Looking for someone who has done Princess British Isles Cruise?

[bburns]

Is there anyone out there who did this cruise this year? Am really interested in hearing your advice about how to get to the ship from airport, and back. Also would love to hear your advice about shore excursions

[hillslife]

We did this cruise last summer with our 14 year old daughter. We flew to Paris on our own and then did the cruise tour with Princess which included 3 days in Paris, the chunnel to London with 3 days in London and then the bus to the ship which left from Southhampton.

 

Since we were on our own, we took a 'super shuttle' type bus from the airport to our hotel. We booked the same hotel on our own that we would be staying in with the Princess cruise tour, so we didn't have to pack up and move when we joined the tour 2 days later.

 

The weather was a bit cool and rainy during the British Isle part, but beautiful. Very green and clean. We visited so many castles we got confused as to where we were sometimes. Umghart (sp?) castle was awesome; we also had a stop in Waterford - not sure they do that any more; we went to see Loch Ness - pretty scenery but really not much else to see; Edinburgh castle is a must - very cool experience. It is quiet a drive from the ship about 1 1/2 hours, but you could stay in town and shop around after the excursion - so we joined up with another couple and split a cab back to the ship, no problems and fun riding in a English cab. There was another castle we visited, can't remember the town, that was actually a working residence for the King and my daughter saw the Princess through a door. Another port we took a ferry to a small island where the castle is now owned by a family and they open it up for tours and had a 'tea' with homebaked goods and tea. That was one of our favorite stops. Hope you can located these in the excursions - sorry I can't remember all the names, but like I said they all begin to blend together.

 

Hope you enjoy your experience - we certainly did.

[DonahCBrown]

We did this cruise last summer with our 14 year old daughter. We flew to Paris on our own and then did the cruise tour with Princess which included 3 days in Paris, the chunnel to London with 3 days in London and then the bus to the ship which left from Southhampton.

 

Since we were on our own, we took a 'super shuttle' type bus from the airport to our hotel. We booked the same hotel on our own that we would be staying in with the Princess cruise tour, so we didn't have to pack up and move when we joined the tour 2 days later.

 

The weather was a bit cool and rainy during the British Isle part, but beautiful. Very green and clean. We visited so many castles we got confused as to where we were sometimes. Umghart (sp?) castle was awesome; we also had a stop in Waterford - not sure they do that any more; we went to see Loch Ness - pretty scenery but really not much else to see; Edinburgh castle is a must - very cool experience. It is quiet a drive from the ship about 1 1/2 hours, but you could stay in town and shop around after the excursion - so we joined up with another couple and split a cab back to the ship, no problems and fun riding in a English cab. There was another castle we visited, can't remember the town, that was actually a working residence for the King and my daughter saw the Princess through a door. Another port we took a ferry to a small island where the castle is now owned by a family and they open it up for tours and had a 'tea' with homebaked goods and tea. That was one of our favorite stops. Hope you can located these in the excursions - sorry I can't remember all the names, but like I said they all begin to blend together.

 

Hope you enjoy your experience - we certainly did.

 

How long did it take to get off the ship in Waterford? We're trying to set a time for a private tour and it is a tender port for the Star Princess.

 

Thanks!

[DonahCBrown]

Is there anyone out there who did this cruise this year? Am really interested in hearing your advice about how to get to the ship from airport, and back. Also would love to hear your advice about shore excursions

 

We did it in 2005. Assume you are flying in to Heathrow and departing from Southampton?

 

Probably the easiest thing to do is the Princess transfers. If you are going to be in London for a few days ahead, which is great to do, you can pick up the transfer from Victoria Station in the "coach" area. People on our cruise also did privately arranged transport from London to Southampton and did side trips to Bath and Stonehenge on the way and really enjoyed it.

 

As far as excursions, we did most of the stops as "on your own" either totally, or only using Princess' tour to get from the port into town in Greenock and South Queensferry for Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively. We did hop-on hop-off bus tours pretty much everywhere, and purchased the Dublin Pass with transportation online and had it in hand when we arrived. Unfortunately, my DH had a bad cold the day we were in Dublin, and we didn't get as much use of the pass as we'd have liked, but we did take the public bus out to Malahide and toured the town and castle. It turned out to be a great experience because a lovely Irish gentleman at the bus stop sort of adopted us and acted as our tour guide on the whole ride out. We learned about the history of the area, heard stories about his childhood and his parents experiences growing up as well, and generally felt we had had one of our best days ever. He also told us where and how to get the bus back into town, and what to see and do in Malahide which was the stop after his.

 

Edinburgh and Kirkwall were the highlights of our cruise, and, unfortunately, I see that Kirkwall isn't on the itinerary for this year. Kirkwall we did the ship's tour of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar. Holyhead a lot of folks took castle tours, some with the ship, some arranged independently. Be a bit cautious about independent tours on this itinerary, as the cruise before ours most of the tender ports were missed due to weather and there are a lot of them - Holyhead, Kirkwall, and South Queensferry are all tendered.

 

Pack for cool, damp weather. We were there in June and nearly froze.