We set sail on the Caribbean Princess on April 20, 2016 for an 18 day trans-Atlantic cruise. We have sailed Princess before and were looking forward to sailing her again. A back story to this cruise:
In September 2014, we sailed on the Carnival Legend from Los Angeles to Sydney stopping in Puerta Vallerta, Papeete, Tahiti, Mo’orea Island,Bora Bora, Fiji & New Caledonia disembarking in Sydney. From Sydney we traveled to Cairns to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reed on a live-aboard dive ship for 3 days/2 nights. From Cairns we traveled to Brisbane to board the Sea Princess and circumnavigate New Zealand. While we were on the Carnival cruise, we received notice that the Sea Princess was having mechanical problems and all passengers disembarked in Freemantle while the ship went to Sydney for repairs. Ok, we thought, this shouldn’t be a problem, there should be time to repair the ship and we’ll be on our way. While we were in Brisbane, we received an e-mail from Princess stating that the repairs took longer than expected, the cruise would be shortened by 1 day and leave from Sydney instead of Brisbane; they would fly us down to Sydney and we would board the ship there. Cool, sounds like a plan. The day before we were to fly to Sydney, we get another e-mail, the sea trials did not go well, the cruise has been canceled. To its credit, Princess refunded all of the cruise fare, paid for our hotel room for the next day and gave us a credit in the amount of the cruise. That credit is paying for this trans-Atlantic on the Caribbean Princess and another cruise. We decided to fly to Perth and visit friends, so it all worked out in the end.
Bermuda
We have visited Bermuda before and decided to take the ferry into Hamilton and then a bus to the Bermuda Aquarium Museum & Zoo. It’s a nice day trip for all. They had many animals to see and it is a good place for kids. To see the entirety would probably take about 3 – 4 hours. In the past we went to St. George’s, the Swizzle Inn, Crystal Cave, Elbow Beach and Hartley’s Helmet Dive. We enjoyed the zoo and aquarium, the view on the coastal walkway is gorgeous.
The zoo was set up nicely with different areas for Australia/Asia, America, Caribbean and an interactive area for kids:
At Sea
After Bermuda we sailed the Atlantic for 7 days. During the day we would attend different activities. There were lectures planned that discussed geology and cars that were well attended. We usually would miss the lectures but catch them on the tv in our stateroom while getting ready for dinner or before going to bed. There were movies showing at no charge, in the Princess theater in the afternoon. We saw Room, Trumbo, A Walk in the Woods, The Martian, Bridge of Spies and The Revanent. The movies were free, they also showed movies on the Lido deck (Movies under the stars) at night, since it was outside, we watched early on in the cruise but not once we left Bermuda, it was too cold. There was also trivia. The trivia was always crowded, and sometimes hard to get a seat. Lunch was either in the dining room, the italian restaurant for pizza (not offered everyday), or the steakhouse for British pub fare (also not offered everyday).
Liverpool
Our day in Liverpool started with going through immigration. This was the low point of the cruise. Although Princess had organized staggered times to arrive at the Explorers Lounge, there was a back log of people. After waiting for approximately 1 hour to see the immigration officials, we were able to leave the ship. We were meeting our friends cousin Philip who lived in the area and had offered to show us around. We had a wonderful day visiting the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral which opened in 1967, the Anglican church, Speke Hall, the Walker Gallery, the Liverpool FC stadium with a stop for lunch.
We had a fun time and Philip was a great host. We didn’t stop to see the Beatles museum, but maybe next time.
Holyhead
We were supposed to stop in Holyhead, but the seas were too rough and the port was canceled. This is one of the drawbacks of cruising. We had planned to take a tour of northern Wales and visit Portmerion (the location of the British ’60s tv series The Prisoner). As much as we were looking forward to the tour, it was understandable that we couldn’t anchor there.
Hamburg
Due to the cancellation of the previous port, we arrived in Hamburg early. The trip up the Elbe River was superb, the sky was blue and the water was calm. One complication we discovered, due to environmental laws, the ship was not allowed to keep the laundry rooms open, they closed them with no warning. We had laundry in the dryer and when I went to take it out, I discovered the door was locked. After a few calls, a crew member was sent to open the door for us and a few others. This is an area that Princess cruises could have done differently. We understand the need to follow the laws but, if they had informed us earlier, we could have adjusted our schedule accordingly. Also, a note on the door of the laundry room would have helped. After we retrieved our laundry, we decided to get into a hot tub on the Lido deck. We enjoyed the scenery and anticipated the arrival later that day. After dinner we took the shuttle bus to the Reeperbahn. We enjoyed a beer at one of the bars and walked around the area. It is a lively, fun place to spend an evening. Since my German is very limited, we were pleased to find that the majority of the staff spoke English, all better than my German.
The next morning we headed off to explore Hamburg by way of a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus, river cruise and lake tour. We had purchased the tickets on Viator before leaving. The bus toured the city and the tour guide pointed out the different areas and attractions including the Kunsthalle Hamburg, Speicherstadt – the warehouse district (now museums and warehouses), the Hamburg Rathaus (city hall) to name a few highlights. During our day in Hamburg the city was celebrating the anniversary of the port. We headed that way to explore the festival, which had many food and drink vendors, games and rides. There were some beautiful ships tied up and more navigating the Elbe. We were scheduled to take a river cruise and met up with the Louisiana Star, a paddle wheeler for our trip. The river tour took us to see the cargo ships in port and explained the importance of the Speicherstadt. After the river cruise, we made our way back to the bus to meet up with the Lake Alster tour. The boat tour was fun and it’s a nice way to see the area. The only problem we had was that the guide only spoke German, but, we still enjoyed the sights on our own.
Le Havre (Paris)
After a sea day, we arrived at Le Havre, France. Le Havre is the port that serves Paris, it is 195 km from Le Havre to Paris and takes approximately 2.5 hrs by car. Our stop was 12 hours so we joined a tour group we found on our Cruise Critic roll call. The group was small, under 15 people. We had a tour of Paris and stopped at the Champs-Élysées for time to explore on our own. We chose to walk to the Arc de Triomphe. There was a long line to take a tour and we didn’t have the time needed. We walked both sides of the avenue starting at the bridge and ending at the bridge. We spent some time in the Petite Palais -Musée des Beaux Arts de le Ville de Paris. The architecture is in the beaux arts style and the gardens were wonderful. We visited the 1st floor, and viewed the sculptures and paintings. Wishing we had more time to explore this museum, we headed back to the mini-bus to meet our group. Next stop: the Eiffel Tower. It was nice to see the tower up close after seeing pictures of the structure. We did not however, have time to go up to the observation deck. After visiting the Eiffel Tower it was time for our 2.5 hour bus ride back. We will be back to Paris to spend more time and explore the city properly.
Southampton
Our cruise ended in Southampton, England. As we do every debarkation day, we ate breakfast in the dining room and then went to wait for our group in the lounge assigned to us. We were picking up a car for our drive to Cornwall. We got off the ship and walked to a hotel next to the rental car office, which didn’t open for another hour. After the rental car office opened, we picked up the car and we were on the road to Cornwall for the next chapter…
Caryn H 