Crown Princess

On July 16th, Robert and I took a car service down to the ports in Southampton. We were headed to the Mayflower Terminal to board our cruise ship, the Crown Princess. Here she is, in all her glory (although I technically didn't take this picture that day). As you can see, the Crown Princess is a pretty big ship. It can hold a little over 3000 passengers, although I never felt crowded.

Here's another view of the ship.

It was a gloomy overcast day when we boarded the ship. A little rainy and kind of chilly (that would be welcome in Houston right now). As we waited to leave port - which like most of the ports we stopped at, was pretty unattractive - we were treated to this beautiful rainbow.

One of the first things you do on board a cruise ship is meet to have a "what to do in an emergency" briefing. We all went to our designated area, with life jackets in hand, and practiced how to put them on and learned how safe the lifeboats are.

We actually got to use a lifeboat twice. Two of the ports were too shallow for the ship to dock, so we dropped anchor out a ways and took "tenders" into port. The tenders were actually the lifeboats. After seeing water come through one of the sealed windows, I'm glad we didn't actually have to use them in an emergency!

Since this was our 30th wedding anniversary present, we splurged and got a room with a balcony in the back of the ship. Our room was on the Baja Deck (which is the second deck with rooms). We didn't splurge enough to get a big balcony, but that's okay!
We liked being in the back of the ship. It was a great place to take pictures. I loved watching the ship's wake.
A castle turret off the coast.
A lighthouse in the distance. I took this as we were sailing around the desolate northern tip of Scotland.
Another beautiful lighthouse. We were struck by how many lighthouses we saw and how short so many of them were. Maybe tall lighthouses are an American thing.
A bigger wake as we cruised along at a pretty brisk speed (for a cruise ship anyway).
And finally, a beautiful sunset.
The Crown Princess is a beautiful ship, although I didn't take any pictures of the interior of the boat. Go to their website if you're interested! Our room was nice. Not gigantic, but room for everything we needed. The balcony really made it seem bigger. The only other time we went on a cruise, we had a room with a tiny window. This was so much better. Balconies are the way to go!

We had a good time on board. We went to shows - some good, some goofy, but all pretty entertaining. We watched some cruise ship game shows - even participating in a couple of trivia ones (although we didn't win). We ate a lot, although the food wasn't as great as we had hoped. Some stuff was delicious, but some was just good. We still enjoyed it all!

Next post - Our first stop - La Havre, France.