We were due to do this cruise over xmas and new year 2010, but we got no further than Heathrow airport, as all flight out were cancelled due to heavy snow. So this was our second attempt at doing this cruise. Second time lucky!

We booked the flights and pre-cruise hotel stay as a package through Princess, staying the night before we left Heathrow at the Premier Inn, which was a very good choice. A quick Hoppa bus and we were at terminal. An American Airlines flight of 11.5 hours landed us in LA, where it then took over 90 minutes to get through immigration! We were reasonably near the front of the non-US citizen queue, with around 12 people in front of us, but boy was it going slowly. As the US immigration queue was whizzing through, staff decided to let us non --US folks go through that way, but instead of doing this from the front of the queue, they moved people from the back! This is not how we do queuing in the UK and there was the usual grumblings (not from us I may add), but eventually we got through, going from nearly at the front of the queue to bringing up the rear! It was light when we landed and dark when we saw outside...ah well.. we were there.

We were met by a Princess rep and sent to another queue to wait for a bus to the hotel. Guess what we did when we got to the hotel...yep, joined another queue to check in and then yet another queue to see the rep to get our names signed off and a coloured ticket for our transfer the following day to the ship. It's a good job I have so much experience in queuing, I would get a gold medal in it! Read more