Disembarking the ship is quite a science for the Princess crew. If you follow their instructions, it is quite painless. People are going in several different directions when they arrive in Southampton and Princess is very good about getting you where you want to go. Luggage is all packed the night before and set outside the stateroom door for pick up. A tag on it identifies what your plans are when you exit the ship. Those of us going to London on private transportation had a gold tag. Jerry & Kathy, Bob & Deanie and I had booked transportation with West [View Full Entry]

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What a day to land in Le Havre!! For those who went to go to Normandy, it is D-Day--the 64th anniversary. It is also Kathy Teske's Birthday--I won't tell you which anniversary it is for her and we went to Paris. The French Government was up to their favorite tricks--obstructing things and being hard to get along with. They would not clear us for immigration so we sat in a holding pattern in the Explorer's Lounge for more than an hour and a half. This really put a damper--in more ways than one on our excusion for the day. It is [View Full Entry]

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Life on the ship is pretty much luxury. And that is what we experienced. The Grand Princess is truly grand. It seems to lack for nothing. I guess that if I'm going to talk about life on the ship, I need to start in the morning. I mostly just know what I did but others did join me. My normal routine is to get up early and go to the gym. I go to the gym for spinning at 5:30 a.m. before I get ready for school. Keeping that same kind of schedule seemed like a good thing to do but [View Full Entry]

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What a pleasant little city. Once again, we figured we could do this one on our own. Once again that's what we did. This time we were not disappointed. Being able to depart the ship on our own allowed us to have a little more leisurely or more active morning. This day we did not arrive in port until later. This gave Linda G and I a chance to do our morning stretch with James at 7:00 a.m. and then do a Spinning class at 8. I love spin but it was Linda's first time. She said she enjoyed it and [View Full Entry]

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A new country but we're up to the same tricks. We didn't book a shore excursion so we decided to try it on our own again. After our ordeal in Casablanca, you would have thought we had learned our lesson. NOT!! This time we were somewhat more fortunate. Linda G negotiated us a limo with an English speaking driver. His name was Colada--like in Pina Colada and he had good command of the English language and knew his way around the city. I forget how much he charged us, but unlike our tour in Gilbraltar, we had to buy our admissions [View Full Entry]

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Our visit to Cadiz was a pleasant surprise. It turned out to be a most charming & captivating port of call. We did not book a tour. We could have gone to Seville and the Andalusian area. But instead we bought tickets for a hop-on/hop-off bus and had a great tour of the city. We got on close to the ship and rode to the other side of the city where got off to stroll down the street. We found a great little restaurant for beer and tapas. These were better than what we had in Barcelona. After a fine repast, [View Full Entry]

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Casablanca--sounds so romantic. "You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh..." We will remember this!! Not because of a kiss or a sigh, but because of the filth and deceit. We all agreed that this was our least favorite port for a number of reasons. Several of us took the shuttle from the ship into the center of town. We were hoping that we could negotiate a tour similar to the one we had gotten in Gilbraltar. A taxi that could carry 7 of us for a good price. We were wrong!!! Immediately [View Full Entry]

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The Big Rock!!! A mighty point of land that has been fought over for more than 13 centuries. Everyone wants to control the passage between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. That makes it truly multi-cultural--Moroccan, Spanish, English, French, Portugese and many more have influenced this small country. Once again, we did not book a tour from Princess and decided we could find our way around. We debarked the ship and started walking toward town when a young man, Michael, suggested that he be our tour guide for a price. He had a van that could hold all of us so we [View Full Entry]

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Barcelona, in the Catalonia region of Spain, is said not to be Spanish at all. It has a history all of its own. The Catalan language is similar to Spanish, but also has much in common with southern French dialects. It was the host of the 1992 Olympics. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, Pablo Casals and Antoni Gaudi have called Catalonia "home" and their influence is everywhere. The heart of the old city is called the Gothic Quarter, since most buildings here date from the 13th to 15th centuries. We did not book a tour here and decided to do [View Full Entry]

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Linda G planned ahead and booked us a tour of Cannes, Nice, Monaco and Monte Carlo with Dream Tours and it was a really great choice. After tendering to the dock in Cannes, 9 of us piled into the Mercedes Limo for our tour of Villefranche. The tour was booked for 8 of us, but Pam hitched a ride into Nice so that she could find a special restaurant that she had visited the last time she was there. She had been dreaming about it and was lucky enough to find it again and was not disappointed. Fred, our driver and [View Full Entry]

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