debsjc

Very true. It's very inexpensive in the UK, and they are sailing from Southampton. If they add a kettle on Southampton sailings, they should load extra sparkling mineral water. Highland spring or similar would be fine, even Tesco's to be honest!

Surely there must be some brand of fizzy mineral water (not soda water) included? It's really bad if not.

Congrats, can I just check that was £425 per person?

Time to get out of Heathrow varies a lot. 2 hours should be okay, as long as there are no unexpected issues.

We rented a car, I drove it :)

We are on the Silhouette in a couple of weeks. Can I just check we should have shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and body lotion? Would like to cut down on what I take with me.

I now prefer Princess to HAL, better food quality, younger passenger demographic, and more daytime entertainment (Jenga, bean bag toss, quizes, etc) Also The Retreat is a reasonable price, we did half a day for $20 in there on most sea days and it was very luxurious. We just do a few bits of laundry in our cabin and hang it to dry over the shower!

When we took this cruise I was in my 40's and the majority of people were younger than retirement age. To be fair, I also expected an older crowd, but that wasn't the case.

It really is. If you have an overnight in Moorea or Bora Bora, I would consider staying in a nice hotel. I was reluctant to spend more money, but the memories were worth every penny. I can't compare Princess to Celebrity, as out first Celebrity cruise is in a couple of weeks, but Princess were very good on that cruise.

We did this routing round trip from LA, with Princess in Feb 2020 (just before Covid really hit!) It was a 28 day cruise, we had a slight schedule change as Samoa stopped letting ships in due to Covid. We ended up with 5 Hawaii stops, Tahiti (overnight), Moorea and Bora Bora (overnight). It was a fantastic trip.

Sounds promising, well done! When is your cruise

Thanks again

Thank you, that's great The Twitter name you gave isn't coming up, and DM on here not working. Could you please message me on twitter @debsjc9

We are on the Silhouette on 17 June, not sure if that's too late or not. Thanks for offering them anyway, very kind of you

I missed out Corfu, we hired a car for the day. and went to the Paleokastritsa Monastery and then had a nice meal by the sea.

We don't take excursions, so I can just give you some advice about what to do on your own For Dubrovnik I would recommend walking the city walls, taking the cable car and/or the taking the 15 minute ferry trip to Lokrum island (Lokrum is much quieter with gardens, wild rabbits and swimming spots) In the old town I would recommend Mea Culpa restaurant for a light lunch, their risotto is amazing and inexpensive for Dubrovnik. From Livorno it's easy to take the train to Pisa, Florence, or the seaside town of Viareggio (have done all 3 at different times) In Kotor the old town is right by the port, and is wonderful to walk around. You can also take a local bus to the village of Perast, which is really pretty.

It's partly just a difference in the times different nationalities eat I think. It would be very unusual for people in Europe to have dinner at 5pm. Actually in Southern Europe 9pm is more likely.

I can understand that at home. However you are more than likely going to be on a different time zone on your cruise anyway, so you will have to change the internal clock....... otherwise you might be getting up at 2am in stead of 6am!

In southern Europe they would still be having lunch at 2-3pm!

It's strange people would want to eat that early. I would wait till they had all gone, and go in around 7.30-8pm

Thanks for all the information

Thanks for the great info & photos. We are stopping at Lisbon & Porto on the Silhouette next month. Could you please let us know if any shuttles into town were provided, and if taxis were plentiful at both ports? It sounds like the taxi in Lisbon was not too keen to take you.

Sorry to ask, I can't find the answer online. Can the king bed in the Celebrity Suites be converted into 2 twins? Thanks

We rented a car, and we used a app called Getaround, which is like an Air BNB for cars! However I did notice on the T's and C's the vehicle we rented was open to Europeans only.... not sure if that is the same for all cars. The people we rented from were kind enough to bring the car to the dock for us, then we dropped them back home. The weather was awful on the day we went, so we just did The Atlantic Road, no other stops except at a supermarket.