There's not much to tell about the first day of our trip. Our flight left Los Angeles at 5:00 p.m. which worked out great. We got up, had time to run/ride, packed, had lunch, and got to LAX with plenty of time to spare.
When we got home from our Alaskan cruise last year we immediately started getting promotional material from Princess Cruises. We saw one that really peaked our interest ~ 12 day British Isles Cruise for May 2023. We got home from Alaska on August 1st, I contacted our travel agent, Paula, on August 3rd, and we booked the cruise on August 4th! Only 289 days to wait...
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| Buckled in United Airlines Flight 923 and ready to go! |
Those first 200 days were gone in a flash and it was time to get serious about all the other details. We decided to fly in to London and spend two nights there. Our last port before returning to England was LeHarve, France. The excursions included Paris or Normandy. Any excursion from the ship to either of those places would mean 5-6 hours in a bus, leaving only about 4 hours to actually see anything. We knew that wouldn't be enough so we started looking at options. With the help of Paula we obtained a "Deviation of Itinerary" which allowed us to leave the ship a day early. We rented a car in LeHarve and Les drove to Bayeux where we spent three nights, allowing us more time in Normandy. It still wasn't enough time, but it was better than 4 hours!
Throughout our years of cruising, I have learned a little about excursions. This time I did not book a single excursion through the cruise line. We also did not plan something big for everyday. We allowed time to just wander in cities. That was a great decision.
The first thing I did was a make a spreadsheet with each day listed. If we were on the ship, I included details like what time we would get off the ship and when we needed to be back onboard. I read through the cruise line excursions, then started looking at independent sources. Paula booked a couple of things for us using Viator, then I used Viator myself to book six excursion. I also did online searches and found local bike shops that we could rent from. We only did one bus excursion (this was also booked through Viator.)
There were lots of details to get us from one point to another and most of them went well. I'll share those as I go. We had one day that things didn't go to plan and I'll talk about it when we get to that portion of the trip. I'll also do another post about what and how I packed. Otherwise, I am thrilled with how it worked out. Les said as CTO (Chief Travel Officer) of our family, I have earned a raise!
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