We have always wanted to travel to the British Isles area, and we love cruises as a way to travel so when we saw that Princess Cruises was doing a British Isles cruise and having a good deal on tickets we jumped at the chance.
There are always some changes to itineraries from year to year depending on which ports are open, how many days the cruise is for, local politics, ships available, etc. So look at this more as a general review of the experience then as a specific description of what you might see if you go on such a cruise.
The Cruise Experience
Ship
This was our first time sailing with Princess Cruises, and we were on the ship Caribbean Princess. Which is a larger ship able to carry over 3,000 passengers. We didn’t choose Princess for any particular reason, except that they happened to be doing a British Isles cruise which was where we wanted to go.
The ship was nice, although we did not think the layout was as good as our ship on Royal Caribbean the year before. It just seemed harder to get from place to place on the ship. We were of course in an interior forward cabin again since those tickets are cheapest.
Food
There were several places to eat, including a buffet, a deck cafe, a centrum cafe, and dining rooms. There were other restaurants that were not included in the ticket so we did not eat there.
Overall the dining was fine, but not as good as our last cruise. We didn’t develop a strong relationship with any of the serving staff like we have previously, but that could be because we were on My Time Dining so we never had the same waiters very often.
Amenities
Although the Caribbean Princess is quite large it did not have a lot of amenities we that we enjoyed. There were several pools on board, but because of the cool location we were sailing in they were mostly unusable, as were the sun decks.
There were exercise facilities which we did use occasionally. They had a wide variety of machines to work out on. The sport facilities were lackluster however, consisting basically of a 3/4 basketball court and a weak mini golf course. Most disappointing to me was the lack of climbing wall, which I had really enjoyed having on our previous cruise.
Laundry
Probably the biggest plus of our Princess Cruises experience over our Royal Caribbean experience was that there was self serve laundry on board. One of the most difficult parts of using only a carry on when cruising is that you normally do laundry unless you pay for the professional laundering service.
Although the laundromat on board was more expensive than it would be on shore it was a much appreciated amenity for us.
Entertainment
The entertainment on board each night varied but included the ships singers and dancers, comedians, a local Beatles tribute band, and many others. It was of cruise ship quality, which is to say that it was fun to watch, but it wasn’t anything amazing. Shows were always over full, so I don’t think the theater was the proper size for the number of guests on board. We would normally arrive at least a half an hour early.
We really didn’t participate in many of the on board activities. There were many of them but we only attended a few, including fruit carving and ice carving. This is probably because this cruise had very long ports of call so we could do more in each port and when we got back to the ship we would normally eat dinner, go to the show, and then go to bed.
Beds
Speaking of bed, a note must be made about the beds on Princess Cruises. They are absolutely heavenly. Apparently they are so good that people often want to buy them, so Princess sells them as well.
The beds were great if you were feeling a little queasy, you could lie down in your bed and you could hardly feel the boat moving at all. Our first night out from London was a very rough one, so I was extra grateful for these beds.
Desitnations
Despite it not being our favorite cruising experience, this British Isles cruise was fantastic because of the places we were able to go.
Our cruise went over 11 nights, leaving from Southhampton England (the say London, but it is about 2 hours away from London). We chose to take the cruise bus to Southhampton for an extra charge, and it was totally worth it because there really isn’t a good way to Southhampton if you don’t have your own car.
Our first port of call was suppose to be Guernsey in the English Channel. Unfortunately due to unsafe weather were unable to make that port. I am glad that the crew kept us safe, but I was disappointed that we missed that destination, and disappointed that Princess did nothing to compensate for it.
I won’t go into detail on all the ports because we have written about them at length elsewhere, but here they are linked in the order that we went to them:
Overall we loved the ports, with only Liverpool and Le Havre being a bit lackluster. Fortunately we know going in to it that those cities would not have as much for us to do so we were prepared. Our favorite city was Belfast, but we loved every stop on the Emerald Isle and in Scotland.
Sum Up
As you can probably tell Princess was not our favorite cruise line. They weren’t bad, but they didn’t stand out as exceptional either. The destinations however were fantastic and so cruising proved a great way to visit them.
