Background- I was traveling with my husband and our 18-year old daughter. This was our 6th cruise overall, fourth on Royal Caribbean. We chose this itinerary largely because of the ports. We'd only been to one (Copenhagen) previously. This was a part of Europe I'd always wanted to explore further, and a recent "big" birthday provided the perfect excuse for this trip. This was the longest cruise we've ever been on, and the cost seemed reasonable given the season, length of the trip, and the ports. The airfare for us from the U.S. to London was, however, relatively costly. We booked through a travel agent we'd used for our previous Royal Caribbean cruises.

Hotel Info- We flew to London on August 7- we wanted to have a couple of days there before the cruise began. We'd been to London before, so we were going to use the time to see some of the sights we'd missed previously. We were fortunate to be on a daytime flight. It was late in the evening by the time we got to London, but we prefer this to trying to sleep overnight on a plane. We stayed at the Marriott Park Lane Hotel. We ended up being very satisfied with this choice of hotel. The hotel was offering a 30% discount on stays of 3 nights, and we also had Concierge Lounge access. We enjoyed this very much- not only for breakfast, but as a respite at the end of the day as well. We were within walking distance of several restaurants, and almost immediately on top of the Marble Arch tube. Yet, despite the central location and busy street, the room was quiet and we were able to sleep. The room was a bit small, but that's what we expect in Europe, and since it was for a short stay, we were OK with that.

Travel to Port of Embarkation- We had previously arranged for a car service to take us to Harwich. This worked very well. The cruise line's transfer fees were outrageously high- it was a better deal to get door-to-door service in a private vehicle than to be on a large bus to which we would first have to travel by train or taxi. Our transfer was very smooth. The driver met us at 10:00, and we arrived at Harwich about 12:00 noon. At other ports, we have sometimes experienced a rather hectic arrival process. That was not the case here. We were met immediately by a helpful porter, and there was no line to speak of at the check-in desk. We were on the ship by about 12:15. Read more