Okay, so it wasn't two vacations, but it sure felt like it. The highs of seeing some of the most beautiful scenery and meeting some of the nicest people at the ports compared to the abysmal staff of the Grand Princess made this trip feel like something from the story books.

So let me give you some background, I am a young married cruiser who has been on 3 cruises in the last 5 years, including the latest, my honeymoon, 12 nights aboard the Grand Princess for my first taste of Europe.

We flew direct from Baltimore to Heathrow and arrived 12:00pm local time. Upon arrival we were informed by the Princess representative that we had just missed a bus (to transfer us to Southampton), but that one would be there in under 45 minutes. HA!!! I should have known right there that Princess was going to be a problem. To keep it short, 2 and a half hours and about 15 different excuses later we were finally aboard our $75 per person "easy and constantly running" transfer from the airport. Because we waited so long at the airport we breezed through check-in and got on the ship just in time to hear that we have 10 minutes until the muster drill. To say the least our first day aboard the ship was NOT very relaxing. But on to better things. The Ports: Read more