British Isles 8-13 Cruise Review (aka you can plan an affordable vacation in 5 weeks)

[CAMONYPA]

Part 1: A non-so-brief introduction in Q&A format

 

Why is my first post on Cruise Critic a review?

 

As a long time lurker, I have used Cruise Critic to research several of our previous cruises including Alaska, the Panama Canal, and the British Isles. I have especially found some of the advice about the ports and ways to do things yourself helpful. However, at times, I have been intimidated by the judgmental or argumentative tone of some of the replies, which seems to be characteristic of message boards in general. This has made me hesitant to post. However, I finally decided to throw in my two cents for one very important reason: I want people who stumble upon cruise critic to know that it is possible to plan a trip in less than 5 weeks, especially if you use websites like Cruise Critic as a guide. Also, as others have mentioned, writing a review is a good way to recover from vacation withdrawal, and this was probably our last vacation for a while.

 

Who am I?

 

My husband and I are in our early-mid 30’s. We have cruised multiple times, exclusively on Princess because we had such a wonderful honeymoon cruise with them. Our previous cruises include the Mediterranean (our honeymoon cruise), a few trips to the Caribbean, two wonderful trips to Alaska, and the Panama Canal. We are now Platinum, and that has made it harder for us to go with anyone else because we like the perks, especially priority boarding and the free Internet minutes. We know we are much younger than the typical Princess demographic. However, we enjoy cruising because it provides good value allows us to see many parts of the world that we might not otherwise visit due to cost. Also, due to our work schedules (we were both in medical training until recently), we often couldn’t plan vacation too far ahead and those Princess flash sales are hard to resist when you suddenly find yourself with 1-2 weeks of vacation but limited time to plan.

 

Why the British Isles?

 

My husband and I just finished medical training in July, which added up to ten years for each of us if you count medical school, residency, and fellowships. We considered taking a vacation to celebrate before starting our jobs in October. However, we have a one-year-old daughter (which led to a break from cruising for a while), which complicated potential travel plans. Then, just before I finished my fellowship, I found out I was pregnant again, which was quite exciting but also a little scary given that we will be faced with the “two under two” situation in February. Around the same time, some personal circumstances (including friends being diagnosed with serious illnesses) led me to panic about how short life is. Therefore, when my parents offered to watch our daughter while we took a vacation as a graduation gift, my husband and I decided to accept.

 

Keep in mind that this all happened in early July. Since I had fellowship commitments until July 31st and we both had work commitments that would require us to return by mid-September, our window for travel was short, and our last minute options were limited. Strenuous outdoor vacations (i.e. a trip to the Galapagos and Machu Picchu) were ruled out because of my pregnancy and the worry about how long the first trimester nausea and fatigue would last. Then, one of those flash sale e-mails from Princess came and offered several intriguing options: 1) very, very cheap Alaska cruises, 2) a British Isles cruise leaving August 16th and 3) a transatlantic cruise visiting Iceland and Greenland leaving on August 28th.

 

We ruled out Alaska because we have been there twice and even though it is one of my favorite places in the world (and somewhere I would highly recommend to anyone), we wanted to try something new. We also thought that Alaska might be a realistic cruise option with younger children and know we will go back someday. We then considered the transatlantic. The total cruise price was cheaper than the British Isles cruise, and it offered the unique opportunity to see Greenland and Iceland. However, in the end, it was too much time away from our daughter, and we were worried about the number of sea days. We don’t mind the occasional sea day to relax and enjoy the ship, but our cruise experiences have always been defined by the ports. Also, I have heard that transatlantic cruises tend to miss ports due to weather, and I knew we would be disappointed if that happened to us. Therefore, we chose the British Isles. I booked the cruise about 5 weeks before the sailing date.

 

5 weeks? That’s crazy! Most people plan trips to Europe a year in advance!

 

This is exactly why I am writing. I want to let people know that it is possible to cruise to Europe with minimal planning without spending an arm and a leg, and I owe part of my savings to Cruise Critic.

 

How did Cruise Critic help you?

 

No British Isles review would be complete without acknowledging DeLoreanGirl’s amazing British Isles cruise review. You can easily find it be searching for “British Isles Thesis” on this board. I copied a few pages of the review and putting them on my iPad so I could access them in port. I also did look at reviews by ohhbother and TouringTom (his was in progress at the time I left) and several others. Finally, I used the search function to find information about specific ports (i.e. costs of various transportation options from the port to the nearest major city.)

 

What else helped you save money?

 

Because it was so last minute, there was no way to save money on airline tickets. However, we were able to cash in the frequent flier miles from American Airlines. We were able to get better seats for fewer miles by flying in two days before the cruise and flying out the morning after the cruise, and this also gave us an opportunity to see the area around London.

 

We also bought a Kindle copy of Rick Steves’ Great Britain 2013, which we used for our time in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Inverness. That book does not cover Guernsey or Ireland. Finally, we used a combination of TripAdvisor and Rick Steves’ guidebook to find hotels and restaurants in London.

 

What can I expect from your review?

 

I will describe low cost options for getting from cruise ports to major attractions. (This was one of the main things I searched for on Cruise Critic.) My husband and I like to do things on our own whenever possible for maximum flexibility—this will probably become more apparent to you as I describe some of our days. We will spend a little extra for transportation if it maximizes our port time, but for the most part, we relied on walking, trains, and buses. We took few taxis and only booked a few tours during the two weeks. We focused on museums, castles, and scenery over food and shopping in port.

 

Okay, enough already! Where is the review?

 

In case the last dozen paragraphs weren’t enough of an indication, I am incapable of writing anything short. So despite my best intentions, this will be a long review. The good news is that most of it is already written so it should all be posted quickly. I am not including pictures because I haven’t had time to sort through the 1000 (1048 to be exact) that we took and because I would like to maintain a little online anonymity. That being said, here is my review/ summary of our trip to the British Isles and our cruise on the Caribbean Princess from 8/16/13 to 8/28/13.

[CI66774]

Bring it on!:D

[Rosethorn40]

Can't wait to read of your experience. We did a shorter, but still wonderful, United Kingdom/Ireland cruise August 6th on the Ocean Princess. I am all agog to see how your experience differed from ours.

P.S. Congrats on your soon addition to your family!

[IdahoCruises]

Anxious to share your experiences....

[melody hounddog]

Thanks for the review! Great so far. Love the long ones.

 

If you don't mind me asking, how expensive were your flights?

[CAMONYPA]

Thanks for the responses so far-- it is nice to have some encouragement as a first time poster.

 

To answer the question about airline tickets, we were able to redeem frequent flier/ credit card airlines through American Airlines. They have a MileSaver option for 30,000 miles each way for an economy ticket and 50,000 miles each way for a business class ticket. They still do add taxes, which are pretty high if you fly into London (a few hundred dollars a ticket). I have heard that you can save on taxes by flying into Dublin, but we decided not to do this because of the extra time and money required for getting to Heathrow. If we hadn't had enough miles, tickets would have been around $1200-$1500 round trip per person. This is one area where it is a good idea to plan ahead if possible.

 

Part 2 of the review will be in the next reply.

[CAMONYPA]

Part 2: Pre-trip planning

 

We planned our trip in under five weeks. During those five weeks, we were also finishing our fellowships and moving across the country in anticipation of starting our new jobs. Therefore, unlike many others, my planning did not involve binders full of research. Instead, my goal was to have a pretty firm plan of what we wanted to see during our two days in London before the cruise and pre-reserve whatever was necessary for the cruise days. Again, I relied on a combination of Cruise Critic reviews, Rick Steves’ book, and TripAdvisor.

 

For budgeting purposes, we greatly prioritized sightseeing over both lodging and food. Our main requirement for a hotel was that it had to have a clean, private bathroom. As for food, we wanted to eat at some British pubs but did not look for any gourmet meals.

 

Here are the things I booked in advance:

- Hotel in London pre-cruise (2 nights at Premier Inn South Kensington). Premier Inn falls under the budget hotel category in London but still costs over 110 pounds per night for locations in Central London if you book close to your planned date of stay and want the flexible rate, which allows you to cancel until 1pm on the date of check-in. You get a small hotel room with a bed, small bathroom, and 30 minutes of free wireless per day. Breakfast costs extra but is all-you-can-eat. Rick Steves’ book lists the locations in Central London that are close to tube stations. We picked South Kensington because it was at least 20 pounds per night cheaper than some of the more central locations. The hotel is only a few minutes from the Earl’s Court tube station, which you can get to from Heathrow without transferring.

- Warner Brother’s Harry Potter Studio Tour. My husband and I are Harry Potter fans. We saw all the movies when they came out in the theater, read all the books, and have seen reruns of parts of each movie multiple times during the ABC Family Marathons. If this is something you want to do, you have to pre-book because they don’t sell tickets at the door. Also, you want to book well in advance. By the time we booked (about three weeks before the trip), only limited slots were available on the day we wanted.

- National Express bus from Victoria Coach station to Southampton. The London Toolkit website has a great summary of transportation options from airports and hotels to Southampton. We chose the bus because it was the cheapest (19 pounds for two people).

- Tickets to Blarney Castle (saves 0.50 euros but more importantly allows you to skip the line)

- Hop on, Hop off bus in Dublin (saves 15% = 2.70 euros per person)

- Belfast Excursion to Giant’s Causeway with Odyssey Coach Tours (cruisingexcursions.com)- recommended by Cruise Critic and mentioned on the Roll call for our trip

- Tickets to Edinburgh Castle: no cost savings but you don’t have to wait in the line to get into the castle if you do this (totally worth it for the time savings)

- Jacobite Sensation Tour in Inverness- recommended by DeLoreanGirl and Rick Steves

- Princess Excursion to Normandy beaches- This is the only Princess excursion we took the entire time. I will discuss it more in the section on Le Havre.

- London Toolkit/ International Friends tour from Southampton to Stonehenge, Bath, and Windsor on the day of disembarkation. Our flight out of London wasn’t until the morning after our cruise, so we wanted to maximize our sightseeing time while having a solution for our luggage. This was somewhat expensive, but they offered the chance to see three sights while holding on to luggage and dropping us off at our hotel at the end of the day. The Princess tour that only visited either Windsor or Stonehenge before dropping passengers off at Heathrow was about the same price.

 

Packing

 

We tend to pack light and don’t buy much in port. If it weren’t for formal nights, we probably could have gotten away with two carry-on sized roll-aboards and two backpacks. Because of our formal night shoes and clothes, we ended up with a third roll-aboard.

 

I agree with the recommendation from others to pack a light rain jacket. We got pretty lucky with the weather in that we never needed to get out our umbrella (the hood on our rain jackets was perfectly fine for the light drizzle we encountered). We wore our jackets most mornings due to a combination of rain or cooler weather (i.e. high 50s) but usually took them off before lunch and stowed them in our backpack.

 

Our usual clothing for port days consisted of jeans, running shoes, a short-sleeved t-shirt, and our rain jackets. We also took a light backpack off the ship, which contained a water bottle (we bought a six pack of bottled water in a grocery store in port and carried one off the ship a day), snacks, an iPad (we had our Rick Steves’ guidebook plus the addictive Plants vs. Zombies 2 game for train rides on it), our camera (Canon Rebel T4) with regular and telephoto lenses, passports, a small umbrella, and printouts of the things we had pre-booked.

 

Currency and Credit Cards

 

We used ATMs for local currency. There were some fees tacked on by the bank, but the overall exchange rate was still reasonable and much better than you could get through currency exchange or onboard. We paid cash for most things except for hotels and a couple meals. The advantage of paying cash is that it usually was faster, especially for meals where you could leave money on the table and continue with your sightseeing.

 

My husband already has a Capital One credit card, which has the advantage of no fees on foreign transactions. We do not have a chip-and-pin credit card and had no problems with our magnetic swipe card except at train station automated machines (we probably could have waited in line to deal with a person in those cases but chose to use cash instead) and when trying to pre-reserve tickets to the London Eye.

[phabric]

Looking forward to more of your cruise. We were also on the August 16 cruise.

[MaChere]

Heading there next August. Thanks for taking the time to share!

[CI66774]

Heading there next August. Thanks for taking the time to share!

 

So am I - on the 26 day cruise.

[lovevacadays]

Wow. I think this kind of review is much needed on CC. Great job.:)

[CAMONYPA]

Thanks again for the nice responses. Here is one more part for today. For those of you who are waiting for the actual cruise, that starts in part 4, which I will post tomorrow.

 

Part 3: London before the Cruise

 

If at all possible, I suggest flying in at least a day before the cruise to recover from jet lag. This is a port-heavy cruise itinerary without sea days for the first week, so you don’t want to go into the cruise tired if you can help it. That being said, I understand that work schedules may make this impossible.

We were able to fly in two days before the cruise, which was great because it allowed us to recover from jet lag and see London. I will just mention the highlights of what we did and offer a few transportation tips. Feel free to ask questions if you want more information.

 

Transportation in London

We bought a one day Travelcard at Heathrow airport. That allowed tube rides in Zones 1-6. Most of the major tourist sites are in zones 1-2 and Heathrow is in zone 6. Unless you have lots of luggage, are staying in a hotel far away from a tube stop or one that requires multiple tube line transfers, or need to get to Central London very quickly, I think the tube is the cheapest and easiest way to get from Heathrow to Central London. For travel on days 2 and 3 in London, we got an Oyster card. An Oyster card gives you 50% off rides on the tube and has a mechanism built inside so that you never pay more than the cost of the travel card. You can “top off” your Oyster card at machines located around each station. We chose the Oyster card over the Travelcard because we knew we would need to take one tube ride on day 3. The downside of the Oyster card is that you put down a 5 pound deposit to get one and need to wait in line at a tube station to get back your deposit plus whatever money you didn’t use. We got our money back without problems but had to wait in line for about 10 minutes.

 

Places we visited (with the caveat that we did visit London 10 years ago and had already seen the Tower of London, British Museum, National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, and Covent Gardens)

 

Day 1: St. Paul’s cathedral (we walked around the outside but decided not to pay the entry fee to go in), Millenium Bridge, and Tate Modern.

 

We debated doing more but were exhausted from the flight plus our daughter’s recent sleep regressions. I was also still getting over the first trimester fatigue and nausea, which fortunately completely abated by day 2 of the cruise.

 

Day 2: We did two expensive touristy things(London Eye and Harry Potter Studio Tour) and three free, more cultural things (National Gallery, British Museum, and National Library).

 

We started the day with the London Eye. This is a tourist trap but you do get beautiful views and pictures of London. There is always a huge line. You can skip the line to buy tickets and save 10% if you pre-book tickets online. Unfortunately, the site didn’t like the credit card we tried to use (even though we were able to use this card for all our other purchases) to pre-book. Instead, we got there early and only had a 10 minute wait to buy tickets. Even if you pre-book tickets, you still have to stand in line to get on the wheel itself.

After the London Eye, we walked to Trafalgar Square and visited the National Gallery, then the British Museum, and finally the National Library. We only hit the highlights since we have been to two of these places before—you could easily spend a full day just at the National Gallery and British Museum. All these sites are free. There are suggested donations and charges for maps and audioguides. We were never asked for the donations in person but there are places for you to deposit money at many locations. Our usual policy was that we would either donate some money or buy a small souvenir (we are partial to refrigerator magnets with pictures of art or places—we have quite a collection from all our travels and even have a magnet with the name of each Princess ship we have been on) at each place.

We ended the day with the Harry Potter studio tour. Like others have said, this is an amazing experience if you are a Harry Potter fan. It takes at least 2.5 hours to go through. There are indoor and outdoor areas filled with props (thousands of them). There is also a greenscreen experience where you can ride a broom. The highlight for us was the scaled down model of Hogwarts at the end. To get to the studios without a car, you have to take a train from Euston station to Watford Junction (you can pay for this off your Oyster card, supplement your travel card, or buy a ticket for just this ride) and then a bus from the train station to the studio that comes about every 20 minutes.

A quick note for people considering the Harry Potter studio tour: We booked 6pm because that was all that was available on short notice, but ended up really liking our time slot we got because there aren’t that many London tourist attractions open late on weekdays (most museums close by 5pm). Therefore, we were able to spend almost a full day in London and still do the studio tour.

 

Day 3: Journey from Central London to Southampton

We took the opportunity to sleep in before riding the tube to Victoria. It is about a 10 minute walk (with luggage) from Victoria train station to Victoria coach station. We then got on the National Express bus to Southampton (about 2.5 hours with one stop in Winchester) and took a taxi from the Southampton bus station to the cruise terminal. There were five cruise ships in Southampton on the day of embarkation so there was a slight wait for a taxi at the bus station, but it wasn’t more than 15 minutes.

Total cost for transportation for the two of us from our hotel to the cruise terminal (tube, bus, and taxi) was 32 pounds. This combination for transportation is great value if you don’t mind navigating the tube and walk from the train station to the bus station with your luggage.

[luvcdays]

more, more, more....please!

[CAMONYPA]

Okay, a couple thousand words later, and we are finally on the ship. After this, there will be a port in each part.

 

Part 4: The Caribbean Princess

 

Embarkation and Cabin

 

Since we have sailed on Princess before, we pretty much knew what to expect from the ship. Embarkation was easy given the priority boarding we received as Platinum members. The unusual thing is that they do take your passports to show to authorities in Ireland. They give you a letter explaining why they do this and a receipt for your passports, but it still did make me a little nervous as I like to have my passport when I am in port on the off chance that something happens and I miss the ship.

 

There also is the obligatory embarkation photo, which has become a running joke between my husband and me. Since we are often flying in the day of or the evening before the cruise due to work demands and we almost never use the Princess transfers or ask them to take our luggage, most of our embarkation photos show two tired-looking people with a pile of luggage in the corner. Needless to say, we have never purchased a single one.

 

Because we booked this cruise at the last minute, the only cabins left were either interiors or mini-suites. We chose to save money for the ports and went with an interior. Usually, we go for the obstructed ocean view to get some light (on our Panama cruise we splurged for a mini-suite which we did take advantage of given the number of sea days and the weather). We used the trick from Cruise Critic of leaving our TV tuned to the ship’s camera channel on mute overnight so that we would have some idea of what time it was. Since this is such a port-intensive cruise, we were rarely in our cabin except at night. While a balcony would of course have been a nice treat, I’m not sure we would have really spent that much time outside due to the weather and the fact that we were in port until at least 5pm most days.

 

Things that we liked about the Caribbean Princess:

 

- Skywalker’s: Great views. It was the location of the Platinum, Elite, and Suite lounge with had free light snacks and drink specials (a $5 drink) from 5-7 PM each night. We only made it to this a couple times due to the fact that we were trying to maximize port time.

 

- Vines and the International Café: While we are not as big of fans of these locations as many Cruise Critic posters, they are both nice places for light snacks. Because of the pregnancy, wine, cold deli meat sandwiches, and sushi were pretty much off limits. However, my husband would occasionally go to Vines for wine before dinner (and we would share some of the complimentary tapas) and we had snacks at the International Café a couple times.

 

- Ice Cream, Pizzeria, and Grill on Deck 15: This was my go-to snack when we made it back from port too early for dinner but too late for lunch. I would alternate between pizza and cheeseburgers, but I always ended with some of the soft serve.

 

- Fitness Center: There were a reasonable number of treadmills there. While we didn’t go as often as our usual routine (I have previously done portions of a half marathon training program on Princess treadmills) due to both my pregnancy and the amount of time we were spending in port, we did exercise there a few times during this cruise and never had more than a five minute wait for a machine.

 

- Entertainment: Both the cruise director (Neil Rose) and the deputy cruise director (Toby) were very good. They had a good rapport with one another and I actually watched the Wake Show a few times—something I haven’t done on my more recent Princess cruises. We usually don’t go to the production shows, but we do enjoy the comedians on Princess. We also found the musical entertainment options on this cruise above average for Princess. We particularly enjoyed the MacDonald Brothers, who apparently finished fourth on the British X-Factor. Finally, we played some of the gameshows (Passenger Feud and Liar’s Club.) We met some fun people playing both of these. We also watched the Marriage Game, which will always have a special place in our hearts because we have been chosen as the “newlywed” couple twice—once on our honeymoon and then again on our Panama Canal cruise where no one but us had been married five years or less.

 

- Crown Grill: This is our favorite Princess specialty restaurant. We have tried Sabatini’s but much prefer the Crown Grill for the steak and lobster options. We ate there twice during our cruise and enjoyed the meal both times. The only letdown was they changed their menu so that the fruit cobbler (which was my favorite Princess desert of all time) was dropped.

 

- Sales Pitches: Compared to some of our other Princess cruises, these seemed to be toned down. We weren’t offered the soda package a dozen times during embarkation (although there were tables to sign up if you were interested) and the wait staff in the dining room only offered drinks from the bar once per meal (rather than repeatedly asking us if we wanted to have bottled water, the drink of the day, specialty coffee, etc.)

 

What we did not like about the Caribbean Princess:

 

- Lack of covered pools- I know Princess deploys its larger ships to Europe because these cruises sell out. However, it would have been nice to have a ship with a covered pool due to the weather.

 

- Waiting for tables for two during Anytime Dining- We always do Anytime Dining and prefer tables for two. We are fine with sharing tables and meeting new people during lunch but like to spend our evenings dining alone. This hasn’t been much of a problem on previous cruises. We have never tried to make a standing reservation and rarely make reservations at all. On this cruise, there were lines for Anytime Dining. We were usually given a pager when we asked for a table for two and had to wait anywhere from 5-20 minutes for our table. The only times we were able to avoid waiting were when the hostess had an open table from someone who cancelled a reservation or when we ate after 8:30. I’m not sure why this was more of a problem on this cruise than on some of our previous other cruises.

 

- Passenger Services Desk- We went there for a few minor issues (requesting a way to look at menus for the cruise in order to plan which nights to eat at the Crown Grill, requesting an earlier disembarkation group, and asking for an error on our bill to be corrected.) Each time, the person at the desk was courteous but ultimately sent us to someone else, who then referred us to someone else. One time, we were even referred back to Passenger Services (for the bill error). We ultimately had the billing error corrected and received the disembarkation group of our choice, but we were never able to look at the menus, aside from one waiter showing us the next evening’s menu. However, the run-around was annoying and something we had never previously encountered on Princess.

 

Other general notes:

 

- Cruising while pregnant: I had documentation of my due date (I was around 15 weeks at the end of the cruise so well below the cutoff for cruising) but was never asked for it. I was minimally showing—it was sort of the awkward stage where you couldn’t tell whether I was pregnant or just overindulging at the buffet (both of which were true.)

 

- Weather: My husband and I joked that we would have loved to be meteorologists in the British Isles for this cruise. Every morning, we would get the bridge announcement: “Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to (insert port here.) The forecast for today is partly cloudy with scattered showers and a high in the mid-60s and a low in the mid-50s.” The only exception was France where the high was in the 70s. Like I mentioned earlier, we were lucky with the weather. While we had some drizzle almost every day, we also had sun every day and never needed to get out our umbrellas.

 

- Breakfast: We had breakfast at the buffet rather than ordering room service because we like hot breakfast food. Also, this is a good chance to refill your water bottles and take boxes of dry cereal to snack on in port. We prefer not to spend too much time eating in port to maximize sightseeing time and because there is so much food on the ship, so cereal made a nice snack.

 

- Internet: WiFi on the ship is slow as many others have mentioned. However, we were able to use it to FaceTime with our daughter about two out of every three days. It’s also fast enough for the crew to Skype with their families back home. We usually tried FaceTime later in the evenings (after 10 pm).

[simok99]

Great bit of writing, keep it coming.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[tequilasunrise]

Thanks for taking time to post. We are thinking of taking this trip so especially looking forward to your review!

 

Congratulations on medical school and your growing family!

[melody hounddog]

Really enjoying this! Thanks!!

[sjcivilady]

Wow - what a great trip report! Thank you so much for taking the time to write it.

[CAMONYPA]

Finally, it's time to talk about the ports. For those of you keeping score at home, this is part 5 of 16. Part 6 will be in the next reply.

 

Part 5: Guernsey

 

What we did: Castle Cornet (9.75 pounds per person)

Transportation costs: None

 

While I appreciated the chance to visit a Channel Island, I thought Guernsey was the least interesting port on the cruise. If you have to fly in the day of the cruise and are exhausted, I think you can definitely make this a light day.

Guernsey is a tender port, but we did not have to wait long for the tender to port (coming back was another story). The sea was roughest during this cruise day, but it really wasn’t too bad, and this is coming from someone who was already nauseated due to her pregnancy.

 

Once you get off the tender, there are local volunteers handing out walking maps. Castle Cornet is a 15 minute walk around the harbor. We detoured into town to see the Victor Hugo house but declined to go in when we saw that admission was 7 pounds. The most amusing thing during this walk was a rather nice house that had several signs on it stating that it was not the Victor Huge house with arrows pointing toward the actual house.

 

Castle Cornet is a fortress with a few museums. While we certainly saw better castles during this trip, there was a fair amount of ground to explore and the museums are well done. It was interesting to learn about the role the Channel Islands have played during various wars over the centuries. For instance, the Germans captured Guernsey during the beginning of the Second World War. They made various upgrades to the fortifications and maintained a garrison there until abandoning it late in the war. Also, there is a cannon fired at noon from Castle Cornet each day. You don’t have to go into the castle to see it, but you get great views from inside the castle. On the day we visited, they had a 90-year-old veteran from the Battle of the Bulge perform the ceremonial firing.

 

When we walked back to the tender area after the cannon firing, there was a very long line. Princess did use a local ferry to get people back to the ship in addition to the ship’s tenders, but it still took us over half an hour from the time we got to the tender line to get back on the ship.

 

That afternoon, we had lunch in the ship’s dining room and then went to the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet. Since I was a lurker, I didn’t have a name tag. I also only skimmed our role call (which was 150 pages and almost 3000 posts long), so I didn’t really know anyone. However, we did meet another young couple from Canada, whom we ended up chatting with several times during the cruise and spending time with during our Belfast tour.

 

That evening was formal night along with the champagne waterfall. We went and saw the comedian afterwards. A running joke on our cruise that the cruise director and deputy cruise director would make at the end of each show on our cruise was about how empty Skywalker’s (which becomes a dance club) was each night. Like most people on the ship, we never made it to the dance club.

[CAMONYPA]

Part 6: Cobh

 

What we did: Blarney Castle and Woolen Mills

Transportation Costs: 15 euros per person

 

If you’ve made it this far through my review, you know that I don’t actually need the gift of gab. However, even though we knew it would be touristy, my husband and I heard good things about Blarney Castle from our co-workers and decided to make the trip. We are glad we did.

 

The ship docks in Cobh, but it is right by the train station. In fact you can see the station when you walk off the ship. So after taking the obligatory gangway photo with the leprechaun (spoiler alert: my husband and I have never bought a single gangway photo on any of our Princess cruises—we consider those to be only marginally better than our embarkation photo), we went straight to the station. There is a train leaving for Cork every half hour. The ride was about 8 euros a person round trip. The scenery was quite lovely, as the train followed a river with some nice countryside.

 

From the Cork train station, it was a 10 minute walk to the Cork bus station. There are many signs showing the way and the locals were very friendly when it came to pointing out where we needed to go. This would be a pattern throughout the trip.

 

There is a #215 bus to Blarney that leaves every 30 minutes Monday-Saturday and every hour on Sunday. You can pick up schedules at the bus station. They also have buses to Kinsale. We docked in Cobh on a Sunday but our wait for the bus was less than 20 minutes. Bus tickets were around 6.5 euros a person. The bus drops people off right by the Blarney Woolen Mills, which is about a 5 minute walk from the castle entrance.

 

If you buy tickets to Blarney Castle ahead of time, you save 0.5 euros, but more importantly, you get to bypass the line to buy tickets. We opted to head straight for the castle/stone. There is always a wait to kiss the stone, which the people at the entrance will estimate for you. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top. Along the way, you do get to see parts of the ruined castle. When you get to the front of the line, someone holds you firmly while you lean over backwards and kiss a slimy rock. Your traveling companions can take pictures of this, and there is, of course, also a camera that takes official photographs that come with a certificate stating you have the “gift of gab.” (We did not purchase this since I obviously don’t need an official certificate telling me I have the gift of gab).

 

After we kissed the stone, we did one of the 45 minute hikes around the castle grounds and lake, which was nice and rather secluded. We also did a shorter walk around some rock formations and a small waterfall. Here, there were some wishing steps. To have your wish come true within a year, you have to walk up and down these steps with your eyes closed while thinking only of the wish. The doctor within both my husband and me thought this was probably an injury waiting to happen, but we did it anyway.

 

In all, we spent about three hours at the castle—2 hours hiking the grounds and 1 hour climbing the castle/kissing the stone. We then went to the Blarney Woolen Mills. If you like shopping this is probably a great experience. There are very nice selections of souvenirs, clothing, jewelry, and crystal. My husband and I looked at the Waterford crystal, but realized that we didn’t really know the going rate for crystal and weren’t sure if we were getting a good deal or not. There is a cafeteria at the Woolen Mills. You can get a large pot of tea and a scone for 2.5 euros, which was the best price for tea we saw the entire trip.

 

After our afternoon tea, we took the bus back to Cork and the train back to Cobh. Since we had a little more time in Cobh, we decided to walk around the town. There was a local regatta festival going on, so there were large crowds of people, music, and many vendors on the streets. We didn’t purchase anything but enjoyed the music and people-watching.

[dchip]

Really enjoying your review!! We have thought about taking this cruise several times but haven't. :eek: but your review may change that!!

 

Didn't you find it interesting walking down the castle steps after kissing the Blarney Stone?

 

Cheers, Denise.

[cole]

Really enjoying your review!! We have thought about taking this cruise several times but haven't. :eek: but your review may change that!!

 

Didn't you find it interesting walking down the castle steps after kissing the Blarney Stone?

 

Cheers, Denise.

 

I thought the castle steps both up and down were "interesting." :eek: I couldn't imagine someone with a long dress doing either (back in the day).

Cole

[Ejccgma]

Great Review! I was on this cruise too! We played Passenger Feud with you (we were the 2 women retired educators). You were a friendly couple and it was fun to team up with the two of you. I have to tell you that we guessed you were pregnant but didn't want to be nosy and ask. Congrats and while you will be very busy with 2 little ones, it will be great as they get older. It will be helpful to be close to your parents too.

:) Linda

[RNRcruisers]

Great review - thanks so much! I can't wait for the next installment. This is on my wish list, maybe I'll have to aim for it sooner rather than later :)

[rjcoon]

Really enjoying your review. We'll be on this cruise next August on the Ruby Princess. Can't wait to see more of your review.