A Coronation and Live From 12 Day British Isles on the Regal

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Steelers0854 said:

I believe these are the Starlink antennas?

 

yep. Were not active during the crossing. Might have activated between your cruise and ours. Because if they were active during our cruise Starlink was not much on an improvement. You can always ask in the internet Cafe when they activated them.

[Steelers0854]

Day 1 Embarkation cont

 

 

Obligatory first cruise drink.
 

 

 

We had 7pm reservations at Allegro. We showed up right at 7 and checked in. The line wasn’t too long and we were seating in about 5 minutes.

 

Here is the menu for tonight.

 

 

DW got the Greek salad with some modifications as well as the pork. I got the shrimp cocktail, the Piroshky and the pork. Everything was excellent but I feel like they should have included a second piece of pork. I almost felt like I was on carnival for a moment with the size but quickly realized I wasn’t when I took a bite as it was delicious!  DW said hers was equally as good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For dessert DW got Raspberry sorbet and I got a fruit plate. We love Princess because they have true sorbet every night. It’s wonderful and DW loves it!

 

 

 

She also placed her order with the head waiter for tomorrow nights dinner. I spoke with the hostess and they were able to, hopefully, put us at the same table each evening. It will make it much easier for everyone and we loved our waitstaff.

 

I think I’m firmly now in #TeamTraditional. I’m probably in the minority but I feel it was so much easier to walk in at your assigned time, no waiting, you know your servers and they knew you and the service flowed much better. Now they have tables at different points in their service and I feel it puts a lot of strain on them. Maybe I’m wrong and I know it’s slowly going away but give me a traditional dining time any time!

 

After dinner we called it a night. Tomorrows tour to Stonehenge doesn’t meet til 9:30 so it will be nice to have a leisurely morning.

 

here is the patter for tomorrow. 
 

 

[suzyed]

On 5/4/2023 at 11:05 AM, azbirdmom said:

Will be following along.  We'll be on almost the same cruise next month (except we are going to Liverpool instead of Portland.  Good luck with your travels!

 

We're doing both on the Sept. sailing!

[nini]

I am glad the Princess transfer from Victoria Station worked well for you. I think I had made the suggestion. We will be using it from the port to LHR this June for our Norway and Iceland cruise on the Sky. I hope you are enjoying the Regal as it is one of our favorite ships.

[Steelers0854]

it’s a beautiful morning in Portland. They are expecting a small amount of rain later today. 
 

[Catz24031]

Thanks for your info.

Can you tell me if lunch is served in the main dining rooms as can’t see it listed on the patter.

[Pink-belle]

1 hour ago, Catz24031 said:

Thanks for your info.

Can you tell me if lunch is served in the main dining rooms as can’t see it listed on the patter.

Princess usually offer dining room lunch service on Sea days, not port days.  The exception being embarkation/turnaround day. 

[Steelers0854]

11 minutes ago, Pink-belle said:

Princess usually offer dining room lunch service on Sea days, not port days.  The exception being embarkation/turnaround day. 

Correct. And lunch stops at 1pm on embarkation day. 

[Pink-belle]

How has your excursion to Stonehenge been? We have been expecting rain and thunderstorms today, so far they have missed our area of Wiltshire, I hope you have been as lucky. 
 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Steelers0854 said:

Correct. And lunch stops at 1pm on embarkation day. 

Can you do a photo shoot of the officers board for posting on the Princess thread sticky for officers?  I suspect Nicola Furlan will be off again by now and not the current DRO. 

[Steelers0854]

Day 2 Portland, England (7am-7pm): Stonehenge

 

Last night was smooth sailing but they did have to use the fog horn for about 45 minutes last night around midnight. Thankfully we are in the back of the ship and it wasn’t noticeable.

 

It’s a beautiful morning with just a few clouds but no rain yet. We grabbed breakfast at the buffet. Warning for those with food allergies, Princes has changed their hash browns and they are no longer Vegan. This was disappointing as DW loved the hash browns. But they did have breakfast potatoes and those were delicious and she could eat those.

 

We met in the Princess theatre at 9:30 for our 10am tour. We left the ship at about 9:55 and left the port at 10:05.

 

Word of warning: I forgot to mention yesterday our bus from London to Southampton didn’t have a restroom on board. Our bus today does have one but I saw others next to us going to the same location that didn’t. So plan accordingly.

 

I feel like England is living in 3023. When at a red light the yellow light comes on before the light turns green. Genius.

 

It was a very pleasant drive out to Stonehenge. We had a guide narrate our journey with facts about the city and the area. It took us an hour and 45 minutes. Would have been about 20 minute shorter but we got stuck behind a tractor. 😂

 

 

We had what I would consider beautiful weather. It was cloudy and cool but the rain stayed away and the ground was not soaked so clearly it hadn’t rained much up until now. The site is beautiful and was great to visit. The sun even tried to poke out from the clouds a few times. The 2 hours they give you is more than enough. If you don’t have cell service I recommend you download the app AND the audio guide in the app either before you leave or while you’re on the ship. It’s about 100mb for both. We did the audio tour and leisurely walked around as well as walked through the exhibition hall. We had about 30 minutes to spare. They do an excellent job with the shuttles to the site, you can walk it and a lot of people do but it’s about a 2 mile walk on uneven terrain.

 

This tour was great and I would recommend it. Also the amenities at the site are very nice, plenty of very clean restrooms for use and a cafe. https://englishheritage.mysaffronportal.com/Menus/Details/Stonehenge. It lists all their offering with allergens as well.

 

 

We got back to the ship and headed to the buffet to grab something light to tie us over til dinner at 7. This excursion was at an awkward time but we had some snacks at the site to hold us over.

 

When we got back we were basically wrapped in complete fog.

 

[wowzz]

22 minutes ago, Steelers0854 said:

I feel like England is living in 3023. When at a red light the yellow light comes on before the light turns green. Genius.

Strange that something us Brits think of as completely normal and sensible, and has always been around, has not been copied by the rest of the world !

Glad you had a good visit and the rain held off for you.

Edited May 9, 2023 by wowzz

[Steelers0854]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Can you do a photo shoot of the officers board for posting on the Princess thread sticky for officers?  I suspect Nicola Furlan will be off again by now and not the current DRO. 

here ya go. 
 

[Steelers0854]

Day 2 Portland, England (7am-7pm) cont.

 

We lounged around and read until dinner. It turned into a beautiful day as we were leaving.

 

 

Also, they literally shot off a damn canon as we left port. 3 times!  This was really cool.

 

 

 

Here is the menu for dinner tonight. Despite me telling them about my conversation with the head waiter the day before they sat us in a different section tonight. But it looked like where we sat last night was full so I’m not sure if it was intentional or not.

 

 

Dinner tonight was a salad and NY strip for DW. I got the prawn cocktail, chicken tikka and the pork schnitzel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner was mostly great. When DW got her steak she thought there may have been butter on the veggies. They said it was safe but got a new one just in case. Fingers crossed they were right to begin with. The other miss tonight was the chicken tikka. It was so over cooked and dry it was not good at all. DW’s new steak was perfectly cooked and very good and my pork dish was the best I’ve had this trip. I think we set a new speed record for dinner, from the time we sat down til we got our entrees was 30 minutes flat. The unfortunate side effect of this was we really felt rushed through dinner.

 

DW grabbed the grapefruit sorbet which she really liked. 

[Tyskie]

2 hours ago, Steelers0854 said:

here ya go. 
 

Captain Stringer - one of my favorites! ❤️

Loving your live - did you feel Stonehenge was worth the trip?

[Steelers0854]

20 minutes ago, Tyskie said:

Loving your live - did you feel Stonehenge was worth the trip?

100%. I feel Like it’s like the Grand Canyon, something you have to go see once, but once you do you dont need to go back. 

[Steelers0854]

Patters for tomorrow. 
 

 

[RNRcruisers]

Fabulous itinerary! I'm looking forward to it.

 

We happened to be in London during the Queen's funeral. Some places we wanted to visit were closed, which was disappointing, but it was an amazing experience being there during that historic time. Loved the city and can't wait to go back.

 

[Tyskie]

21 minutes ago, Steelers0854 said:

100%. I feel Like it’s like the Grand Canyon, something you have to go see once, but once you do you dont need to go back. 

My sentiments exactly, DH not so much - I think I need to do a little convincing, lol😄

Thank Youl

[KarmaCruisers]

Huge thanks for posting this live!

we’re on this same ship and ports next month! (Except we get Liverpool instead of Stonehenge..I’d of rather done Stonehenge but it is what it is)

[nini]

22 minutes ago, KarmaCruisers said:

Huge thanks for posting this live!

we’re on this same ship and ports next month! (Except we get Liverpool instead of Stonehenge..I’d of rather done Stonehenge but it is what it is)

You are probably aware that you can see Stonehenge on the way to the port or on your return. This depends on your flights and times. Princess offers transfers accordingly as well as private companies.

[remydiva]

8 hours ago, Steelers0854 said:

here ya go. 
 

You have a different captain than we did on the TA immediately before.
We had Captain Aldo ‘forget last name’. 

rest of crew looks the same. 

[Steelers0854]

it’s a beautiful morning in Guernsey!

 

 

unfortunately for us we are located right above the lifeboat they chose to use for tendering. Yay us for the 6am wake up call. But with this view it’s hard to be mad. 
 

 

 

update on the Wi-Fi. More of the same. But honestly this isn’t reflective of my experience. I’m able to load websites very quickly. No issues uploading photos here and I download YouTube videos pretty easily as well. 
 

[Ranchi]

Enjoy your day!  We’ve cruised there three or four times…& never managed to tender ashore. 

[Purdey16]

Just caught up on this , thank you for doing this live thread during your holiday and glad you got to see some of the coronation in London, nice pictures of Stonehenge I’ve yet to visit but maybe in the summer. You made me laugh about the traffic lights though, it’s always been like that,  enjoy the rest of your cruise I will be following along as I’m on a princess cruise beginning of June .