Tiki_Koro

That may have been my misunderstanding. I had both my phone and my GoPro out and was taking photos and video of the moment simultaneously. When the crew member told me no cameras, she may have only been referring to my GoPro. I would go by the written policy over my experience.

You're welcome! BA had a sign posted about the 3-hour restriction, but I do not know how well it is enforced because it took us an hour in line just to get to the agent who checked our luggage. By that time, we were within the 3 hours. I think it is worth attempting to check luggage early given the long security lines. You're welcome! Trader Vic's was fun, and I am glad it is still open and maintaining the classic menu and decor. It is truly a time capsule to an era when tiki bars and Polynesian palaces were in vogue! You're welcome! Hope you have a great trip! Thanks! We used our time efficiently and did a lot of planning to make sure everyone got to see what they wanted. While our approach may not be for everyone, our objective was to get a real sense of the city and its history. For this trip, we focused on highlights for my brother because it was his first time in London. On our previous trip, I focused on my parents' interests, such as a Legal London walking tour through the Inns of Court and the Royal Court of Justice (my dad is a retired judge) and sites that were significant to John Wesley and his Methodist movement. We save spontaneity for a vacation at the beach! London has so much to offer, so we planned more for that part of our trip than we did for some of the ports. We are satisfied with our experience, but I would not recommend it for someone who would rather enjoy shopping down Oxford, seeing a show, or exploring the museums. Thanks, my parents will appreciate that!

Cruise Day Two - Portland I must warn everyone in advance – we had a traumatic experience while in Weymouth that has been replaying in my mind ever since. I cannot get it out of my head, and it breaks my heart each time I think of it. I will get to that in due time. We had no plans for Portland and decided to sleep in without alarms. We got up around 9am and ordered breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and fruit through room service, which we enjoyed on our balcony. We docked at Portland, and disembarking was a breeze. Once we got off the ship, a port ambassador from Portland greeted us and explained a map of the area. There was a free shuttle bus that took us from the port to Weymouth, the harbor and seaside town next to Portland. There was one stop along the way for anyone who wanted to tour Portland Castle (not much of a castle; we decided to skip it). Once we were dropped off in Weymouth, we walked through the harbor and across the bridge to the main shopping district. It was a charming town, but we did not see anything interesting in the shops. The main streets curved around and terminated at the beach, which was very crowded with sunbathers! Weymouth was a frequent holiday location for King George III, who had health issues and was told by his doctor to get some sun at the sea. There is a statue commemorating King George III, and next to it is a replica carriage “bathing machine” that was used to take him into the ocean to bathe! We marveled at the crowd and enjoyed walking along the promenade by the various seaside amusements. And then it happened. For most of the beach, dogs are not allowed. But, at the end of the beach, there is a section that is dog friendly. We were walking along the sidewalk between the beach and the road when, all of a sudden, a cute black dog came running through the crowd into the street. Seeing what was about to happen, my mom loudly screamed, along with others, as a driver of a car slammed on her breaks. Unfortunately, she hit the dog, but – perhaps due to the screams – the driver hit her breaks in time to not fully run over the dog. The dog managed to break free and run off to the beach holding one of its hind legs up in the air, bloody and exposed. I have never seen an animal get hit by a car before. I’ve seen roadkill, and I’ve even hit an animal with my car, sadly. But, I’ve never seen the graphic image of a poor innocent animal struck by a car, with fur flying in the air. The driver held her face with her hands and against her steering wheel, in shock. The owner came running up from the beach looking for the dog. There was a stir across the beach as onlookers murmured about what happened. After we regrouped and started to leave, we found the owner holding the dog with its leg covered in a towel. The dog looked panicked but was not whimpering, as the owner talked to the driver of the car. Knowing it was none of our business, we moved on and hoped for the best. I just wish I could stop replaying the scene in my head. For lunch, we sought out a place to get fish and chips. Seemed appropriate! We came across a chippery called Marlboro that claimed to “probably” have the best fish and chips in Weymouth! I must admit, the fish and chips were very good, and while I cannot know whether it was the best in Weymouth, it certainly was one of the best I’ve had. After we finished eating, I asked the server if the fish was local. She said no, they get their fish from the Pacific, but “they are fresh, though!” Oh well, I would not be surprised to find out most of the restaurants in Weymouth source their fish from the Pacific, too. It was still a good meal. After lunch, we stopped by the drawbridge to watch the 2pm raising. It raises up every two hours, and we saw it at noon when we first arrived. We wanted to get a better view for the 2pm raising. We watched the boats pass through and then decided we were ready to go back to the ship. We walked to where the bus dropped us off, and there was a bus waiting. The busses run so frequently that there was almost always a bus waiting. When we got to the port, boarding was easy. Princess greeted us with glasses of cold spa water (plain, orange-, or cucumber-infused) as we walked up the gangway. We began our day with no expectations, and we left feeling charmed by the Victorian resort town – except, of course, for the incident. We had some time to kill before dinner, so we enjoyed hot beverages and desserts at International Café. My father went back to the room, while my mother, brother, and I sat in the Piazza and watched some entertainment. We saw a circus performer spin plates and do a knife-throwing comedy act, followed by a couple of ladies playing pop music on electric violins. This was very relaxing. For dinner, we had reservations in the Da Vinci dining room. I started with the pork terrine, but I found the port jelly and pork combination a little jarring. I switched to shrimp cocktail, followed by Bahamian pea soup. The soup was really good, and it was not at all what I expected. I thought I was getting a green soup, but the peas were actually black-eyed peas, which was much better to my Southern palate! I then had the coq au vin, and it was ever so comforting. For dessert, I had banana, chocolate, and dark rum mousse tart, paired with a port. Except for the pork terrine, which was just a preference thing, everything I had for dinner was delicious. After dinner, my parents went on a date night to see the Neil Diamond tribute concert in the Princess Theater. My brother went back to the room, and I went to Speakeasy for a cigar and cognac. Smokers in the lounge are typically very friendly, and I always seem to have interesting conversations with them. One lady, however, complained about not getting good service. She had been playing video poker at the bar for a half hour, and no one asked her if she would like a drink. About that moment, Vlada came into the lounge and asked me, "Mr. Charles, another Glenlivet double?" She remembered me from the night before, name and drink! (By the way, Charles is my legal name on the Medallion app, but I go by Chad). I said, "Sure, and could you please also get a drink for my friend?" I will give my observations on service in a later post, but I found all of the crew to be very friendly. The service issues I experienced were not from unfriendly or unhelpful crew members, but rather likely due to being short-staffed. How about a funny story for some comic relief to counter the tragic incident? At dinner, we discussed some things I had read in the Princess Patter for the following day. I received one on my bed after turndown service, but my parents did not receive one because they had not requested turndown service. I explained to them that I had requested turndown for every night of the cruise through the Princess Medallion App (there is a setting that applies to all nights). After my parents had gone to bed but while my mother was still awake going through her phone, around 12:30am, she pulled up the app and requested turndown service for the rest of the cruise. Then, their phone rang and woke my father up. He answered the phone, and it was a staff member asking if he had requested room service. He thought the staff member was referring to their breakfast request hanging on their doorknob, and he said, “Yes.” My mother tried to stop him, but it was too late. Next thing they know, there is someone knocking at their door at 12:30am to turndown their sheets! We laughed ourselves silly at the idea of my parents calling someone at 12:30am to pull their sheets down so they could go to bed! Along with the Patter, we also got this notice on tender boats at upcoming ports. Once again, another beautiful sunset off our balcony!

Cruise Day One – Southampton (Departure) For the second part of our trip – the cruise – I am going to renumber my days so that anyone just looking to follow along with our cruise can know where we are on that itinerary. Also, I failed to mention in my previous post how we did our COVID tests, so I am going to back up for a moment. When we got back to the hotel after dinner at Trader Vic's, we did the COVID tests we brought along from eMed. The tests were proctored over the internet through an app, and the instructions were easy to follow. The proctor asked me to angle my phone camera so that he could watch me take the test. I fumbled around to set my phone up against the wall, but when the rest of my family took their tests, I held their phones for them (just a tip!). Fifteen minutes after our tests, we had our results. We all tested negative, and the results were emailed to us. We took screenshots of our results and uploaded those to the Princess Medallion app. We also had to show the results to the cruise agent at the port when we checked in. Here is where we purchased our tests: eMed | Airline Travel The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and caught an Uber ride to the Victoria Coach Station. We booked a transport shuttle through Princess to Southampton. This process could not have been any smoother! We were told to arrive by 10am, but we got there at 9am because we had some funds left on our Oyster travel card used for the Tube that we wanted to cash out. We thought we could take care of it at the Coach Station, but we were told we had to cash out our refund at an underground station. My father and I walked a few blocks to the Victoria Underground Station, and getting our refund was as easy as using the tickets machine. I believe there is a limit to how much of a refund one can receive from an unspent balance on an Oyster card (maybe ten pounds?), but we kept the balance low just to make sure we could get a full refund. Once we returned to the Victoria Coach Station, a gentleman was waiting at the entrance with a Princess Cruise sign. I told him we were with Princess, and he directed us to Terminal One. There, a woman greeted us and explained that our luggage would be loaded onto a truck at 10am. We would not see it again until we got to our rooms on the ship. She gave us a colored dot sticker and told us to wait until that color was announced. That was our boarding group. There would be four buses boarding at 10:30am, and they would all depart at the same time for Southampton. Boarding began a little after 10:30am, and it was about 10:50am when we finally departed. We hit some traffic, but otherwise it was an easy ride to the port, about 2 hours and 25 minutes. When we got off of the bus, we were directed into the terminal and were checked in within 10 minutes of getting in the line. Security was simple, and we were on the ship very quickly. We received a letter announcing that masks were being required in the indoor areas, but the only place where I saw this being enforced was at the buffet. Otherwise, there were many guests walking around the ship without masks, and nobody was asking them to put one on. Our rooms were ready immediately after we boarded, around 1:40pm, although all of our bags did not arrive to our rooms until later that afternoon while we were having lunch at the buffet. One of the best post-COVID measures is the new format for doing the muster drill. We had to watch a video in our rooms, and the presence of our medallions checked off that we viewed the video. Then, we proceeded to our muster station and tapped our medallion with a staff member. That was it! Our rooms were aft balconies on the back of the ship, B750 and B752. These are “partial obstruction” balconies with steel beams going through them, but we did not mind them at all. They may block some of the view out our glass doors, but they do not inhibit us from sitting in front of them on the balcony. Our cruise came with a few complimentary amenities secured through our travel agent, including the plus drinks package, WiFi for one device each, and a generous shipboard credit that we used to book an excursion. My brother and I took advantage of the drinks package and ordered our first cruise cocktails to enjoy on our balconies (he had a Vesper martini, and I had a mint julep). Then, we proceeded to the pool deck for the Sail Away party. There is something in the air when first sailing away at the start of a cruise, and I just love the energy from the staff, performers, and guests! Before dinner, my brother and I tried our luck at the casino. He bet $1.50 on a slot machine and won $41 on his first bet! I tried my hand at the machine next to him and quickly lost $30! Oh well, there are plenty of nights left to recoup my losses (or make a bigger fool of myself)! We are not experienced gamblers, and we were quickly told after I snapped this photo of my brother winning that taking photos and video are not allowed in the casino. Whoops! For our first dinner, we decided to go big at the Crown Grill. I started with the Jumbo Sea Scallops with Salmon Caviar, followed by the Black and Blue Onion Soup, and then the moment I had been waiting for since booking the Crown Grill – a 22oz bone-in porterhouse steak! I did not finish the steak because I saved room for the Warm Chocolate Mousse Trifle with cinnamon sponge cake, vanilla gelato, and grapefruit wedges. It was all very good, and I was surprised to find out one of the wines available on my package was Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon, which paired nicely with everything except the scallops, with which I had a prosecco. Silverado is the winery of the late Diane Disney-Miller, and I have had the privilege of visiting the winery and sampling many of the wines. Service was exceptional, as well, and that will become a recurring theme as I catch up on these reports. After dinner, I spent the evening in Speakeasy, the smoking lounge in the casino. I would call it a cigar lounge, as that is what it is meant to be, but the humidors were completely empty (there is a small selection of cigars for sale in the gift shop). Fortunately, I brought my own stash. The server, Vlada, took my order for a double Glenlivet neat. That was all I needed before I was ready to enjoy my first night in my incredibly comfortable Princess bed. If you have been on a Princess cruise before, you know what I mean! Summer days are long in Europe, and the sun was setting as I went to bed. I cannot speak highly enough about the Princess staff and how organized departure was. They have this down to a well-oiled machine. Here are the documents we had in our room upon arrival. The Princess Patter is available on the app, but paper Patters are provided with nightly turndown service (request turndown service on the app).

Yes. And the buffet was the only location where masks were enforced. On one morning, crew members were also requiring us to sanitize our hands as we entered the buffet. We finished on Wednesday the 20th. Stay tuned! We were outside in Normandy most of the day during the heatwave, and that was bearable. High was around 93 Fahrenheit. In Paris, it was around 106 Fahrenheit. I imagine it was very difficult being indoors in buildings with no air conditioning. Sorry, I did not get that opportunity. I was told general refresh and deferred maintenance. By the time we returned to Southampton and then Heathrow, the weather had cooled down to the mid-70s Fahrenheit. I may not get to that part of my report before you disembark, so I will spoil it a little for you in case you run into a similar situation. We received an email during the first week of the cruise from British Airways explaining that, due to restrictions at Heathrow, some of the BA flights were being canceled. According to the news, Heathrow is limiting the amount of travelers passing through to around 100,000. I imagine this is due to short-staffing, for part of our problem was a 2+ hour wait through security. Our flight was delayed because there was another plane booked for the same gate, and we had to wait for that plane to clear. If our flight had left on time, we would have missed it. BA does not allow travelers to check luggage until 3 hours prior to the flight, so going through security earlier was not an option unless we were not checking any luggage. But, the worse problem we dealt with was I got bumped from the flight due to it being overbooked! I was on the same booking as my brother and in the same travel party as my parents, and yet I got bumped to standby and was told I likely would not get on the flight. The next flight was the following day, so I would have been put up in a hotel and flown out the next day. We were not given the option for my family to stay back with me. The BA staff said bumping individuals from a travel party is not common, but it has been happening more frequently recently. It all worked out, as I will explain in my report. Good luck! Weather was very pleasant in Scotland. We even wore jackets in Inverness.

Regarding the condition of the ship, that was our experience, as well. The outside is still pretty rusty, but we saw crew members painting when we were at port. I did not notice any smoke while on our balcony (Baja 752), but I saw a crew member tucked away hiding outside on the 16th level sneaking a cigarette. Thanks for the suggestion. I tried a few times, but I still could not get it to work. The best I could manage was posting pictures on my social media accounts, but I could not get videos to upload on social media, nor could I get posts on CC. We had aft balconies (Baja 752 and 750), and we did not notice any smoking when on our balconies. That is a shame. We would not have liked that, either. 😆 I did not check, but I did not notice smoke. Thanks! I was very disappointed to not do a live report, but I worked on drafts as we went along hoping to find a way. I noticed one time while walking down the halls that I smelled smoke, but that was inside. I figured someone was breaking the rules in their cabin. I was told general refresh and deferred maintenance. I will be trying new locations in the future. Such a shame, too, because my previous experiences before this trip were excellent. We brought our own tests, and it worked perfectly. All you need is an internet connection, and our London hotel WiFi was fine. https://www.emed.com/airline-travel Great suggestion! I hope to try The Ritz next time.

I was told that you do not need to re-test if you are staying on the same ship, but you will for another ship. I was told that the time in drydock is for general refreshing the ship and deferred maintenance. While it did not detract from our enjoyment of the cruise, as many have noted the ship is in need of cleaning up (marks on the walls, carpets, painting, etc...).

Day Three in London We had our first major hiccup this morning, which I will get to in a moment. After breakfast at the hotel (with no further mention of the bathroom leaking), we headed out for King’s Cross Station in search of Platform 9 ¾. With all of the Harry Potter hype, a photo opportunity has been created for kids and kids-at-heart to pose like they are running into the wall of Platform 9 ¾. The line was long, so we did not wait to get a photo, but next to it is a gift shop selling Harry Potter souvenirs. We live in Orlando and have annual passes to Universal Orlando, so most of the merchandise was familiar to us as being the same as what is sold at the theme park. We found a few items that were created just for the London store, including a bottled butter beer. I bought it to see how it compared to the Universal beverage, and it was pretty gross! It tasted like cream soda with a sour finish; not at all like the magical elixir that put Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter on the map! Then, my mother came down ill and needed to return to the hotel. She does not travel well and typically suffers with minor sickness whenever we go someplace unfamiliar. We caught a taxi back to our room and decided to let her stay and rest while we continued our plans for the morning and afternoon. Our morning plan was to tour the British Museum, but we decided to skip that in order to keep the rest of our plans. Fortunately, the British Museum is a free sight, so we were not out any money from prebooking. My parents and I had already seen it on our last trip, so my brother really was the only one to miss out. I’ll have to bring him back another time! We picked up with our plan to do the Rick Steves audio tour of Historic London: The City. This tour goes down The Strand and Fleet Street, covering Elizabethan London (Shakespeare) and rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1666. Rick Steves recommends 3 hours to complete the tour, including a stop inside St. Paul’s Cathedral, but we did it in less than that, just over 2 hours including lunch. Along the tour, we stopped to shop at Twining’s Tea Shop and lunch at the Punch Tavern. We intended to eat at Ye Olde Chesire Cheese, a pub that predates the Great Fire and was frequented by Charles Dickens, Samuel Johnson, G.K. Chesterton, and also Mark Twain and Walt Disney when they visited London. I used to go to Cheshire Cheese all the time, but post-COVID they stopped serving food in the cellar. We could not get a table in the Chop Room, so we went to Punch instead, which is named because it was the regular haunt of the Punch political satire newspaper staff. This tour is another must-do if you want to understand the history of London. Next, we went to the Tower of London for the rest of the afternoon. There is a Summer Bloom festival going on in the outer grounds of the Tower through September that adds some extra beauty. There is an extra charge to walk through the blooms, but we could see them just fine from the outside as we walked to the main entrance. We spent about 90 minutes at the Tower and did the Medieval Palace, Imprisonment, and Crown Jewels audio tours. I wanted to show my brother the armory inside the White Tower, but we did not have the energy for any additional stair climbing. Also, we were anxious to return to the hotel and check in on my mother. This is where the executions took place within the Tower. Not many executions happened inside the walls. Instead, most executions happened on Tower Hill located outside the Tower near the Tower Hill Underground Station. On Tower Hill is a memorial square commemorating where many were executed, including Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher. To our surprise, my mother was dressed for dinner and felt 100% better! Dinner this evening was a bit of an indulgence for my brother and me. We enjoy visiting authentic tiki bars of the mid-19th century, and London has the oldest surviving Trader Vic’s restaurant at the Park Lane Hilton. All of the older American locations have since closed, and Trader Vic’s London was the first international location, which opened in 1963. For me, the tiki drinks are the main attraction, but the food was great, too. I even brought a special limited-edition aloha shirt to wear for the occasion made by California artist Jeff Granito. I was stopped by a gentleman in the bar who asked if my shirt was a Granito! Nice to see fellow tiki fans keeping the place going! This concluded our London adventure, and we really maximized our time. We were blessed with absolutely beautiful sunny weather in the mid-60s to lower 70s. No jacket was ever required, and I could have used a few more short-sleeved shirts. Also, the sun did not set until after 9pm and rose before 5am, which threw us off a bit. I walked 59,907 steps and 24.6 miles total! This was a great way to begin the trip prior to relaxing on the cruise.

Day Two in London I must begin this report with some negative comments about our hotel. My first impression was it was decent, and though it lacked some of the creature comforts we take for granted in America such as air-conditioning and larger bathrooms, it seemed to be what we expected based on our previous experiences in Europe. When I lived in London for five months (August-December), I did not have air conditioning at my flat or at the school campus, and I was fine with it. This building, however, is next to another building, and there was neither a breeze nor air circulation in our room even with the window open. I was also disappointed with the breakfast. I was hoping for a traditional fry-up, but what we got was a continental buffet of boiled eggs, croissants, yogurt cups, and cold cuts. Still, these disappointments were nothing compared to an unfortunate incident we had with the staff that just did not sit well with us. After our first day in London, my father and brother took showers before going to bed. The hotel seems to be family-operated, and the young lady who checked us in earlier knocked on our door after my father and brother took their showers. She asked if there was standing water on the floor of the bathroom. The only thing we noticed was a little water that was incidental to stepping out of the shower while drying off. It certainly was not a puddle. She said that water was leaking underneath our room into the front desk area. She asked us to keep a towel on the floor in case it was coming from our bathroom. During the night and the following morning, we could hear what sounded like water flowing from a hose through the wall behind our bathroom. It was not constant, but periodic. When we went down to the breakfast room, an older lady we assumed to be the young lady’s mother approached us and told us that our shower must be flooding our bathroom and told us we need to be more careful and perhaps turn the water off between lathering and rinsing! We told her there was no water on the bathroom floor, and she insisted that we were flooding the bathroom because they never had a leak in the front office before we came. This was without her or a plumber inspecting the situation, and while I do not doubt they had a leak that was causing damage to their hotel (we could hear the odd water sounds behind the wall and told her so), it was not our problem and not our fault! At almost $300 a night, we expected to be treated with better hospitality than that, and so I cannot recommend the St. George’s Hotel in Pimlico. I can, however, highly recommend the Pimlico area. It is quiet, safe, clean, and close enough to the main attractions without being crowded. We stayed in Pimlico in 2019, and these are the reasons we chose Pimlico again this time. Now, on to something more positive. We hit the ground running (well, walking briskly and climbing lots of stairs!) for a very long and satisfying day of sightseeing covering every period of London history! On our planned itinerary, I left the first part of this morning open in case we needed to catch up with the Rick Steves audio walking tour of Westminster that was planned for the day before. Because our delayed flight caused us to skip doing the tour on our first day, this plan worked out well, so we started the morning off at Parliament and walked down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. Rick Steves recommends about 90 minutes to do this tour, but we completed it in just over an hour. When we got to Downing Street, we peered through the gate and saw some commotion. We found out that some of Boris Johnson’s cabinet were resigning, and there was mounting pressure for the Prime Minister to resign. As the world now knows, he announced his resignation the following day, but what made this so funny to us is the last time we did this very walking tour in 2019, when we got to Downing Street we saw similar commotion and found out Theresa May was about to announce her resignation! So, we are now 2 for 2 when it comes to prime ministers resigning when we are touring London; I hope they let us come back! The top photo is from 2019 when Theresa May was about to resign, and the bottom photo is from this trip when Boris Johnson's cabinet members were about to resign. After we finished this tour, we hurried to the St. James Park Underground Station to catch the Royal London walking tour by London Walks. We wanted to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but based on our research, we knew it can be difficult to get a good view without arriving early and waiting for hours. On our last trip, we found this tour, and it was the perfect combination of learning some history around the Buckingham Palace area and seeing multiple units of guards and bands marching in the ceremony. We had the same tour guide this time as last time, Jan, and she is wonderful! She used to work for Prince Charles and has plenty of insider knowledge about Buckingham Palace and the Royal Family. London Walks tours are great because you can either reserve a space ahead of time or just show up. You can also book virtual tours to watch live from home, if you want to get a taste of what they offer or get a fix of London. Go to www.LondonWalks.com. Next, we tried to stop by the Red Lion pub for lunch on Whitehall, a Winston Churchill favorite, but we could not get a table. So, we went to The Westminster Arms pub near Westminster Abbey and got right in. I had my favorite pub meal – bangers and mash – with a delicious cask ale at a slightly warmer temperature than we typically drink them in America, which is the proper temperature for English cask ales. After lunch, we had a 1pm entry time for touring Westminster Abbey. If we could pre-book a sight, we did because this is usually a good way to skip long ticketing lines. But, Westminster Abbey did not honor our timed entry and made us wait in the regular line with everyone else. Had we known this, we would have tried going earlier than our scheduled time. There was no benefit to prebooking Westminster Abbey. This tip did pay off at other attractions, as I will report on later. Westminster Abbey is such a fascinating place. It is a holy place for both Catholics and Protestants because of its pre-reformation and post-reformation significance. It is the burial and memorial place of so many historic figures. Any one of them would make it a pilgrimage site, but all of them in the same place makes it overwhelming to the point of taking them for granted! We also did the separately ticketed Queen’s Gallery in the upper level, and that was worth doing just for the view looking down into the nave (take the lift unless you are missing your Stairmaster and need a legs workout!). We completed the tour in about 90 minutes. We followed Westminster Abbey with the Churchill War Rooms, again with a timed-entry ticket for 3:30pm. This time, we bypassed the regular line. Besides the War Rooms and bunkers, there is also a Winston Churchill museum that is part of the tour. We went through everything in about 90 minutes, but there was so much to see that a Churchill fan could spend much more time digging into everything the museum section had to offer. It was a great mix of artifacts, displays, and video presentations. We were ahead of schedule on our itinerary, so we decided to knock off a couple of our plans for the next day and headed to Leadenhall Market. This trip is my brother’s first time overseas, and he is interested in seeing things related to the Harry Potter series. Leadenhall Market was the filming location for Diagon Alley in the first movie, and we found the storefront that served as the Leaky Cauldron entrance. After snapping a couple of pictures, we headed a few blocks down to St. Michael’s Alley, a winding alley that led to the area described by Charles Dickens as the location of Scrooge’s counting house in A Christmas Carol. With so many modern buildings now around the historic City area of London, these little alleys are remnants of Victorian London we all hold in our imaginations. Speaking of Victorian London, our final event of the day was another London Walks tour, this time the Jack the Ripper walking tour. First, though, we grabbed dinner at a pub near the Tower of London called Hung, Drawn, and Quartered, so named because of its proximity to Tower Hill where executions took place. Executions were such a big public event that we get our term “gala” from the merrymaking that took place at the gallows. We met our tour guide, Justin, at the Tower Hill Underground Station and began our tour. Justin began by showing us a remnant of the Roman wall that surrounded Londinium, circa 50 AD. This wall is just outside the Tower Hill Underground Station and is very easy to find. The Jack the Ripper tour was fantastic! Justin cut through the myths and explained the facts and significance of the hysteria surrounding the murders. We saw three murder sites, with the other two begin too far of a distance for the walking tour. One of the murder sites is on a street that has been remarkably preserved as it was in the 19th century, while the rest have been modernized. Following this tour, we were exhausted and returned to our hotel for a good, albeit brief, night’s sleep. According to my Apple Fitness app, I walked 25,636 steps (10.5 miles) and climbed 18 flights of stairs!

Well, we made it home late last night, and wait until I get to the story about our harrowing experience at Heathrow! My goal is to post two or three days at a time starting tomorrow. I am currently organizing my photos and videos and getting them backed up into the cloud now that I have decent internet. I apologize for not keeping to my plan of a live report, but, as my report will reveal, traveling rarely goes as expected. For the most part, however, we accomplished our planned itinerary and were flexible enough to make plenty of lemonade out of lemons!

Hello, everyone. I’ve tried to post 3 or 4 times with a quick update, but they haven’t gone through. I hope I am successful this time. The issue is the weak WiFi. It’s fine for sending iMessages and checking email, but it does not allow me to upload pictures or, apparently, submit posts to this forum. I am trying this from our lunch location in Edinburgh using the pub’s WiFi. Cruise is going well. I’m writing draft reports to post as soon as I return home, with lots of pictures!

Just checking in. We made it to the ship and had the best night’s sleep on those amazing Princess beds! WiFi has been awful, and I am having difficulty loading photos. I hope to find better WiFi and catch up on my reviews later today.

Thanks for the advice. Unreliable transportation would definitely pose us some problems. We are doing the Rick Steves audio walking tours in Dublin and Edinburgh in the mornings, so our schedule for lunches will be very flexible as we can skip over any of the stops. If it takes us three hours to get to Perth, then we will be spending very little time seeing Fingask before returning back to the ship and skipping Stirling. I have no doubt that day will be quite an adventure! Thanks, we've already booked tickets for the Museum. We will be sure to see the SS Nomadic! Thanks!

Sure, I'll check on both requests Friday!

Flight and Day One in London Our flight was only delayed once and left at the new departure time of 8:45pm. The plane seemed full, and we were all the way in the back two rows. My parents were in the last row, and my brother and I were directly in front of them. Our seats were in the middle section, and my father and brother had the aisle seats while my mother and I sat in the middle seats next to them. The middle section had four seats across, and in the back of the plane, the sections next to the windows each had two seats. A couple sat next to me in our row, but there were two seats available next to a window. The couple took those seats once the plane doors closed, so my brother and I were able to spread out across the empty seats in our row! It may have been the most comfortable economy seats I've ever had! Even though we left so late, we were still served a dinner. The options were rosemary chicken or pasta with cheese sauce. I wasn't sure about chicken on a plane, so I opted for the pasta. The flight attendants failed to mention it had tofu or some other rubbery substance with fake grill marks! We hit some really bad turbulence off the coast of Canada. Both the ferocity and duration were like nothing I've ever experienced. The pilot told us later that it was forecasted and could not have been avoided. Still, I managed to get some sleep, as did my parents. My brother, unfortunately, did not. We were served a light breakfast that consisted of a small croissant sandwich and blueberry yogurt. The ham and cheese croissants were out, so I was given a cheese and sundried tomato sandwich. We finally landed at Heathrow at 10:45am, which was two hours later than originally scheduled. Getting through the border was a nightmare on our trip in 2019. It took about 90 minutes to get through the switchback queue. Back then, only EU passports (which included the UK) could be scanned. The rest of us had to go through a border patrol agent. This time, USA passports could also be scanned, and we breezed right through in 10 minutes! By the time we got through, there literally was no queue. We waited almost an hour, however, for our luggage to arrive. It was after 12pm when we finally left Heathrow on the Tube and headed for Victoria Station with one switch at Hammersmith. I won't be giving Tube directions throughout my posts, but I mention this because we were concerned about negotiating the Tube with our luggage. My first time to Paris, I was the American with all the luggage trying to squeeze into the Metro during business rush hour! Thankfully, that did not happen this time, and we did fine. Both stations had lifts, and from Victoria Station we were a short taxi ride to our hotel, the St. George Hotel in Pimlico. My brother and I have been joking all day about us staying at the Royal Imperial Windsor Arms (from European Vacation)! It is worn, basic, with missing lights and dark marks on the walls, but it sleeps four with the added benefit of a queen and two singles rather than two queen beds. It also has an en suite bathroom and serves breakfast in the morning. It is nothing fancy, but we got what we expected and are pleased. Also, we are located on the first floor, which to us means the second floor, and there are only stairs and no lifts. Could be worse if we were on a higher floor! The location is quiet and a short walk to the Pimlico Station. If the breakfast is a good English fry-up, then I would recommend the St. George if you manage your expectations. After freshening up, we had to reconsider our itinerary. We deliberately planned very little for today anticipating we would run into some delays. Assuming we had arrived at our hotel before noon, our plan was to begin with the Rick Steves' Westminster Walk audio tour that begins at Westminster Bridge and ends at Trafalgar Square. It takes about 70-90 minutes. Then, our next plan was to have afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason. I made reservations for us for 3pm. We decided to skip the Rick Steves' tour and head straight to Fortnum & Mason. I left time in our morning tomorrow to begin with the tour in case we did not get to it today. We took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus and walked down to Fortnum & Mason. We booked a table at the Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon and were sat at a nice table next to a window. The tea and food were delicious, but the service left a little to be desired. I've done this tea three times now, and the first two times were exceptional. This time, we felt that our server was not very attentive, and we seemed to have trouble communicating with her. For instance, when she asked if we wanted a refill on any of the food, I requested more scones and clotted cream. She sent a food runner with a plate of more patisseries. Those were good, don't get me wrong, but they were so rich that we could not eat another plate of them. When she checked up on us, I again requested scones and clotted cream. Another food runner came by our table with more patisseries! We ended up with three additional plates of patisseries until finally someone brought us some scones - but no clotted cream! F&M is such an institution that should be experienced, but I think on my next trip, I will try a new location for tea. After tea, we took the Tube to Westminster and got our first glimpse of the Elizabeth Tower. Last trip, it was covered in scaffolding. We were excited to see it unveiled and looking better than ever. One can really tell the difference compared to the rest of the Houses of Parliament. We had booked ahead of time a 6pm river cruise with Thames River Sightseeing. The cruise departed from Westminster Pier, went past the Tower Bridge, and back to Westminster. The round trip lasted a little less than an hour. It was a nice way to end our first day.

Thanks! Great, welcome! Thanks, I appreciate the suggestion. After looking at the train from Greenock to Glasgow, we may take a taxi to Glasgow and catch the train from Glasgow to Perth. That will save us about a half hour each way. Our plans for that day are very flexible, and our priority is to make it to Fingask. Stirling is more of an aspiration if we have the time. Next time, it would be fun to hire a taxi for the day and travel the Highlands. I've done a couple of Highland tours through Rabbie's and absolutely loved them, but those are buses with set itineraries. For those planning their trips and would like to see the Highlands, hiring a taxi or taking a bus tour like Rabbie's are two great ideas. Here is the link to Rabbie's: Scottish Highlands Tour | Small Group Tours | Rabbie's Tours (rabbies.com) No trouble at all! I was already planning to post the Patters, and I will include the menus. Absolutely! We're really excited about the Games!

One more thing - I saw this article in today's newspaper. It does not say when Big Ben will chime again, but it would be a wonderful treat to hear it during our trip! Big Ben Bongs Will Soon Ring Out Again Across London - The New York Times (nytimes.com) Also, did you know there are lyrics to the chimes? Pretty cool! These Are The Lyrics To Big Ben | Londonist

Pre-Trip Update Happy Independence Day! I am reporting from our airport terminal. Of course, our flight has been delayed, but only by 50 minutes. We consider ourselves lucky compared to many other travelers over the weekend! We had an unfortunate situation that has added some stress to our travel. Our dear dog Lily got sick with tummy trouble and had to be taken to the animal emergency room late last night. Based on the symptoms, the doctor was concerned she might have swallowed a foreign object and would need surgery, but her lab work and x-rays came back clear. She is 15 months old, and I already had anxiety about leaving her before all this happened! Thankfully, the sitter we lined up is a vet tech, and we have some friends who offered to help as a backup plan if she needs medical care. She is in good hands, and I miss her already! Even with the busy travel weekend, it seems that traveling on July 4 is not a bad idea! We experienced much lighter traffic on the interstate, and Orlando International Airport is not nearly as crowded as usual. Our flight is now scheduled to leave at 8:45pm, and we were told we would receive a dinner and breakfast on this flight. I sure hope sleep comes easy after getting very little the last two nights. See you all on the other side of the pond!

Thanks! I appreciate the clarification. Someone asked me how we arranged our transfers to and from Southampton, and now I can give her accurate information. When I look on the website, it does not explain that other than "This service can be arranged through your travel agent." Thanks! Thanks for the warning. I've been following the strikes a little. I even saw some barristers might be striking! We do have a tight schedule for the Glasgow day, but we do not anticipate spending much time either at Fingask Castle or in Stirling. If we are running short on time, we will bypass Stirling and head back to the port. Thanks! Thanks, and you're welcome! We were originally on the May 9 cruise, but my brother works for a public high school and couldn't join us until July. It looks like you had a great trip! Thanks! My dad keeps a good journal when he travels that he then turns into a narrative to share with friends and family. I tried to do that on our last trip, but I did a better job taking photos and video than putting my thoughts to paper. I hope to find downtime on the ship to be able to keep up with this live report. Perhaps we will meet at some point! I saw that about Glasgow. We haven't received notice yet of any changes, and I hope all is set for our itinerary. Losing that stop would be a shame! I learned about the Annette Henry tour from @ROWSE's report, but it is already booked up when we are there. Looks like a great tour! We plan to spend more time at the Belfast Titanic Museum because it is a much more extensive exhibit, while the Cobh museum is more of something to do while we walk around Cobh. From what I read, it will take about an hour or less to do the museum. Our main event for that day will be the Jameson Distillery in Midleton after lunch. Do you have any recommendations for what to see in Cobh? You're welcome! If you or anyone taking this cruise in the future have questions about something that I miss in my report, please don't hesitate to ask. I want this to be helpful, which is the main reason I chose to do this live rather than a post-trip report.

Greetings! This is my first time posting a trip report on Cruise Critic, and I thought it would be fun to share our upcoming vacation. Even though our cruise does not depart for another 9 days, we will be flying out to London on Monday, July 4 (I know, we're celebrating Independence Day backwards; at least we fly out of Orlando in the evening and hope to see some fireworks!). We will spend three days touring London before the cruise. Introduction My name is Chad, and I am from central Florida. My travel party consists of my parents and my brother. I am a lawyer, and I mention that because I spent August-December 2011 living in London during my 2L year of law school working on an international law certificate. I attended Pepperdine School of Law in Malibu, California, and Pepperdine has a campus in South Kensington. It was my dream to someday take my parents to London and show them around, and we got to do that in May 2019. Figuring that would be the trip of their lifetime, I packed in everything I could imagine, and we covered a lot of ground between England, Wales, Scotland, and Paris. The one place my parents wanted to see that we could not fit in was Ireland, so we started planning for our next trip immediately after we returned. For this trip, however, we wanted to go at a slower, more relaxed pace, and a cruise seemed the perfect option. We planned for May 2020, and like so many on our upcoming cruise, we had to postpone (twice!) due to the pandemic. But, by waiting until this year, my brother's calendar allowed him to join us, and it happens to be my 40th birth-year. My birthday was last month, but we are celebrating it on the cruise nonetheless. As I told my work colleagues, I intend to keep celebrating until I forget I crossed that threshold! Pre-trip Planning I am writing this live trip report mainly for two reasons. First, on our last trip, I posted so many photos during our trip on my social media accounts, and my friends and family really enjoyed following along. By doing this report, they can follow along and get more details and stories from our trip in addition to photos and video. Second, I gained so much useful information from other trip reports on Cruise Critic, and I hope my report may be helpful to others in their planning (hat tip to @ROWSE on her wonderful report from her May 9-26 review ). This is my third cruise and my second with Princess. I took a 2018 sailing on the Ruby Princess through Alaska's Inside Passage and loved everything about the experience, especially the bed! We used the same travel agent in planning this trip, and while I will not give any more details about our agent because of Cruise Critic's third-party recommendation terms, I found it incredibly useful to use an agent especially to navigate the changing travel conditions due to the pandemic. To plan our trip, I used many resources. When I studied in London, I devoured Rick Steves's PBS videos and guidebooks when planning my side trips. For basic European travel skills, I cannot recommend highly enough his "Europe Through the Back Door." I also found his "Europe 101: History & Art for the Traveler" helpful for filling in my gaps in European history. We used his app for audio walking tours during our 2019 trip, and we plan to use those again. I also viewed the lecture series from The Great Courses (now Wondrium) "Great Tours: England, Scotland, and Wales" and "Great Tours: Ireland and Northern Ireland." A couple other books I used for the London portion of our trip are "Frommers' 24 Great Walks in London" (2011) and "Liquid History: An Illustrated Guide to London's Greatest Pubs." Finally, we've been watching movies to get us excited about the stories we will hear, such as "Michael Collins," "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," "Saving Private Ryan," and "Belfast." Part of what makes travel so much fun for me is the journey, and immersing ourselves in the planning of this trip has built the anticipation and excitement! For our 2019 trip, I did a DNA test on Ancestry.com to learn more about my genealogy. We made visiting Wales a priority because we discovered my paternal grandfather's side of the family came to America in the mid-1600s from Glamorgan, Wales. I did some more research for this trip on my paternal grandmother's side of the family and found that it is possible we might be direct descendants of Archibald Dundas of Fingask, who was born in Fingask Castle in Scotland! Even more fascinating, he was either the son or grandson of Elizabeth Bruce, who is a direct descendent of Robert the Bruce!! If the records found on Ancestry.com are correct, that would make Robert the Bruce either my 19th or 20th great-grandfather. Fingask Castle still exists and is a private wedding and event venue located in Perth. I reached out to the current owners, and they graciously offered to give us a tour. Itinerary We are spending three days touring London, followed by the 12-day cruise. I'll split our itinerary into two parts and give our plans so far. London Day one - Tuesday July 5 - we depart the night before out of Orlando and arrive Tuesday morning. We learned the hard way on our 2019 trip that flight delays plus getting through customs can throw off our plans for mid-day, and that cost us seeing Westminster Abbey on that trip. For this trip, our first scheduled event is a 3pm afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason's Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon. Assuming we have time beforehand, we will begin with Rick Steves's Westminster Walk audio tour (on the free Rick Steves Audio Europe app). After tea, we have tickets for a 6pm Thames River Sightseeing Cruise. We will conclude with a nightcap at a pub. Our hotel is in Pimlico, close to Victoria Coach Station where we will catch our direct shuttle to Southampton on Friday. Day two - Wednesday July 6 - if we did not finish the Westminster Walk audio tour, we will begin with that and then do the 10:15am Royal London Walking Tour through LondonWalks.com. We did this tour in 2019 and loved it as a great way to see multiple aspects of the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guard ceremony. After a quick lunch, we will then tour Westminster Abbey and the Churchill War Rooms. Dinner will be at a pub near Tower Hill, followed by the London Walks Jack the Ripper tour. Day three - Thursday July 7 - my brother is a Harry Potter fan, so we've worked in a few notable stops beginning with King's Cross Station to find Platform 9 3/4 and the Harry Potter gift shop. King's Cross is close to where I lived in Bloomsbury, so we will walk from King's Cross to the British Museum and stop along the way to see my old flat (which, incidentally, was a filming location for a scene in the tv series "Sherlock." My flat was the only window in the building lit up!) After spending the morning at the British Museum, we will do the Rick Steves Historic London: The City audio walking tour down The Strand and Fleet Street, stopping at Twinings and then Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese for lunch. We will finish the walk to St. Paul's Cathedral after lunch, followed by the afternoon at the Tower of London. After that, we will stop by Leadenhall Market where Diagon Alley was filmed in the first Harry Potter movie and find the jewelry store that was the façade for the Leaky Cauldron. Nearby is St. Michael's Alley, which inspired Scrooge's counting house in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" (according to "Frommers' 24 Great Walks in London" book). Dinner will be at Trader Vic's London, located in the London Hilton. Cruise After all of that, we will be ready for a break! For our first couple of days on the cruise, we intentionally did not plan much beyond exploring the ports. Here is the map of the cruise itinerary: Day one - Friday July 8 - we booked a direct shuttle from Victoria Coach Station to the cruise terminal in Southampton through Princess through our travel agent. According to the Princess website, direct transfers need to be made through an agent (if this is incorrect, feel free to comment with accurate information). This will take the hassle out of getting to the terminal on time and managing our luggage. We booked dinner reservations for this first night at the Crown Grill. Looking forward to that 22 oz. porterhouse! Day two and three - Saturday July 9 and Sunday July 10 - explore Portland/Weymouth and Guernsey. Does anyone have suggestions on what not to miss? I made a list of the attractions from TripAdvisor, but we will play it by ear. Day four - Monday July 11 - we will spend the morning in Cobh and check out St. Colman's Cathedral and the Titanic Museum, and for the afternoon we will taxi to Midelton and tour the Jameson Distillery. Day five - Tuesday July 12 - we will do Rick Steves Dublin City Walk audio walking tour in the morning, lunch at the Brazen Head, and spend the afternoon at the Guinness Brewery. Day six - Wednesday July 13 - we will begin with a Black Cab Tour and then use the Hop On Hop Off bus to get around town. We will lunch at The Crown Liquor Saloon and spend the afternoon at the Titanic Museum. Day seven - Thursday July 14 - this is the day we visit Fingask Castle! We will take a train from Glasgow to Perth and a taxi to Fingask Castle. On the train back, we will stop at Stirling and spend the afternoon exploring the town and Stirling Castle. Day eight - Friday July 15 - at sea. Day nine - Saturday July 16 - we will take the train from Invergordon to Inverness and spend the day at the 200th Inverness Highland Games. Day ten - Sunday July 17 - we will begin with touring Edinburgh Castle, followed by the Rick Steves Edinburgh: Royal Mile audio walking tour. Along the way, we will stop by The Elephant House cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote some of the Harry Potter books, Greyfriars Cemetery, Deacon Brodie's Tavern for lunch, and the Museum of Edinburgh. Day eleven - Monday July 18 - at sea. Day twelve - Tuesday July 19 - we booked the Princess excursion to the Normandy Landing Beaches. Day thirteen - Wednesday July 20 - we booked a direct transfer through Princess from the cruise terminal to Heathrow and fly out in the afternoon back to Orlando. Did I miss anything?! We are so excited for this trip, and I look forward to engaging with everyone following along on this post.