Live - NCL Prima - 06/23-07/04/2024 - Southampton, Belgium, Amsterdam, Norway and Iceland - Is it more beautiful than Alaska?

[cruiseny4life]

14 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

Thank you! At the end of the cruise, I expect to say that both are beautiful for different reasons.it is difficult to see some areas of Alaska without access to a plane or helicopter. 

 

It is such a personal and subjective answer as you pointed out. 

I was a little rude, not a lot rude, but a little rude yesterday about this. I do think it's fun to compare places, even their beauty. But, I was in a rotten no good mood. So, my apologies! 

 

Today, my mood was brightened when my supervisor (at the bakery, not my real job) called me a "magical unicorn" which made me revisit my yesterday comments. 

 

So, anyway, it is fun to compare. All places are beautiful. But, gosh some of them just fall into your eyes and stay burned into your memory forever. I have a few like that. I really can't name a "most" beautiful place. But I can definitely think of wonderous places that I hope I get to visit again in the future. 

 

Now on to your most wonderful review. Welcome to England!!!

 

[complawyer]

some of mine are Brugge, Venice, Corfu, and certainly Rome

[Seas2mountains]

When we decided to fly in a day earlier than we originally planned, we debated spending the first and possibly the second night in London to have time to explore in the area. After reading about Southampton, we decided it was a better idea to spend all three nights there before the cruise. Since I spent a few days in London many years ago to see the main tourists areas, I don’t feel like I missed anything.  
 

We considered using the National Express bus from LHR to a stop near the  hotel, but the 2 hour gap to wait for a bus if our flight was delayed has us reconsider this plan. We decided to use a car service instead.  Someone the CC forum for British Island travels recommended BlackBerry Cars.  We had a great experience as the driver was professional, on time and drove safely.  We do recommend them. 
 

I’ll share more about the hotel with photos  after we check out on Sunday. 
 

 

[Seas2mountains]

18 hours ago, odie1024 said:

Have a wonderful trip, will be doing this trip in August 2025. When cruise is over will spend extra night in Iceland (I was there last November with the girls and so enjoyed the beauty) then BF and I fly to Denmark, see Sweden then back to Norway for more time to explore the beautiful country. Figured I would not get back that way as I have other things to see and Copenhagen is only a 3 hour flight from Reykjavik so why not.

 

Will be sailing the Prima for the first time in January from NYC to Galveston so look forward to your thoughts about this ship. Will be looking for ideas for the ports.

 

Have fun! 

Thank you! That’s nice that you will be able to do more exploring of nearby countries next summer. I’m jealous! 
 

Enjoy your upcoming cruises! I’ll do my best to share more about the Prima. 

[Seas2mountains]

18 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

Thanks for doing the live thread! I'll be on the same sailing, but won't have good access or the time to do a live. 

If you find yourself with time and access, feel free to add your thoughts,  Have a wonderful cruise! 

[Seas2mountains]

9 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Looking forward to your review. We did this itinerary on the Prima last summer and actually celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary on the sea day between Norway and Iceland. We also flew in a day early and spent a day in London. The weather was unfortunately miserable that day, so we ended up just spending a very long time in the British Museum.

 

Like all the Prima cruises last summer, we missed Akureryi. From reading some previous posts, it seems the dock is now complete so you should get there unless the weather makes it a problem. Especially looking forward to hearing about that port. Our cruise also missed the Belgium stop because of an extremely low tide. We did, however, get to Brugge earlier this year on a river cruise.

 

Wishing you a great cruise. Despite booking for itinerary and missing 2 ports, we still loved this cruise and the Prima.

Thank you! I’m sorry to hear you weren’t able to go to Bruges and Akureyi. I can imagine how disappointing it had to be yet was not anything NCL could fix. We heard the dock for Isofjordur is open this year as that sounds like it was another missed port in Iceland. 
 

Happy 47th Anniversary! 

[Seas2mountains]

5 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

I was a little rude, not a lot rude, but a little rude yesterday about this. I do think it's fun to compare places, even their beauty. But, I was in a rotten no good mood. So, my apologies! 

 

Today, my mood was brightened when my supervisor (at the bakery, not my real job) called me a "magical unicorn" which made me revisit my yesterday comments. 

 

So, anyway, it is fun to compare. All places are beautiful. But, gosh some of them just fall into your eyes and stay burned into your memory forever. I have a few like that. I really can't name a "most" beautiful place. But I can definitely think of wonderous places that I hope I get to visit again in the future. 

 

Now on to your most wonderful review. Welcome to England!!!

 

You weren’t rude at all! Congrats on being called a magical unicorn. You have such an upbeat and positive yet funny personality to share here at CC and I can only imagine how you brighten the day for many others especially those you see in person. 
 

We have some favorite places, too, and look forward to discovering some locations that may require a future visit. 

[Seas2mountains]

5 hours ago, complawyer said:

some of mine are Brugge, Venice, Corfu, and certainly Rome

I’m more excited to visit Bruges knowing it’s on your list. I also liked Venice and Rome but have not been to Corfu. 
 

in Europe, I would add Salzburg, Austria and the surrounding area in the Alps. One other location that was fascinating to me and I want to see again is Pompeii in Italy. 

[laudergayle]

On 6/19/2024 at 3:20 PM, Seas2mountains said:

created a 20 page document with photos and fun facts for our 9 year old granddaughter to follow along on our cruise to include information about each country and port locations

How awesome!  I would love to see your document as we have a cruise in June ‘26 (yes it’s far away) with a very similar itinerary. Maybe when you return you can post a pdf.  Enjoy your cruise while we enjoy your Live!

[Seas2mountains]

We left LHR at about 1:30pm and got to our hotel in Southampton about 3:00pm. 
 

It was such a gorgeous day weather wise with sunny skies and a temperature of 74 degrees. 
 

After checking in, we were focused on finding food at an odd time after lunch but before dinner. 
 

We tried going to Duke of Wellington and they were open for drinks but they said they didn’t serve food until 6pm. 
 

It looked like a good place and had good reviews so that was disappointing. 
 

[Seas2mountains]

Trip Advisor “restaurants nearby” function claimed a German bar called Stein Garten was open. Thankfully, they said they could now serve food when we got there at 4pm. 

ordered a salad and schnitzel which came with chicken and pork schnitzel plus fries and red cabbage. It was good but I would not order it again. The salad was excellent.  It was all too much food snd I feel bad with how much food we left behind and wasted. 

My husband ordered a frankfurter with fries and Sauer kraut.  He said it was good. 

We found a local store for snacks before checking out the medieval walls around the city called Bargate. 
 

We then struggled to stay awake. A shower made us feel so much better. 

[cruiseny4life]

2 minutes ago, Seas2mountains said:

Trip Advisor “restaurants nearby” function claimed a German bar called Stein Garten was open. Thankfully, they said they could now serve food when we got there at 4pm. 

ordered a salad and schnitzel which came with chicken and pork schnitzel plus fries and red cabbage. It was good but I would not order it again. The salad was excellent.  It was all too much food snd I feel bad with how much food we left behind and wasted. 

My husband ordered a frankfurter with fries and Sauer kraut.  He said it was good. 

We found a local store for snacks before checking out the medieval walls around the city called Bargate. 
 

We then struggled to stay awake. A shower made us feel so much better. 

Now that looks like my kind of place!!! 

 

Glad you found some food, even if it was a lot. It was, even for me judging those photos! 

[Seas2mountains]

To fight the Zzzzz monster, we went for a walk around the city. 

 

Anyone interested in a ride on the Boogie Bus? 

[Seas2mountains]

We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The fish and chips were calling my name although I should have asked to skip the traditional mushy peas as I knew I didn’t care for them based on past travels to London. I’ve enjoyed fish and chips on past visits and this dinner did not disappoint.  
 

That was definitely one of the biggest pieces of fish I’ve had for fish n chips. 

My husband got a pizza with different types of meat. He said it was okay but had too much tomato sauce and not enough meat and cheese.  He would not order it again. He said the chorizo promised as a pizza ingredient on the menu was missing. 
 

Service was excellent. The waiter let is know a 10% service charge was automatically added to the bill but could be removed if requested. We were happy it was added and know this is typical. 

[Seas2mountains]

1 hour ago, laudergayle said:

How awesome!  I would love to see your document as we have a cruise in June ‘26 (yes it’s far away) with a very similar itinerary. Maybe when you return you can post a pdf.  Enjoy your cruise while we enjoy your Live!

Thank you! I can definitely add it when we get home. I’ll have to edit some parts out.  It is a little corny as it has some bad Dad jokes included for our granddaughter. 

[Seas2mountains]

My husband can’t stay awake and I hope I can fall asleep soon. 
 

Here is a view of the sunset from our hotel room. 

Tomorrow will include touring around Southampton. 
 

Saturday is Stonehenge and Salisbury. 
 

 

[laudergayle]

12 minutes ago, Seas2mountains said:

Thank you! I can definitely add it when we get home. I’ll have to edit some parts out.  It is a little corny as it has some bad Dad jokes included for our granddaughter. 

Oh, please leave the Dad jokes in…lol.  I love Dad jokes!

[kelib]

On 6/19/2024 at 3:56 PM, Buckeye10640 said:

I will be following your review and would love to hear your thoughts on Prima, as well as these wonderful locations. I have been looking at this itinerary for awhile now but I am on the fence regarding this ship.

I just booked this itinerary for next August so will be following along 

[TRTLscout]

Need help please with the NCL Prima cruise 7/14-25 Southampton to Iceland. We are new to shore excursions and wondered if this group has recommendations or could direct me to reviews of specific ones and, answers to questions like: what if we just want to explore Amsterdam on our own? Is transportation from/back to the cruise terminal easy or challenging?  We have 8 ports to decide how or what to do.  Does anyone just do "their own thing" or should we book through NCL? Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer.

[tcmagnum]

1 hour ago, Seas2mountains said:

Thank you! I can definitely add it when we get home. I’ll have to edit some parts out.  It is a little corny as it has some bad Dad jokes included for our granddaughter. 

I for one would like it with the bad dad jokes included.  Lol….

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, Seas2mountains said:

Thank you! I’m sorry to hear you weren’t able to go to Bruges and Akureyi. I can imagine how disappointing it had to be yet was not anything NCL could fix. We heard the dock for Isofjordur is open this year as that sounds like it was another missed port in Iceland. 
 

Happy 47th Anniversary! 

Thanks, we did out best to enjoy the cruise despite those disappointments. We knew well before the cruise that Akureyri was probably going to be missed. And at least we did get to Bruges this spring.

[Seas2mountains]

Good morning from Southampton. This was taken at 5:30am local time. 
 

Wrong ship but it is a beautiful morning. It is the Anthem of the Seas. 
 

The good news is that I was able to get 5 hours of sleep last night. 
 

 

[Seas2mountains]

After having a decent breakfast at the hotel, we decided to walk towards the Horizon cruise terminal and berth 102 where the Prima will be on Sunday morning.  We wanted to make sure we could walk all the way without hitting any barriers. 
 

We confirmed that we could as we were able to walk to the Horizon terminal without being stopped by security.  Regent Seven Seas is in that berth today.  It is about a half mile walk from our hotel to the cruise terminal. 
 

The Anthem of the Seas was in berth 101 at the City Cruise Terminal. 

[Seas2mountains]

We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring Southampton. 
 

My husband liked our visit to the Solent Sky Museum. The volunteers or employees who ran the museum were super friendly and funny. 
 

 

[Seas2mountains]

Next stop was a few blocks away at the Ocean Village Marina where there are restaurants and shops along the marina. We were checking out the massive yacht, The Special One.