When we first started cruising we were younger than we are now. That’s just how linear time works and there’s simply nothing we could or can do about it. This factored into our decision back then to try to cruise to places that were further away as much as possible as early as possible, when we’d arguably be fitter and find long distance travel less of a problem, then visit places nearer home in later life. A terrible argument because we’ve never been fit, but it’s what we went with anyway.
We therefore never considered a cruise to British ports until very recently but in May 2024 we headed down to Southampton and embarked Regal Princess for the start of twelve nights visiting Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and France. For me there would be no new countries to tick off the list but my wife had never been to Ireland before and she was keen to do so.
Embarkation was perfectly simple, the muster process was a breeze, it was nice to see new Princess Cruises tote bags in our room (we have quite the collection now), and the most important task of the first hour aboard was to head up onto the top deck and grab ourselves a 24K Margarita and a Dirty Banana. The staff are usually so busy delivering luggage or cleaning or dealing with confused passengers on embarkation day that it’s far easier to head to a bar rather than take advantage of the excellent room service through the Ocean Medallion system.
As Regal Princess left Southampton in the afternoon we saw a few very familiar sights. Hardly surprising given how often we do this.
First up was Steamship Shieldhall. We had a lovely time sailing on this 1950s vessel past all the cruise ships in port in Southampton back in 2022.
Further down the Solent and we got to admire the hovercraft on its Ryde to Portsmouth flight. That’s right, they’re called flights when you’re on a hovercraft. The ultimately useless, nineteenth century forts are also always a nice sight on these cruises out of our home county.
We don’t tend to do much on cruise ships – for us they’re for reading, listening to music, drinking, enjoying the sea views, and taking us in the most relaxing way possible to see sights around the world – so to conclude this first day aboard Regal Princess here are some photos of the food we had in the main dining room in case that’s of any interest, and some pictures of the Double Down Bar next to the casino, and the place where we’d end up most nights for the disco and cocktails. It was quiet there this first night but it did have its popular nights and with it being on the walking route from the theatre to the piazza – a stupid design decision – it did get briefly crowded whenever the shows finished and you’d have no chance getting a drink for about fifteen minutes.
The first full day on Regal Princess was a sea day, and one of only three on this cruise, and since it was so bright and sunny it was the perfect day to take a few photos around the upper decks after lunch. We had cruised on Regal Princess in 2021 just as we were coming out of the heaviest of the pandemic restrictions so photos of the ship had been taken before but that’s no reason not to take more.
Regal Princess is a Royal-class ship. Regal and her sister ship Royal Princess were the first two in this class and on this particular design their adults only pool has more exposed sides to the sea offering lovely views, little cabanas by the pool, and a far better pool design and depth than that of the later variants of the class. We ended up swimming in the pool and chatting with other cruisers for ages on this first sea day and my wife ended up sunburnt.
A perk of being Elite level with Princess Cruises, other than telling other people at every opportunity that you’re Elite level with Princess Cruises, is that you get a free wine-tasting on a sea day on cruises and that happened on this first day. These wine-tastings are pretty terrible but they’re entertainingly terrible if you’re sharing a table with other people who share your sense of humour and similar thoughts regarding what makes a wine nice and what causes you to screw up your face in horror, and that’s what happened.
We had noticed a few women aboard Regal Princess on embarkation day wearing red hats with other clothing in purple but hadn’t quite realised what the reasoning for this was nor quite how many of them were aboard until the afternoon on this sea day when, with it being formal night, a whole swathe of them (well over a hundred) suddenly swarmed the piazza where we were sitting down with a glass of decent wine now. They were all in 1920s themed clothing and had turned up for lots of group photos, and they looked fabulous. This was the Red Hat Society, as it turned out (not that unsurprisingly), and they’d prove to be entertaining both on the ship and off during this cruise.
Before the cruise we’d pre-booked some speciality dining and it was Sabatini’s, the Italian trattoria on the ship, that we dined at on this evening. We will almost always dine here at least once on any Princess cruise because the food is always fantastic and you never feel like you’re not getting value for money from the experience.
In the next post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll arrive at the first of two ports in Ireland, Cobh.