Royal Princess Review
Went under pressure, returned pleasantly surprised
Rating by category
Additional details
I have never liked the idea of being crammed onto a boat with 3,000 of my closest friends, so resisted cruising for decades. Finally succumbed to family peer pressure and went on a 12 day tour of the British Isles on the Royal Princess with my husband, sister, and brother-in-law. It went just fine.
I get seasick, so made sure I had patches, but I never opened the box. That ship was steady. On the first day, the captain skipped St. Peter Port due to inclement weather; there was no indication on board that we were facing high winds and waves which would make tendering there a problem, but I appreciated the captain's decision to err on the side of caution.
Only once did we have a problem finding a table in the Horizon Buffet; usually there was plenty of seating. There was a wide variety of food available. I like vegetarian fare and my husband is a carnivore. We were both happy. I appreciated all the fresh fruit options, although the cantaloupe was consistently either underripe or overripe. They try to make the buffet lines easy to navigate by creating niches for different fare, but that didn't work well for a person with no internal mapping ability: it took me days to figure out the system. I was always turning the wrong way. They are cooking for thousands of people, so the food can be slightly industrial; the scrambled eggs were always the consistency of pudding, looked inedible, and according to a family member who tried them once, were. The oatmeal contained no evidence of oats. One day we chose quiche for breakfast which was so rubbery that my sister entertained herself for five minutes by bouncing a spoon off it. Otherwise, the Horizon Buffet was acceptable. The hot dogs at the grill by the pool were fabulous. The soft-serve ice cream at the ice cream bar near the pool was not great. My husband tried the gelato on Deck 5 once and didn't buy it again.
Port Reviews
Cobh (Cork)
Loved it. Cute city. A little bit of a walk from the ship to the center of town, but we enjoyed seeing the architecture and businesses, and seeing how people live there. We stopped at a pub for a beer and a cider, enjoyed it, stopped at a little flea market place on a side road and spent some money, and just generally had a relaxing day.
Dublin
Very much enjoyed dublin. Again, we explored on our own. Figured out real quick that the "hop on hop off" buses should be called the "hop on if there's space, and if there isn't, heaven knows how long you will have to wait for the next one, which might also be full" bus. I guess that's too long to paint on the side of the bus, though.
Belfast
Belfast is still a very sad city. The Troubles have left their taint, which is to be expected in a city where civil war reigned for so long. The architecture was gorgeous, and we enjoyed the bus tour we took; we always like to see how other people live. Belfast is an interesting historical stop.
Greenock (Glasgow)
Giving this wonderful little town a four, even though parts of the business section were shuttered and empty. They are clearly struggling economically. We stopped at a pub and got involved in a wake. The mourners were very welcoming to us, shared their sausage rolls, and didn't mind when we joined in with them singing old Beatles songs at the top of our lungs. We helped say goodbye in fine Scots fashion to someone we never knew. It was touching.
Kirkwall
Very charming town, fabulous Princess tour of Skarra Brae and Skaile House. Well worth the time to stop here.
Edinburgh (South Queensferry)
It was crowded, but we loved Edinburgh. Really, really charming. We love old buildings and architecture, and the UK and Ireland are full of those. People were friendly at every stop, and we always felt safe. One word of advice: if you decide to take the train into Edinburgh from the ship, be prepared to walk up a long flight of steep steps, walk along a semi-steep trail, cross a small bridge with steps, and collapse on a bench at the train station. For the same money you can take the shuttle. We didn't want to wait. My advice, and I can't repeat it enough: wait for the shuttle.
Le Havre
Not the cleanest town in France, I'm guessing, although not having been in any other French cities, I really don't know. Lots of places were closed. Had a long, uncomfortable wait in a driving rain with no shelter for a Princess shuttle. Many passenger complaints about that, especially as Princess charged us $16 each round-trip for the experience. At no other port was that the case. Nobody was happy.