seacrystal

I am waiting for 2016 British Isles schedules to be released. When they finally are published, is it best to book ASAP or wait to see if a fare reduction occurs? This will be our first Princess cruise unless HA can match the spectacular itinerary!

Hi!

I would book as soon as a particular cruise is available. We booked our British Isles 2015 cruise 18 months out and have had two fare reductions. As long as you are aware of when the reductions take place you can call Princess or call your TA to take advantage of the reductions. Between the two reductions, we saved $480 from the original price.

Thanks & as usual our cruise is starting well. :)

 

Arrived at 10:30, in waiting area at 11:30 & on the ship at 12:30. We enjoyed lunch in DaVinci dining room & learned that the "code red" has ended & hopefully no one boarded with norovirus to "share" with everyone. ;)

Thank you for the current info. We need to hear some good things about the Crown!:D

Since we are a couple of the lucky ones boarding in two weeks, can the OP keep us up to date?

Thanks in advance.:D

The helicopter company was Blue Hawaii. They were excellent, as well as the park, he flew us over the water and we spotted several pods of whales. We highly recommend them. Book privately, much better price that going through Princess.

We also used Blue Hawaii on our Hawaii cruise a couple of years ago. They were excellent. Our pilot was a former military pilot.

One piece of advice - as soon as the ship docs, get a taxi over to the airport as soon as you can. The Blue Hawaii offices are located on a side ride toward the airport. The rental car agencies are located at the airport and everyone gets a taxi and races over to rent their car ahead of the agency buses who pick up rental car passengers. You will beat the crowd.;)

Our group of 6 went to Vittoria on the Bridge, this August. I made our reservations well in advance, online. Our reservation was at 6:00, and we had more than enough time. It was an easy walk from the restaurant to the Castle. We were a little late getting there due to traffic, but we called ahead and they accommodated us. We all enjoyed our dinners.

Contact info following:

 

Vittoria On the Bridge Restaurant

19 George IV Bridge

Edinburgh

EH1 1EN

Tel: 0131 225 1740

E-mail: ewaz@vittoriarestaurant.com

Thank you so much for your suggestion! I will surely look this one up. It is so much better to have CC recommendations than just go by TripAdvisor ratings which sometimes are not real.

There are lots of restaurants I would rather go to in that area than The Hub. It's a big venue and IMO really impersonal, as it concentrates on larger events such as weddings, conferences etc, and not a restaurant as such, although I haven't been for the pre-tattoo supper. We had dinner recently at the Whiski Rooms, about 5 minutes walk from the Castle and enjoyed it, or The Contini Cannonball with views of the castle is on our list to try.

 

There are various eateries pubs in "spitting distance"(!!) of the Castle, on the Lawnmarket and High Street, and also in the Grassmarket which is also only a few minutes walk from the castle. Might be worth some consideration. It's funny really I'd never seen the Hub mentioned before but obviously people have used it.

Thanks tartanexile81!

I will check out your recommendations.

Hi phabric,

Thank you for the information. I am really hoping that The Hub can accommodate us. Based on previous posts, it has always been the best choice. Did you research other restaurants before you picked The Hub?

I have read of other restaurants on TripAdvisor but I think they are a little pricier. Thanks for the heads up on the bag check.

We have purchased our 2015 Tattoo tickets for our Aug. 1 British Isles cruise. For those of you who previously attended, do you have any recommendations for dinner choices before the performance? I contacted The Hub for our group and they may not be able to take our reservation because of the Edinburgh International Festival. They will let me know in January.

I need to formulate a Plan B. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

you sir, should be a comedian. Thank you for the laugh!

SailorJack IS a comedian. As soon as I saw this new post, I got a fresh cup of coffee first so I could sit down and get ready for all the laughs. I even sent the link to my friend for her enjoyment.

Thanks SailorJack for making my day!!!:D:D

It depends on how its booked. If one booking, same cabin, you will keep the same card. If multiple bookings, you should get a new card in each case (they may be able to adjust that on ship if you ask).

Good point! We have three different confirmation numbers to get credit for three cruises. I guess we will be getting our exercise walking off and on the ship!

I hope this holds for us too. We are on a B2B2B in January with the same cabin on all three short cruises. It would be so much easier to not have to keep disembarking after the first two cruises.

He met us at the port. The 4 couples on our tour met in the centrum and we exited the ship together. There were 6-8 small tour vans and I walked in that direction and he stepped forward and asked if I was looking for him. He did not know what I looked like--but, I guess I looked like "someone on a mission." LOL

 

I asked him later how long it took him to get to the port. [since he had told us he lived in Normandy near the beaches] He said around 2 hrs. :eek:

 

We left at 8:00 am and he returned us to the port around 5:50 pm.

 

He is an excellent guide. I hope you have a good tour.

Thank you so much for all the detail!:D I hope we are not too late to reserve him for our Normandy date.

Hi DragonOfTheSeas,

Your pictures really brought the Normandy beaches to life! I was just wondering if Guillaume Marie met you at the port or did you have to drive to Caen to meet him? We would be interested in contacting him but just needed to know the contact point.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

Great! I needed something to line the bottom of my birdcage.

You are so bad! LOL

A taxi would just loooooooove to take you to Butchart and back. Rates are metered so will vary, but all cabs charge the same - pretty accurate rates available here (ballpark to Butchart CAD$60/US$53 each way). Don't forget the entry fee (seasonal, usually CAD$30ish pp in cruise season).

 

In other words unless you can fill the cab you won't save anything compared to a ship excursion, as you need to pay the $30ish pp entry fee plus $120 for a cab - even with three of you all it takes is a traffic delay leaving the car park because of traffic (e.g. any of the nights that have fireworks on) and you'll spend more to do it yourself. If you're a group of four or five, taking your own cab will almost certainly save a little and of course does add flexibility with timing.

 

Since many cruise stops are brief, unless you are one of the lucky ones with most of a day to spare I strongly recommend taking ship tours. Traffic on firework nights is brutal - you don't want to miss your ships departure!

Thank you martincath!

When I posted I had not looked at how far it was!:eek:

I think I will look into other means of tranportation.;)

What about taxis? Are they readily available at the port? If so, any idea of cost?

I wanted to pass along a tip that I learned from my research here on CC, which is that you can book a train ticket from Paris all the way through to Southampton on the Eurostar's web site by selecting United Kingdom as your location in the menu at the upper right. Then, when you plug in your destination, you'll have a host of UK cities. From what I've read on here, if the Eurostar is late getting to London and you somehow miss your "connection" at Waterloo Station, they have to put you on another train to Southampton (same as an airline). The prices looked pretty good booking it this way.

Thank you for this information. I had no idea this was a possibility. I will start doing more research.

Thanks Lobez,

I am jotting down information on prospective tours.

Thanks Lobez! This gives me hope. Our plan is to use a cab to get to our hotel in Paris in the St. Germain de Pres area.

BTW - I followed your roll call thread to gain information on excursions. You had an awesome group. Did you go to the Tattoo?

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!!

nmg85 and Simon,

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. I now have many options to look over while anxiously awaiting arrival in your beautiful country:D!

Thanks Simon. I was hoping it would be more straightforward. I'm concerned that luggage will complicate the journey with switching rails.

In Southern California we don't have metros, tubes, subways, etc. so I feel like a kid having to learn something new and I am a bit nervous:eek:.

Wow! The power of Cruise Critic!:D:D

Thank you Amerryscott, insanemagnet and tartanexile81. Now I have lots of choices. I hope luggage is not too much of a problem. There will be four of us and we will each have a large rolling suitcase and a rolling carry-on. I will research your recommendations.

Thanks again!:)

We will be going on the Princess British Isles cruise on August 1, 2015. We will be spending five days pre-cruise in Paris and taking the Eurostar to St. Pancras. Originally our thought was to book a car service from the station to Southampton but since we will already be there, we are wondering if it is a better idea to take a train to Southampton? We willing be spending the night before the cruise at the Premier Inn West Quay.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated on the most cost effective way of getting from St. Pancras to Southampton.

. . . . I will try to get updates out as we make our way through the trip. Should get the first notes on our packing and final preps out as we work through the next 12 days counting down to departure.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I really look forward to your insight. We will be doing this cruise next year and any help in planning will be much appreciated!

Have a wonderful cruise!:D:D