First let me start by saying that we have been planning this cruise for over a year and Cruise Critic was a fantastic resource for us to use. Second, what I am about to state are our experiences and only our experiences. Therefore, I hope that there is no rebuttals such as "I can't believe you were on the same cruise", etc. because this is what we experienced and that is what I want to share. O.K. now that is out of the way here goes:

Pre-cruise: We arrived in London three days prior to our cruise because we wanted to see the city. The first night we just walked around. The second day we took an all day tour offered by Golden Tours (Basically same as Gray line). We really enjoyed the sights of London and actually got to see the Queen at Westminster Abbey. That was the highlight of the tour. A couple of lowlights: At the Changing of the Guard we were across the street and only got to watch the troops enter the square. Once they entered the square we had to leave. The River Ride consisted on getting on the boat and three stops later getting off. It was not the one hour river tour that is advertised by other companies. Other than that it was a nice day.

The third day we took the National Express Bus to Dover. It was very nice and scenic ride. Once we got to Dover we had to wait about 10 minutes to catch a cab to our hotel (Premier Inn - Ferry Terminal). You cannot check into the hotel until it is 2:00 p.m. so we walked into town, had lunch, etc. The hotel is o.k. for one night and the pub is very nice. One thing to note: The hotel does not have AC. The day we arrived the room was very stuffy and opening the window didn't help that much either. We were supposed to meet up with some folks from our Roll Call but somehow we missed each other. Read more