Ocean Princess British Isles mini-review

[basil1]

I have just returned from a 3 night precruise stay in London, 8 night British Isles cruise and 3 night post cruise stay in Paris.

Not sure if any of this info will be helpful to others, but I hope it will.

Just a preliminary note- originally we were to fly US Airways to Heathrow but the flight was cancelled (after it was supposed to have already departed ;-( ) So we had some chaos but were rescheduled on British Airways. We loved flying BA. If you are flying to London consider flying BA. I wish we could have flown back with them.

We stayed at the Royal Horseguards in London. The location can not be beat! We had a view of the Thames and the London Eye from our room. The room was pretty small but was nice and very convenient. Right next to the tube and train station.

 

We took the train to Dover. We checked our bags (without checking in with the ship) and headed straight to Dover castle. After our visit there we went back to the ship and checked in. It was about 2:30 by that time and there was not a single person in line to check in. When we arrived at our cabin our luggage was already there.

The Ocean Princess was our first recent small ship experience (the last was several years ago with Premier cruises). The Ocean Princess is a beautiful classic small ship. She has been well maintained.

The crew and staff were very nice and quite accomodating.

Food in the main dining room and the buffet was always very good. For such a small buffet, (compared to the mega ships) they had a great variety. During peak times (breakfast) it was difficult to find a table. We always ate breakfast at the buffet and dinner in the dining room.

 

Our first port was Guernsey. We had a perfect day weather wise. We did a cliff walk and it was just beautiful. We came upon some workers excavating a WWII bomb!! A live one!! They had found it the day before with a metal detector. They weren't actually looking for it when they happened upon it. Anyway, it was actually a mine that was supposed to be dropped into the ocean. They had the area roped off but were letting the few people who encountered this scene right up to the area. They basically said that if it blew that standing back a few feet wasn't going to save you- "we'd all be gone" was the statement. The Royal Navy was scheduled to come and get it the next day. How crazy...huh? After our walk we had a nice lunch and then shopped in town.

 

Dartmouth was the next port. We went to see the castle and walked through the town. The harbor is very beautiful.

 

Our next port should have been Waterford but it was cancelled because it is a tender port and we had rough seas.

 

We sailed on to Dublin and arrived the evening before we were scheduled to arrive (because of the cancelled port). Dublin is a docking port however we had to take a Princess shuttle into the city. I think it was $8 p/p. In Dublin we went to see the Book of Kells and the Trinity College Library, we visited St. Patricks, and the Dublin Castle. On our way back to the shuttle pick up point we encountered a large, chanting, drum playing group that appeared to be some sort of demonstration. We tried to hurry up and get off that street. We thought we'd be smart and cut back through the Trinity Collage campus. That didn't work and we ended up in the middle of a gay pride march. Some interesting experiences between that and the bomb...haha.

 

Edinburgh was the last port of call. It was so crazy crowded due to the Tattoo and the Fringe festival. Nevertheless, we managed to see the castle, walked down the Royal Mile to the Holyrood Palace (which was nearly deserted after the mob at the castle) and visited the Scot's monument. We also had time to do some shopping.

 

Disembarkation was super quick and proceeded smoothly.

We took train from Dover to Ashford and then took the Eurostar to Paris where we spent 3 nights.

 

I hope this info helps someone out there :-)

This was our 16th cruise.

[melody hounddog]

Fantastic review. Thank you.

 

What was your favorite port?

[basil1]

Thanks :-)

It's really difficult to pick a favorite because I enjoyed them all.

Excluding London and Paris (since they weren't actually part of the cruise) I'd have to say Guernsey for natural beauty and Edinburg for architecture and history.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.