Another cruise completed and the tradition around these parts states that this warrants a quick (in relative terms if you’ve read any other things on this site) blog or newsletter update to summarise the experience since it’ll be absolutely ages before the more detailed write-ups take place, which is also the tradition.
This was a Princess Cruises twelve-night cruise, round-trip from Southampton, visiting Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland (including Shetland), and France.
Regal Princess Cruise Ship
Let’s start with the cruise ship herself. Regal Princess was not a new ship for us as we’d enjoyed a very short cruise aboard her as the world started to come out of the grip of the pandemic (see: Regal Princess UK Seacation Cruise). There were no obvious signs of wear-and-tear either in our cabin or in the public areas, and for the most part the ship seemed identical in layout, style, and functionality. The two things that stood out for us on this longer, busier cruise were:
- Club 6 appeared to have shrunk in size, gaining an overflow chunk of casino machines at its entrance and gaining a new name inside (but not outside) of the Double Down Bar. Given the low usage of club venues on Princess ships this more-or-less made sense, and we spent most late evenings here in the company of DJ Gabby playing the tunes. She was a breath of fresh air compared to the last DJ we’d encountered on a Princess vessel; friendly, liked to dance, chatted at the end of the evening, tried to download tunes when she didn’t have them, etc.
- Vista Lounge was an enigma. I’m not sure it was used at all on our first “Seacation” cruise, and it looked a waste of space here too. There was no bar, and very little scheduled in there. Princess Live! was used instead for activities that should have been in there, and Princess Live! on both Regal and Royal Princess is an abomination of a space that needs to be ripped out and re-thought. Narrow, uncomfortable chairs, no tables, no places for drinks, the need to use a clipboard to take part in trivia, generally too small.
Everyone we engaged with in Vines, Crooners, and the Double Down Bar were top notch, and the two young women who tried to find us seating for two each evening in the main dining room couldn’t have been friendlier.
Breakfast in the buffet was okay, but repetitive, and the layout of food options leaves a lot to be desired with us often having to traverse each section in search of the bits to complete what we wanted to eat. A British Isles cruise where American bacon was the only option for ten of the twelve days annoyed us, too. Food was generally very good, though, albeit with occasional puzzling serving methods or ingredients. A prawn salad cocktail for my wife one evening, for instance, had carrots and a dollop of tomato ketchup on green leaves with the prawns still in their shells hanging onto the glass. It was unexpected, and not the better for it. However, overall, all fine here. The speciality restaurants served food well, but the service in Crown Grill was hectic with the staff practically running around to fulfil orders. We were pleased to see the Maître D’ turn away a group of bridge crew who turned up on the off-chance they could be fitted in as they were already swamped there.
Excursions management (we only had two, thankfully) was the typical mess. An understandable one, perhaps, when tendering ashore, but we’d really like to see Princess Cruises adopt the system of telling everyone to meet dockside if possible and if you’re not there by a set time then tough. We don’t like having to meet forty five minutes before the excursion is due to start, sit around, still see people come in late, watch people fail to observe the “row by row” instruction when leaving, and still manage to not depart on time, especially when the excursion won’t then tack that missed time on at the end to make up for things.
A final, small blot on the landscape was the disembarkation process. Cases go out the night before for those leaving that way, so all the big cases should be in the hold, right? So, for those of us self-disembarking, why in a bank of four elevators are two out of service for embarkation reasons? What reasons? Who’s embarking at seven in the morning? We gave up waiting for a lift with space in the crowd of those doing the same – many trying the “go up, then come down” trick in the elevators in a desperate attempt to find room, even though those going up in the full lifts were already doing that or on their way to the buffet – and eventually bounced our cases down several flights of stairs. That’s not safe.
Onto the ports.
Cobh, Ireland
This was my wife’s first time in Ireland. Unfortunately, two things happened at the same time to make this a little less enjoyable and memorable than hoped. Firstly, something I’d eaten hadn’t agreed with me. It wasn’t alcohol, I swear, because I know what a hangover feels like. This made me less-than-stellar company, and I’m pretty awful company at the best of times. Secondly, it was a Sunday. Sundays in Catholic countries means not everything is as open as it could be (I’m looking at you, museum), and churches – and Cobh has a mean-looking one – may be in the middle of services (and it was).
Anyway, colourful houses and fairly steep roads sums this place up. We walked along to the Titanic Memorial Garden, and that was very nice. A veterans parade led by a piper passed by on its way to the church. And not a lot else. We didn’t see Cobh at its best or at our best, but we liked what we saw. We hadn’t wanted to take an excursion in Cobh, and given my state I’m glad we made that decision.
Dublin, Ireland
We booked a trip here to have some free time in Dublin and a visit to Powerscourt Estate.
It was a public holiday in the UK and Ireland so, just like Cobh on the Sunday, not everything was open. On top of that, pro-Palestinian students (who we support) were outside Trinity College so it was closed to the public, and that meant the one thing we’d thought would be great to see – the Book of Kells – was off the table too.
“Great. I wait all my life to visit Ireland and it’s closed both days I’m here,” mentioned my wife.
We had a bit of a walk around Temple Bar and surrounding areas, saw the Molly Malone statue getting groped by students, and slipped in a quick pint of Guinness and a bite to eat in the short time we had in Dublin before being whisked off to the Powerscourt Estate gardens.
The gardens were lovely to freely explore but the waterfall was too far away to reach on foot, which was a shame.
Ultimately, we had too much time in the gardens and not enough in the capital, and on a normal day we’d definitely have wanted more time in the city. Oh well. That’s what you get for booking holidays to save on annual leave and failing to take into account where you’re travelling to.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
A shuttle bus (no, not free) took us into the city centre where we were free to do our own thing, and we immediately set off towards the Crumlin Road Gaol. This was a fantastic experience, and one of the nice little touches was that at certain points as you make your way through the prison you reach barriers that won’t let you through until something ahead – a video or audio element – has finished. Lots of visitors bunched up, unable to move ahead, unable to move back because of a similar system earlier, and a small amount of frustration on some faces. But it was very clever. A tiny loss of freedom in a place about the loss of freedom. The videos in cells were well worth watching – loyalist internees giving their viewpoints, republican internees giving their viewpoints, details on escapes, where the term “screw” came from in the prison system, life for women and men and children, the tunnel to the courthouse, and so many more – and we spent ages here.
We also walked to the Shankill area and the murals either side of the gated buffer zone between the Protestant and Catholic areas. Incredible difference in those on the north side – the Protestant – with the military imagery and association with Israel, to those on the south side – the Catholic – with pro-Palestinian messages commonplace. There’s still a lot to divide this city.
We finished in a brewery because it’s what we do. We liked Belfast a lot, and not just because it was open.
Greenock (and Stirling and Falkirk), Scotland
Greenock is the port for those visiting Glasgow but we decided we wanted to experience something that couldn’t be done there so picked an excursion instead.
First, we were driven on a scenic route to Stirling, parked up at the bottom of a hilly road, and given time to explore the city (level ground) or make our way up (very up) to the castle and you know which one we did. Unfortunately for us, we failed to spot you could visit the rooms inside and so limited ourselves mostly to exterior spaces within the castle walls, and our feeling about the castle was “nice history, reasonable condition, we’ve seen better.” We apparently missed the best bit there so that’s on us for not reading the map properly and rushing a bit due to knowing we had only a short time there. We liked that we visited a castle, though, because we like castles.
Our bus then took us past the Kelpies (surprisingly impressive) to the Falkirk Wheel. This was what we wanted to do and it was great. We boarded our large canal boat, were taken into the gondola, waited for the gondola’s watertight seals to settle, then were lifted in a rotating mechanism to the next canal dozens of metres up, taken along the aqueduct, through a tunnel under the Antonine Wall, turned around in a basin, then returned by the same route, this time descending to our original location. An amazing piece of engineering that uses about the same power as boiling eight kettles to move two fully-laden boats between canals thanks to physics.
Lerwick, Shetland Islands
Originally this was supposed to be a stop at Orkney where we had a trip booked to Skara Brae. The late cancellation saw us booking a private boat tour instead out to see the islands and birds from the water. And then the night before we arrived we had an email to say the boat had developed mechanical issues and the trip had to be cancelled.
“This is turning out to be the cruise where everything is closed to us.”
So, walking around on foot in Lerwick it was then, and perhaps this was a blessing in disguise because the Shetlands were surrounded by thick fog. It’s arguable that we’d have seen anything from the boat so our free time that had us wander the cliff walk to the Broch of Clickimin (loved it), look around Fort Charlotte (nice), visit the Shetland Museum (very good), do some shopping, then stop for some local beers in a couple of pubs (it’s what we do) was free time we enjoyed a lot.
Invergordon and Inverness, Scotland
Our thoughts about excursions in Scotland were that, generally-speaking, given its proximity and the fact we can simply drive there if we really want to, we didn’t want to go off and do the perhaps-rushed and crowded tours to places like Loch Ness or similar, so in Invergordon we just travelled to the rather larger Inverness to get a feel for that city. And we couldn’t have picked a nicer day for it.
We walked the Ness Walk down one side of the river, onto the islands in it and up the other side. There, we visited the museum and looked forlornly at the castle which was – you guessed it – closed, before the typical shopping and drinking local ales (it’s what we do).
The weather was spectacular. The river views were gorgeous. Inverness had a great number of pubs. Yeah, we definitely came away from here thinking all sorts of positive things about Inverness.
Back in Invergordon, I went for a walk to photograph some of the town’s murals and to pass the Stoltman Brothers store just because we’re fans of strongman competitions. Two local women walking dogs, shouting, smoking, in skintight pink dresses, who couldn’t have looked and acted more like crack addicts if they’d tried, rounded off this spot beautifully.
South Queensferry, Scotland
The last of the Scottish ports was the tender port of South Queensferry which is the port for Edinburgh via shuttle bus or public transport.
Our original plan was to head ashore and jump on the train to Scotland’s capital, which we’d not visited before. But this was a Sunday again, and we’d had previous on this Regal Princess cruise with things being not quite as open as we’d have liked, so at the last minute we figured we could always make the trip up to Edinburgh some other time for a longer duration to give it a fairer look around. In addition, my wife had injured her calf during one of the many previous hilly walks we’d managed to find in every port so far, so we thought that a flatter, slower, calmer day in the port area would suit us better and we could get back on the ship early.
And then our plan changed again once we got ashore because a three-hour boat ride with a stop at an island on which there was an abbey suddenly appealed to me. Thus it was, after a little bit of persuading that we should make the most of our time on land when cruising, that we walked around the town, grabbed a drink from a pretentious marina bar, then took a trip with local operators out and under the three bridges (the Forth Rail Bridge, the Forth Road Bridge, and the newest Queensferry Crossing Bridge), past some other islands, and to Inchcolm Island. The medieval abbey was fantastic – perhaps one of the best we’ve been to – and the island was home to a lot of birds. Aggressive ones. “They’ll tell you where you can walk and where you can’t,” the greeter on the island had told us all as we’d stepped off the boat. “They’ll most likely shit on you if you get too close, but they can peck.” We respected the screaming gulls and stayed droppings-free and un-pecked.
There was slight drama at the end when the boat to return us to the mainland was late. Fortunately, we had a ninety-minute window to play with for the last tender boat back to the cruise ship after that, but it wasn’t the nicest of feelings to be on a remote island with no sign of anything approaching you at the due pick-up time.
Le Havre, France
And the final port after a final sea day (there were only three on this cruise) was Le Havre, a disembarkation port for some passengers who had trips in Europe planned, and used for excursions to Paris and Normandy, neither of which were particularly close. We didn’t want to spend a lot of time in a bus that we could spend in bed or ashore so simply walked around Le Havre with no set plans.
We’d not been to Le Havre before, despite easy options from Portsmouth via ferry. We knew it had some brutalist architecture, though, so we suspected we’d enjoy just wandering the streets and snapping away. And I did. After a look at the ship’s container arch sculpture that had been visible from our balcony in the morning we then made for the tallest building we could see: L’Église Saint-Joseph. Oh, wow! This was stunning. This is an absolute must-visit. Just one of the most beautiful church interiors we’ve ever seen. Concrete and abstract mosaic tiled windows in slits. Both dark and kaleidoscopically, dazzlingly bright inside. Mesmerising. Enchanting. I could spend all day in a thesaurus adding to the description.
From there, a volcano-like sculpture, some public squares, a very nice public garden with fountains, an art piece known as the Narrow House (closed but impressive, and it’s doubtful we could have fitted inside its walls anyway), the cathedral (ceiling space netted off for safety which sadly detracted from what might have been a lovely interior), and finally a brewery for local ales. It’s what we do.
British Isles Cruise Conclusion
We did far fewer excursions than we’d normally do if travelling further afield, and that meant a lot more walking on our own rather than sitting in a bus. Good for the overall health, not so much for the legs. Include just three sea days in this twelve-day itinerary and this was quite a tiring cruise, but tiring in a good way. We saw a lot of good stuff, and probably many things that the average cruiser wouldn’t see on this sort of trip. We also, sadly, encountered a lot of closed things because of the dates we were cruising. That’s wholly on us. It’s an often-overlooked element of travelling. We must do a better job of checking the days when we visit ports and what the impact might be should they coincide with national holidays.
But, yes, lovely. Great to have ticked off this itinerary, and it’s one we’d certainly do again. I think the excursion prices through the cruise line were extortionate in many cases, and far higher than the acceptable bump-up you might expect for the additional layer of cruise management on top of what are effectively local tours anyway, so this would be a case where I’d definitely look into alternative arrangements if possible. Other than that, wonderful.