to do laundry and take it easy.

I was woken up at 8:30 a.m. by the Hotel Manager. They had handed out the “How Are We Doing?” service cards the night before and I made sure to write out all the things I loved (because I try to stay positive), like: Roberto our steward, non-smoking night in the casino, the non-smoking balcony rule, the Maître D, Wi-Fi in the room, etc. But I had to note two negative things at the bottom, unfortunately. One was Mr. Grumpy in the Internet Café. The second were the god-awful mattresses that left us with backaches. I figured that they wouldn’t read these comment cards until after the cruise, if at all. But the Hotel Manager explained to me over the phone that he indeed did read the card last night and that they were outside our door right now with two new mattresses.

Wowwwwwww!

We stumbled out to get breakfast and lo and behold, when we returned, the bed sheets were off and there were two updated mattresses. I don’t know if I’d call them “new”. They were just switched out. They were definitely bouncy and not as horrific as the first ones so we were happy. Thank you, Princess!

Laundry on the ship:

As you probably know, there’s a laundry room on each deck of staterooms. One load in the washing machine is $2 in quarters and one load in the dryer is also $2 in quarters. As stated in the beginning of this report, I wish I had simply packed a bunch of quarters in a baggie. Instead, I went down to the Passenger Services desk with cash (they won’t take it off of your cruise card, I tried) and had the shy-speaking blonde girl give me some quarters and Princess Casino coins.

You’d think putting quarters in a slot is easy, but as I learned the hard way, it’s not. To activate the machines (or at least the ones on Deck 10), you must put the quarters in two at a time, side by side. This means that even though there are slots that go all the way across, you have to put in two quarters back to back, then another two, then a third pair, then two more together. Basically the four slots in the middle should look like 2/2/2/2. Does that make any sense? They have a little sticker there explaining it but I had to ask the guy next to me how it worked.

The washing machine takes exactly 35 minutes. The dryer takes exactly 45 minutes. There are four of each as well as four ironing boards. I brought my Tide travel packet and dryer sheet with me from home and all worked well.

Walking around Greenock:

There’s not much to do in Greenock, I’ll admit. But having had five straight days of ports left us wiped out and we just wanted to stroll through town. Everyone was out on their long excursions so it was nice to have a quiet ship during the day.

We walked through the simplistic port and out towards the town. Today was the day we were going to find sunglasses, darnit! Our eyes were burnin’ and we had to find something that would shield them for the next few days. So we went to where any good tourist would go…

The mall.

We went in and out of stores until I finally found a cool teenager store that had hip plastic glasses that didn’t cost a fortune. Mike scurried upstairs to the men’s section. He came back downstairs with a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarer knockoffs. I loved them so much that I bought the same kind. It turns out they were having a “Buy One Get One Free” sale, so the total cost for our sunglasses was a whopping 5 pounds!

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the coastal town. We hiked up sets of stairs to a nice park which had a good view. From there, we meandered through some streets and out to the ocean’s edge. It’s definitely not a tourist’s town so there aren’t any gift shops or huge points of interest. That didn’t stop me from taking a few cute pictures, though.

They've still got cool architecture...

A view through the "open snout" of the bow...

Oh boy, the maps are out again...

Make sure you're out on Deck 7 during sail away because there's a full pipe and drum band giving you a mini concert! The best part is that there's this hilariously creepy mascot that "dances" along to the music. I couldn't stop laughing. You'll have to see for yourself.

Oh! He's comin' this way!

Back on board, we resumed the usual routine of lunch at the buffet, walking around the Piazza, a movie in the room, and dinner in the Main Dining Room. The meals continued to be excellent as was the service. We found that eating at 9pm worked well as the room was partially cleared out and there was never a wait.

I didn’t feel that there were enough activities for the under-40 crowd on this cruise line and on this particular itinerary which is why you won’t hear me talk about too many activities. But we knew this going into the vacation, so we weren’t surprised. I didn’t really feel like “Dancin’ to the 60’s” or going to the “Cigar Club”. I heard that there was a “Photography@Sea” course but I never saw it mentioned in the Patter aside from one small Nikon gathering at the beginning of the vacation and I have a Canon.

How the older folks managed to get up so early, go on all-day excursions, come back, eat dinner, go to the casino, watch a show and do it all over again day after day is beyond me. We were wiped out!

To view all of my Greenock photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/greenockscotland

For all of the Princess Patters, including Greenock, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = George Michael concert, “War Horse”, “The Vow”

Theater: Production Show: “Piano Man”. (Wanted to see this but between eating late and being full and tired after dinner, we missed it!)

Next Chapter = Sea Day Free Day & Loch Ness! (Day 8 & 9)

Chapter 8 = Belfast: Titanic, Titanic, Titanic! (Day 6)

I should warn you that if you don’t have the slightest interest in Titanic, you should probably skip this chapter entirely. Belfast is the mecca and birthplace of this amazing ship and being Titanoraks (Titanic nerds), we dedicated the entire day just for her.

I’m throwing in a tip right off the bat:

{Tip} Please, please, please if you are interested in going to the Titanic Belfast museum, buy your tickets online at http://www.titanicbelfast.com . The museum is only a few months old but it’s still popular enough that it sells out. In fact, I read on their Facebook page that it was sold out today. Tickets are a pinch cheaper if you buy them online at roughly 12 pounds per person. When you book your tickets, they ask you to pick a time. We picked 11am and this worked perfect for us. It was enough time to wake up leisurely and eat breakfast and catch a cab over there. They ask you to get there 15 minutes before your “scheduled time” but honestly I don’t think anyone pays attention to this.

Getting to the museum:

The view of Belfast port isn’t pretty. But they do have an excellent area right off the ship for taxis to wait for passengers. What we appreciated about this particular port is that the taxis were in a little holding pen, and no drivers ever were aggressive or fought to get you as their passenger. You simply walk off the ship and have two options, go to the right for a bus into town (free, paid by the city of Belfast thankyouverymuch) or into a taxi straight ahead. We simply walked over to the taxi corral and chose whatever car was closest to the front.

The driver was very sweet (just like Dublin’s driver) and looked a bit like Simon Pegg! It was a quick drive over to the museum. Despite the museum being right there near the stern of the Caribbean Princess makes it look like you could just walk there. But I assure you that it’s a bunch of twists and turns and going up over a motorway and through the dock area to get there. The museum itself says that the walk is “1.7 miles from the city center”. After driving there, I can assure you that I’m glad we didn’t try this.

We paid roughly 5 pounds for the taxi ride there, which we thought was beyond reasonable. I chose to take a taxi directly from the ship instead of the free city center shuttle plus walking because we had a specific time we had to be there and I didn’t want to be sprinting across some unknown city area and show up late! My husband, used to American tipping and apparently not heeding my advice, over-tipped the guy way too much. No wonder these cabbies are so cheery!

Titanic Belfast Museum:

I could go on and on and on about how amazing this museum is, but die-hard Titanic nuts probably already know this. It opened in March and it is stunning.

Bring with you the printed-out ticket confirmation e-mail from home which has your reference number on it. When you get inside, go up to one of the self-serve kiosks and enter in your last name and reference number. It will print out your tickets right there and you won’t have to go to an actual ticket window. From here, you have the option to eat at the café or restaurant, go to the gift shop, or head up the escalator to begin your journey. An employee will scan your ticket at the bottom of the escalator and give you a map.

When I looked at the map, I was confused as to why it said “Floor 4, Floor 1, Floor 2, and Floor 3”. It was out of order. What I was about to learn is that you technically start your “experience” up on the very top floor and then gradually work your way down. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled in all directions. There are subtle hints left and right that tie in with the tour.

First off, you are taken in elevators up to the very top. An employee will explain to you that they are trying to re-create the view from the top of the Arrol Gantry where workers would have been while building the ship (no you aren’t outside and no you’re not high up). Once you exit the elevators, you look down at a façade of what it would be like to stare way down below to the ground. It is at this point you get on the museum’s highlight attraction – The Shipyard Ride.

Yes, everyone can go on it. Yes, you can bypass it. No, it’s not scary. Yes, it’s for all ages. It’s only 5-minutes long and goes about 1 mile per hour. There’s a bit of a line for it but nothing too long. We waited perhaps 6-7 minutes and there were fascinating facts and photos on the wall to tide us over. Each “car” holds six people: three in the front and three in the back. It is suspended from the ceiling (no, you are not high up) and sloooooowly maneuvers through the room, explaining how the Titanic was built. You’ll see movie screen projections of Irish workers, hear the loud clanging of steel, sniff the smoldering smells, see the lumber and tools, etc. The whole point is for it to be completely immersive. Before you know it, the ride is over and you can move onto the next phase.

I don’t want to give too much of the museum away. But let me say that it is completely interactive. Everywhere you look, there’s something to touch, read, lift, watch, etc. You can read all about the pianos onboard the Titanic. Or see the dogs that were on the ship. How about feeling the carpet samples? Instead of showing a first class room, they built the entire room and had projections of real actors inside of it. One of my favorite displays is a three-walled room which feels like an elevator. It starts in the engine room and slowly travels upward so that you can see all three classes of decks which are computer generated. It was so realistic I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Another fascinating area was a window that was specifically positioned out to Titanic’s slipway. For a few seconds, you’d see a giant recreation of the famous black & white photo of Titanic being built right there. Then, technology in the glass would “shift” and it would show the current view out the window. Very, very cool.

There’s a giant movie-theater room that shows a 20-minute clip of Robert Ballard’s underwater exploration. They dumbed it down a little for people that might not know what they’re looking at, which was fine. If you walk down to the floor level of this theater, there is a glass panel on the floor that you can stand on and “look down” on the ship underwater while a crew member tells a short story. It is super awesome.

But here’s where Titanic fans will really be thrown for a loop. Are you ready?

The folks in Belfast will never mention that the ship broke in half.

True story! Throughout the entire museum, with all of its video presentations and audio tales from survivors of how it went down – they leave out the part of it cracking in half. Robert Ballard himself (the guy they adore and whose footage they use in the theater and who spoke at the museum’s opening) proved this theory correct when he found the wreck in 1985. But the people of Belfast are so proud of it being “their ship” that they think of it as a letdown that their baby broke in two. For the record, Belfast, we love you. And it was physics that did this. Not faulty shipbuilding.

When we ended our journey through the museum, we noticed that there were a bunch of schoolchildren out on the slipway. A nearby lady told us to go out and join in the celebration. “What celebration?” Turns out, that very day and very moment was the 101st anniversary of when Titanic slid out of that slipway and into the waters of Belfast!

As I sit here typing this, there are two painted pieces of art behind me on our travel room wall of Titanic’s sea trials in Belfast. They will forever have new meaning!

Mike and I couldn’t believe we were here on the exact day to celebrate this. At 12:13pm, the minute Titanic was released into the water, the children let go of their balloons into the sky and news reporters took pictures. You’d better believe we got all of that on film!

We made our way over to the ground level and went through the gift shop. At first, we were afraid we’d blow our entire souvenir budget in this store, but surprisingly we only got one book and it was a book of the museum itself. I just didn’t feel like I should walk around with a t-shirt emblazoned with a dead ships name on it. Shameless plug: my maiden name is Sweeney and the museum store’s manager’s name is Mike Sweeney. Woot!

Titanic Quarter:

The area all around this museum is called the Titanic Quarter. They’re not done building it and it’s about to become a huge revitalized area of Belfast. I think the people of Belfast have done a phenomenal job cleaning up the area and I believe they’re right about it drawing in tons of tourists in the future.

The museum is built right smack there at the top of Titanic’s old slipway. Like I said earlier, if you are a Titanic fan, keep your eyes open because they have cleverly designed the area around the ship and her past. If you look at the light poles at the front of the museum that run all the way down the concrete area, they are exactly where each metal beam holding up the ship were. And if you walk out along the cement area and see white painted outlines, you are now “walking on the ship” as they have literally traced the entire length of the ship, right down to the drawing of the lifeboats hanging off the side. Are you wondering why there are random benches in odd areas? It’s because they have literally built benches where the benches were placed on the decks of Titanic. Say it with me now: Spoooooky.

If you continue down towards the water, you will notice that the cement gives way to some stairs and then a wooden area with a curved end. This is to represent Titanic’s stern (yes, where Rose tries to jump off, yadda yadda). From here, you will be standing where the stern of the ship would have been. Your view is of the Caribbean Princess, actually. It’s a great view back at the museum which is like nothing you’ve ever seen and sure as heck doesn’t match anything in the surrounding area. Nonetheless, the architecture is quite interesting as it represents four bows of a ship.

Up near the front, there is a keel with a piece of steel and a plaque. It is the very front keel that held up Titanic and was dedicated by Thomas Andrews’ great nephew 100 years later.

Titanic’s Drawing Offices:

We were walking back towards the museum when we noticed two ladies walk by us and step into an old building. It looked so secretive. Who were they and where were they going? It wasn’t until we walked up to the dilapidated building and noticed that it had a sign taped to the window: “Titanic Drawing Offices. Buy tickets inside museum”.

WOOOOOOAHHHH!

Any Titanic fan has probably seen the black and white photo of all of the Harland & Wolff architects at their desks, rolls of blueprints sprawled out, dutifully looking at their biggest creation. Thomas Andrews was the head of all this -- the designer of this amazing ship. This was the office that photo was taken in. This was THE drawing office. We couldn’t believe our eyes.

Turns out, it’s only 2.50 pounds to go walk inside it. Heck yes! We purchased our tickets at the Information window inside the Titanic Belfast museum and walked across the road to this historical building. We didn’t know this, but apparently it’s a 30-minute walking tour inside the offices. We arrived late, not knowing it had a 1pm start time. The lady let us in the door and we were greeted with THE room. We quickly scurried through it as I was frantically taking pictures not knowing if we’d be able to come back to it. A nice Irish gentleman from the Titanic Walking Tour company (which you can also join outside the museum that gives 2-hour full tours) was holding up a large binder with black and white photos while explaining what room we were in.

The tour was fantastic and we were able to go inside 4-5 rooms in the building. Actual tiles were still under the carpets. Rolls of old blueprints were sitting dusty in their shelves. And to top it off, we were able to visit Thomas Andrews’ actual office and touch his actual wooden desk… The one that he used to roll Titanic’s blueprints out onto. The one he sat at for months on end, sketching out and drawing lines and figures for what was supposed to be the world’s most grandiose ship. It was euphoric. It was another “I can’t believe I’m here” moment.

When the tour was done, the guide let us hang out in the drawing room all by ourselves. We just stood there in awe. It was in shambles, a ghost of a room that once held some of the finest shipbuilding architects designing one of the most amazing ocean liners. It was a place of importance, and now it was filled with dust and debris. Regardless, it still had hope and charm. They said that they’re turning it into a fancy hotel soon (ughh……)

Titanic’s Pump House and Original Dry Dock:

After we finished marveling over the place, we asked the lady at the door if Titanic’s dry dock was nearby. She said it was a 15-minute walk up the road. We followed the road alongside Titanic movie studios (seriously?) and sure enough, there was Titanic’s pump house and dry dock. It’s now a mini museum but is so tucked away from everything that I wonder how they even get business.

The pump house has a café which is perfect for grabbing a small bite to eat or drink after walking so much. It also has a very tiny gift shop area and a desk which to buy the 7 pound ticket to take the self-guided tour. Nobody was there when we went, so we took our time looking at all the machinery and made our way outside to the mossy, old dry dock which once housed the beautiful ship.

You really get a sense of her size once you see this 100-year-old bathtub that Titanic sat in as she was fitted out. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine things being craned into her funnel openings for the interior before the funnels were added later. Titanic wasn’t just built all in one swoop, she had a shell built and sea trials to manage and so much glorious furniture and artwork and china brought onboard. It’s a shame it only saw sunlight for a few days.

Also near the pump house is a full-size replica that someone built of the curvature of the bow of the ship. It isn’t much to look at, but if you get up close to it and touch it, you really get a feel for how massive she was and how many rivets there were. Seeing so many rivets pounded in and melted together by hand makes me really thankful for my current job.

At this point it was getting windy and brisk and it was time to walk back to the museum to catch a cab back to the ship. Luckily there’s a line of cabs outside and we walked up to the first one we saw. It was our first ride in a black cab! As we wound our way back to the ship, I saw a small bit of Belfast proper. It looked like a cute town but we simply didn’t have enough time to visit it all.

Once back at the ship, we ate lunch and walked out to the stern near the pool to get some great pictures and footage of the museum near the rear of the ship. I had no idea that you can see the museum, pump house, dry dock AND drawing offices off to the starboard side of the Caribbean Princess. I wonder how many people onboard even had a clue what they were looking at.

The sail away was uneventful but it was neat to see families show up near the dock with their kids and wave to us. It must be a really big deal when a “big ship” comes into town. I thought it was sweet that people made the effort to show up and wave goodbye.

As we made our way through the calm waters out to sea, we got some last shots of the jagged cliffs that make up this beautiful country.

We will miss you, Ireland. And we are so incredibly thankful to have visited you!

To view all of my Belfast photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/belfastireland2012

For all of the Princess Patters, including Belfast, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = “Genesis” concert, “Footloose” (new 2011 version), “Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows”.

Theater: Headliner Vocalist: Nick Page

Next Chapter = Greenock, Scotland: In which we finally find sunglasses! (Day 7)

As far as candy goes...

Can I just give a shout-out to England for SELLING CADBURY CREME EGGS ALL YEAR ROUND?!?! WOO-HOO!!!!!!

(It's probably good they don't sell them year-round over here....:eek: )

Thank you so much DeLoreanGirl for your wonderful review. My husband & I are doing this cruise Aug 1 and are learning so much from you.

Did you feel you saw most of the Beetle attractions in Liverpool such as Strawberry Fields etc.or should we do the half day Princess tour? What did you hear from others about kissing the Blarney Stone. Is a tour necessary?

My husband and I are both following your review and enjoying it immensely. We check often for your next installment. Can't wait!

I did feel like I saw a good amount of Beatles stuff in Liverpool. We didn't do the whole Beatles shebang because my husband is aware of the Beatles but isn't a die-hard fan of them. So I didn't entirely want to drag him around on a tour. If we ever went back to Liverpool in the future, I would absolutely visit Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields "just cause". I remember trying to get a walking map but it was way too far. I don't think I myself would do the ship's tour because it's probably overpriced. I think nostalgiaguru and vaughan did it right by getting private tours. I did see a black cab that said "The Beatles Experience" or something like that. So I think there are quite a few options as far as Beatles tours go.

As far as the Blarney Stone, this is the one thing I really, really regret not doing. As I mentioned, I would have taken the train from Cobh to Cork (24 minute ride booked at the station next to the ship for 5.10 euros/pp round-trip). Then I would have walked over to the Parnell Place bus station to pick up the #224 bus that goes to Blarney (9-mile, 20 minute ride and 5.60 euros/pp round-trip). I would have loved to visit Blarney and the Woollen Mills (entrance fee to Blarney is 12 euros/pp).

So technically, if you did it on your own, it's only 24 euros - or about $30.00 per person. ;)

Princess charges $99 per person for the 4-hour Blarney tour and $200/pp for an 8-hour version BUT if you're the type that likes someone else to do the driving, this may work out better. The Princess tour goes into Cork and spends some shopping time in Kinsale.

So yes, if you're in Cobh, I would definitely recommend getting over to the Cork/Blarney area to see the castle. :D

Edit: Vaughan's rate is really good, I'm glad he mentioned it. I hate to push people away from Princess' excursions (unless they have mobility issues) but after experiencing so much on our own, I try to let others know that sometimes bus and train and private tour options are way easier than you think.

Thanks Emily, sorry, the Ultimate Deck Party was held on one of the nights at sea, but I suppose being in the Caribbean it made it more practical, mind due, we did have to give up eventually as it was raining, as we would say here - cats and dogs - please don't ask me what it means other than it was VERY heavy rain and the night was abandoned but continued inside in Skywalkers - not that we saw it:D

Whoops, you're right. It is at night. I still don't remember hearing about it but if you stumble across my Princess Patters link on Photobucket, it may have been listed in the Patter.

We only experienced it "raining cats and dogs" (yep, we use that phrase here) our first day in London. I called our cruise "The Finger of God" cruise because every day granted us with exceptionally great weather. I have no clue how that's possible for 12 straight days in the UK. ;)

!

 

Quick question, and maybe a stupid question, as we have just made a start on packing, did they do the Ultimate Deck Party? I can hear the groans and comments now - are you mad!! deck party in the North Sea!! But hey, got to think positive thoughts and on another positive thought - the drinks will keep cool:cool:

I didn't hear or see anything about an Ultimate Deck Party. There might have been one, but I truly didn't see anything mentioned. It was so quiet leaving Southampton that it either didn't happen or it was very silent! We were fortunate enough to have sun while leaving so that was a plus. :rolleyes:

Maureen -- the videos are GREAT!! I have bookmarked them so that I can send them to family and friends. Photos can only do so much, but to have the footage is even better!

To sum up what I thought of Britain is best displayed in this clip from our popular American show, "Family Guy"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aceKGiIyXRg

Typing up "Belfast" now...

Chapter 7: Liverpool: The City That Completely Surprised Us! (Day 5)

If there ever was a land that housed the most amazing, welcoming, positive-spirited people – it would be Liverpool, England. (Scotland, you come in a very close second.) I say this not because I encountered one person that outstretched their arms to me, but rather a handful of Brits living both here in America and the city of Liverpool itself that went out of their way to make sure my short time in their city was a good one. They were proud of the city and, most importantly, excited that visitors were able to spend time in it.

Numerous times throughout the cruise I would say to Mike, “What do you think it’s like for these super nice UK folks to come to America? I would hate to have my first impression of the country be from JFK or LAX airport. Could you imagine?” Like any country, there are good and bad areas and I’m sure there are towns in England, Ireland and Scotland that should be avoided. But coming from the fake melting pot that is L.A. out to a warm, welcoming, friendly country was so incredibly comforting. I wish planes coming from the UK could land first in Indiana. Or North Carolina. Or parts of the South that still hold on to southern hospitality. I promise that we’re not all as nutty as the Real Housewives and Jersey Shore portray us to be!

When I first started planning the cruise, the only thing I knew about Liverpool was that it was “the home of the Beatles” and that they had these really hilariously awesome statues all over town called “Super Lamb Bananas”. The name and vision alone made me crack up and we made a point to seek out one of these sculptures.

And then, I found this thread: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=907552

Please, for the love of all things holy, if you are thinking of spending your day in or near Liverpool, you must subscribe to this thread. TowncarT (yes, this is your shameless plug) will take you under his wing and let you know of everything there is to do in his fabulous city. And if that isn’t enough, hang out and chat with Mrs. Moho and she, too, will share her enthusiasm for you visiting the area. Both of them not only live in and love Liverpool, but they will make the effort to come down to the dock and personally meet you (in which this opportunity passed me by, dangit).

What I learned not only from this city but onward into Scotland is that residents here are so truly proud of their area and welcome others to share it with them. The only time I saw eagerly outstretched arms for our country was during the “Welcome to America” TSA commercial on the airplane before landing in Dallas.

If you click on TowncarT’s link above, you can see that I kind of hogged it near the end. He literally gave me a walking guide on what to see in the town with turn-by-turn directions. And you know what? It worked.

By the time I printed, highlighted and hole-punched the info into my O.C.D. binder along with the blue Princess Patter map, it looked like this:

We walked into the city armed with great guides and a list of things to see. Unless you are doing a day trip to Wales or a private Beatles excursion, I can’t imagine what else there would be to do other than to visit this fun city. People I talked to onboard the ship agreed that it was the “surprise city” of the trip.

First off, the architecture is so very cool. You have a mixture of old world buildings with enough modern buildings to balance it out. Nothing is overpowering. The minute you step off the ship, you are greeted by small monuments and a view of the entire area from Strand Street.

We began our walking journey by heading towards the Cunard building which I promise you is gorgeous. Yes, this is another Titanic reference. For those of you who have seen the movie: what was the name displayed across the stern before plummeting into the icy Atlantic? Yep -- Liverpool. She is registered here so there’s another piece of fascinating history attached to this town.

We headed up Water Street which turns into Dale Street. There are some great looking buildings along this route. Since this was my first true taste of England before having yet been to London, I was enamored with the style of buildings and how beautiful everything was. Birds were chirping, co-workers were eating lunch on concrete steps out in the sun, and cruise ship passengers were happily strolling in the streets and taking in the sights. What impressed me most about Liverpool (aside from the whole amazing people, amazing buildings, history, food, museums and culture) were the SIGNS.

Can I give a big, wet kiss to whoever laid out this city? To whoever put up the black street signs? Because, THANK YOU! Thank you from the bottom of my lost-in-Dublin heart for making it THE most accessible and walkable city EVER! All over the town (on nearly every corner of the downtown area) were big poles with arrows that would point in the direction of where sights were and not only would have the name of the sight, but the distance to that sight and the amount of minutes to walk there. Sweet baby Jesus, why can’t we have those here at home?! I guess it’s because cities back then started out small and sprawled outward so everything was so much more walkable back in the day. At no point ever did I feel I was lost because there were these fantastic, large signs telling me about all the points of interest in the city and the mere 10-15 minute walk they would be.

Once we walked up Dale Street you can cut across Haymarket or Crosshall to St. John’s Gardens. This is a beautiful photographic stopping point. From there, you are viewing the back of St. George’s Hall which TowncarT told me to not miss by any circumstance. Once you see the front of St. George’s Hall, you’ll know why. The Walker Art Gallery and Library are there too. It is the farthest you’ll walk (or at least, the farthest we walked) and you’re still within viewing distance of the ship. I really wish we had gone inside St. George’s Hall as it looked incredibly interesting.

From there, we made our way down Victoria Street towards the Beatles area. If you stay on Victoria and head south, you’ll go through a shopping district and soon onto Mathew Street, home of The Beatles. It is here that you can dive into all-things Beatles. We visited The Cavern Club which, albeit only pseudo-real, was still fascinating and a fun free visit. How people don't pass out in The Cavern Club is beyond me. It was probably 80+ degrees down there. My upper lip was sweating and I was only standing in the gift shop!

In the Mathew Street area, make sure to look left, right, up and down as there are things to read and see all over the alleyways in regards to The Fab Four. I may be two generations removed from this iconic band, but I’m still very aware of how important they are in the music industry, to music history, and to this town.

From there, we continued down to the waterfront but headed away from the ship towards the Albert Dock area. We were getting hungry at this point and grabbed lunch at the Tate Museum Café. It is a cafeteria type of eatery which was fine by us. We picked up a sandwich, some chips (crisps!) and a Diet Coke along with the most amazing homemade carrot cake ever. I’m not sure if our accent gave it away or they were just being nice, but the girls put a few ice cubes in a glass for our Coke. I was told not to expect ice in Europe in any way so this was a bonus! We ate outside in the Albert Dock area and people-watched.

From there, we did a loop around the Albert Dock, ducking into souvenir shops here and there. Everything was decked out and ready for the Diamond Jubilee. At this point, Mike mumbled that he would go into “The Beatles Story” museum with me after getting us lost the day before in Dublin. What a sport! It was a bit overpriced for what you got, but I’m still glad we went inside. There are a few key pieces they have on display such as John Lennon’s yellow circle sunglasses, some original guitars and Lennon’s white piano.

Also at the Albert Dock is the Merseyside Maritime Museum. This is a highlight attraction for the area. My husband, being a huge ship fan as you know by now, was getting excited and I promised him we would go in the museum – especially since they now had a small Titanic exhibit. Apparently the only surviving First Class ticket is here (which I saw with my very own eyes), as well as Bruce Ismay’s silver set, the White Star flag emblem and Titanic nameplate pried from a lifeboat as well as an actual life preserver from the Lusitania.

We couldn’t believe that a museum that nice was free to the public. Mike donated some pound coins into the donation bin. It was a very nicely laid out and informative museum.

From here, we simply enjoyed the city and grabbed some ice cream from a local stand. This was my first time seeing double-decker buses and black cabs. I even thought the red mailboxes were so adorable that I took my photo with one.

How gorgeous is this?

Once we made our way back down to the water's edge, we walked past the beautiful Liver Building. Rumor has it that the Liver (lie-ver) birds look over the sea and city and if the liver birds fly away, the city will crumble. The Princess map said, “They are still there to this day, despite Hitler’s best efforts.”

Having sufficiently felt like we had seen the best of Liverpool, we called it a day and trekked back to the Caribbean Princess. Mike and I said to each other, “Wow, this was the city we were so-so about and it’s been our favorite one so far!” True story. I spoke with another couple who was surprisingly impressed as well. I think the proximity to the ship, good signage, being so walkable with fascinating sights and having such friendly locals is what made it such a pleasant visit. It truly was a combination of all these factors.

Oh, and how can I forget? We did see a silver Super Lamb Banana. So I can die happy.

From the toppermost of the poppermost, we loved you Liverpool!

(Does this mean we have to cheer you on in football/soccer?)

To view all of my Liverpool photos, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/cruiseliverpool

For all of the Princess Patters, including Liverpool, you can visit: http://photobucket.com/princesspattersbritishisles

Movies Under The Stars = “The Artist” (I tried SO hard not to watch this outdoors as I wanted to watch it at home instead), “Real Steel” (ehhh…..), and “Maverick” (Mel Gibson/Jodie Foster). Not sure why they called “Maverick” a classic. It was made in 1994!

Theater = Production Show “Caliente”

Next Chapter = Belfast, Northern Ireland: Titanic, Titanic, Titanic! (Day 6)