It takes time to sail a transatlantic itinerary, but if you can fit it in, you'll enjoy the luxury of traveling slowly. In today's world we constantly strive to do everything fast, but some things can only be appreciated when you slow down and enjoy the passage of time. Appropriately, the Grand Princess cruise of April 9-24, 2010 was called the British Isles Passage. We'd sailed transatlantic a year ago on NCL and wanted to see how a crossing with Princess would compare. The Grand Princess is one of their older ships, built in 1998. She'd show her years, but be well maintained. The crowd would be what could graciously be termed "mature". Filling fifteen nights with quality entertainment might be a challenge. The weather would vary, more cool than warm, and the seas could possibly be felt. The food and service would be good, the cabin - comfortable, and all in all we'd have a good cruise, with the chance to see that area of the world for the first time. That's what we expected - and for the most part that's what we got. This was our fifth Princess cruise, so we felt at home - confident there'd be no surprises.

Yes, the Grand is older and it's interesting for repeat Princess passengers to see the first ship in her class, having sailed her sisters further down the evolutionary line. Considering that she has hosted tens of thousands of guests over the years she looks great, but you can see the high mileage if you look around. Most obvious is what twelve years of salt air and sea spray can do to balcony dividers. The corrosion was evident everywhere out there. It's hard to fault her for design flaws - such as a non-existent midship stair tower - that would be corrected in ships built later. Call it character. She's a comfortably sized ship with adequate public space. Adequate, that is, when everyone spreads out. Instead they hogged the indoor seating, and ventured out to the open decks - where I guess they were afraid of suffering frostbite in 52-degree air - only rarely. In fact, The Sanctuary, where you can pay extra for outdoor privacy was deserted. No surprise, because after Bermuda most everyone stayed inside. But I enjoy any weather warmer than a New England winter so while they were warming chairs in the Atrium I was bouncing a basketball, looking out over the ship's wake, and celebrating - believe it or not - a wind-assisted hole-in-one on the miniature golf course.

Don't sail a transatlantic expecting your fellow cruisers to be spring chickens. We were quite obviously among the younger passengers, even though the half-century mark is not far off for us. They like it warm; they go to bed early. They ride scooters and use wheelchairs and walkers and canes. The cruising clichE is "overfed and nearly dead", for a reason. But, they have the money - and the time - for these itineraries and you've got to give them credit for getting off the couch and getting out there. Our adventure began in Fort Lauderdale where four other ships left port just before us. After two sea days we called at Bermuda on Monday. Monday evening we began the crossing with a long stretch of sea days that wouldn't end until the pace of the cruise shifted at Greenock, Scotland the following Monday, when we'd begin visiting a new port each day thereafter: Dublin and Cobh in Ireland; Falmouth, England and Le Havre, France and Southampton, England, where the cruise would end. We had a roomy mini-suite on Dolphin Deck. The bathroom had a tub, and that meant a comfortable showering experience compared to the usual coffin-sized shower stall in other cabins. There was a separate sitting area with a couch, chair and coffee table - extra space you appreciate on a 15-night sailing. The balcony was fully exposed to the sun, and because we chose a cabin on the starboard side we had the sun on our side as we sailed eastward across the Atlantic. Read more