Live - Emerald Princess - July 8-20 British Isles

[Tiki_Koro]

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. 

[dreaminofcruisin]

15 minutes ago, Tiki_Koro said:

 

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! 

 

Happy 40th Birth-year!

OUTSTANDING!!!!

I look forward to your review as we will be on the Emerald in August. It will be fun to virtually travel with you!

 

You are correct (above) that IF you have a Travel Agent, you must book the transfer through your Travel Agent. If you DO NOT have a Travel Agent, the Transfer options will appear online for you to do online. 

 

Have a great trip!

 

 

[High C's]

Bon voyage!  I can't wait to read all about your experiences.  We board the Emerald on Aug 13, so I will look forward to any and all info you are able to share!!!

[Alcairns]

You have you itinerary well researched. A word of warning though. We are currently seeing nationwide train strikes. Whilst I have not heard when the next ones will be they can be at short notice. In addition you seem to be packing a lot in on your call at Glasgow. Don’t forget you have a half hour train journey getting from Greenock to Glasgow. I hope it all goes well for you and your family. 

[jimbri]

Looks like a great cruise.  Enjoy!

[ROWSE]

14 hours ago, Tiki_Koro said:

 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 ).

Happy 40th Birthday!

I blush at your lovely compliment!  Thank you!!!!!  I am so happy to be reading about your trip!  You have so much fun planned, and I am excited to hear about it all! 

 

Happy and safe travels to you all!!!!

[RNRcruisers]

Sounds like a fabulous trip! I'll be following!

 

[jenf22]

We're on the same cruise and so glad someone is doing a live report.  My 15 year old son wants to work on his writing this summer and has said he will do a trip report as well.  I told him I would post it on here afterwards if it works out.  We'll see if he follows through.  I will be watching yours! 

[nini]

We were on this cruise for May 9-21st (with ROWSE/ Kitty), but Glasgow was removed and Kirkwall was added.

We did a wonderful walking tour on Guernsey and here is the link:

https://annettehenrytours.gg/

 

You are visiting two Titanic museums. Personally, this seems a bit repetitive when there is so much else to see in the UK.

[Tinktank]

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us. We are on the same cruise in August and look forward to hearing any words of wisdom.

[loveapug]

I also look forward to your reports as we will be on the cruise following yours. 

[Tiki_Koro]

22 hours ago, dreaminofcruisin said:

 

Happy 40th Birth-year!

OUTSTANDING!!!!

I look forward to your review as we will be on the Emerald in August. It will be fun to virtually travel with you!

 

You are correct (above) that IF you have a Travel Agent, you must book the transfer through your Travel Agent. If you DO NOT have a Travel Agent, the Transfer options will appear online for you to do online. 

 

Have a great trip!

 

 

 

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." 

 

22 hours ago, High C's said:

Bon voyage!  I can't wait to read all about your experiences.  We board the Emerald on Aug 13, so I will look forward to any and all info you are able to share!!!

 

Thanks!

 

15 hours ago, Alcairns said:

You have you itinerary well researched. A word of warning though. We are currently seeing nationwide train strikes. Whilst I have not heard when the next ones will be they can be at short notice. In addition you seem to be packing a lot in on your call at Glasgow. Don’t forget you have a half hour train journey getting from Greenock to Glasgow. I hope it all goes well for you and your family. 

 

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.

 

13 hours ago, jimbri said:

Looks like a great cruise.  Enjoy!

 

Thanks! 

 

8 hours ago, ROWSE said:

Happy 40th Birthday!

I blush at your lovely compliment!  Thank you!!!!!  I am so happy to be reading about your trip!  You have so much fun planned, and I am excited to hear about it all! 

 

Happy and safe travels to you all!!!!

 

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!

 

7 hours ago, RNRcruisers said:

Sounds like a fabulous trip! I'll be following!

 

 

Thanks!

 

7 hours ago, jenf22 said:

We're on the same cruise and so glad someone is doing a live report.  My 15 year old son wants to work on his writing this summer and has said he will do a trip report as well.  I told him I would post it on here afterwards if it works out.  We'll see if he follows through.  I will be watching yours! 

 

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! 

 

6 hours ago, nini said:

We were on this cruise for May 9-21st (with ROWSE/ Kitty), but Glasgow was removed and Kirkwall was added.

We did a wonderful walking tour on Guernsey and here is the link:

https://annettehenrytours.gg/

 

You are visiting two Titanic museums. Personally, this seems a bit repetitive when there is so much else to see in the UK.

 

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? 

 

5 hours ago, Tinktank said:

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us. We are on the same cruise in August and look forward to hearing any words of wisdom.

 

You're welcome!

 

57 minutes ago, loveapug said:

I also look forward to your reports as we will be on the cruise following yours. 

 

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.

 

[durangokid]

Bon voyage!  We were booked on the Emerald for September 5, 2023 but have been moved to the Regal.  Will be following your adventures and learning so we can plan ours.  And Happy 40th ~ I recently hit the 70 mark but feel 40 until I look in the mirror or try to do something that I shouldn't do.  LOL  I wish I had the energy I feel coming from your plans!  

[SweetD323]

On 6/30/2022 at 10:54 AM, ROWSE said:

Happy 40th Birthday!

I blush at your lovely compliment!  Thank you!!!!!  I am so happy to be reading about your trip!  You have so much fun planned, and I am excited to hear about it all! 

 

Happy and safe travels to you all!!!!

 

On 6/29/2022 at 8:03 PM, Tiki_Koro said:

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. 

We will be boarding on September 5.  Will be following your report.

[gadabout60]

Personally I think you are packing too much in when you are in Glasgow if you take public transport 

have you thought of a private taxi ? I saw this one advertised and I’m sure there must be others 

[ihopfar]

On 6/30/2022 at 8:34 PM, Tiki_Koro said:

 

 

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.

 

 

We are taking this cruise in August.  Really appreciate you taking the time to do a live review and looking forward to it!

 

Would appreciate it if you could include MDR menus and Patters.   I hope that is not too much trouble!

 

Thanks!

Brad

[c-boy]

wonderful itinerary, take lot's of photo's and post some on day nine. ☺️

[Tiki_Koro]

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!

[Tiki_Koro]

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

[Tiki_Koro]

On 6/30/2022 at 9:25 PM, durangokid said:

Bon voyage!  We were booked on the Emerald for September 5, 2023 but have been moved to the Regal.  Will be following your adventures and learning so we can plan ours.  And Happy 40th ~ I recently hit the 70 mark but feel 40 until I look in the mirror or try to do something that I shouldn't do.  LOL  I wish I had the energy I feel coming from your plans!  

 

Thanks! 

 

On 7/1/2022 at 1:18 PM, SweetD323 said:

 

We will be boarding on September 5.  Will be following your report.

 

Great, welcome!

 

On 7/2/2022 at 8:07 PM, gadabout60 said:

Personally I think you are packing too much in when you are in Glasgow if you take public transport 

have you thought of a private taxi ? I saw this one advertised and I’m sure there must be others 

 

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)

 

9 hours ago, ihopfar said:

 

We are taking this cruise in August.  Really appreciate you taking the time to do a live review and looking forward to it!

 

Would appreciate it if you could include MDR menus and Patters.   I hope that is not too much trouble!

 

Thanks!

Brad

 

No trouble at all! I was already planning to post the Patters, and I will include the menus.  

 

8 hours ago, c-boy said:

wonderful itinerary, take lot's of photo's and post some on day nine. ☺️

 

Absolutely! We're really excited about the Games!

[High C's]

Tiki - I have a big ask.  And please, only see if you can find the answer at the Purser's Desk when you have reasons of our own to be there.

 

Would you kindly ask them if they do testing on board for passengers who will disembark Emerald and board another Princess ship the next day (in our case the Enchanted).

 

Again, I do not want to put you out.  Just when you are at the Purser's desk 🙂

 

Many thanks and once again Bon Voyage!

[gadabout60]

Well I genuinely wish you luck in my home city of Glasgow!

We have transport issues at the moment with a shortage of taxi drivers and train drivers. Trains are often cancelled just now

I suggest you make sure you have the Uber app downloaded in case you struggle getting a regular cab to take you back to the ship

 You will also need a Perth taxi for your journey to the castle and I recommend you have that car stay at the castle as you could have a long wait for a car back to Perth

A return ticket Glasgow to Perth is almost £20 per head and would not give flexibility to stop at Stirling so I still think a private car would be better both in terms of time and cost. I hope you have a lovely day here

[insidecabin]

What time are some of these lunch stops the mornings look ambitious.

Dublin and Edi you have tenders to deal with then getting to the city give them 1hr each way. Last tenders are 1hr before departure.

 

Greenock to Perth is min 2hrs making short connection 2hr30-3hr more realistic.

a change of station in Glasgow if train

Clyde flyer might work better to get to Glasgow there is a stop near Queen Street station for the train to Perth. But bus needs traffic wiggle room

With the 6pm departure at Greenock looking at leaving Glasgow on the 16:06 /16:17 train from Glasgow central, next train is too late.

 

 

[caribill]

On 6/30/2022 at 7:34 PM, Tiki_Koro said:

 

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.

 

 

A visit to the Belfast Titantc Museum is definitely the more important of the two.

 

Be sure to allow time to see the SS Nomadic, a land-based tender for the Titanic that is located across the street from the museum and is included in the museum admission price. Allow at least 30 minutes for this.

 

You may want to consider booking the Museum tickets in advance. Can cancel up to 24 hours in advance if necessary.

[AF-1]

Wonderful review.  I know you and your family are having a ball.  All the best and keep the pictures coming.  Cheers