Already?

My brother has proposed an extended-family cruise (we all do get along, remarkably) that would include the following ports:

Southampton
Le Havre
Falmouth
Cobh
Dublin
Belfast
Glasgow
Inverness
Edinburgh
Amsterdam
Brussels/Brugge

I have been to London but 16-year-old son has not, so that would great for him. I once spent 6 hours in the Amsterdam airport but otherwise all of the other destinations would be new. Has anyone ever done a cruise like this? What was your experience like? Would you recommend it?

ChiSquare

I've done a couple of cruises, including one trans-Atlantic that stopped in a couple of the ports you mention. However, I actually wanted to suggest another option you may not have thought of. A friend of mine has several times rented a canal barge in the UK. He and his wife have had a great time "cruising" the British canals. They stop and explore the towns they go through whenever they want, go through locks, etc. It's not something I would have thought of, but they make it sound so fun!

ucsd_ucla_dad

I haven't been on a cruise (they don't appeal to me) but I've been to a number of the places on your list. I'd focus on what you'd actually do once you arrive at all of these ports - how much time you have in port and what activities and exploration you could do.

I think half the fun of traveling in a place like Europe is staying in different hotels and B&Bs and finding all different kinds of pubs and restaurants to eat in. The other half of the fun is largely made up of things that were unplanned up front - things we found 'along the way'. But that's just me. I've known others who like the idea of the fixed hotel room (on the ship), the ship food, and the known logistics.

cupcake

You know that none of these places is in London, right? Southampton is 70 miles away.

Southampton <- Nothing that exciting in S'oton. Average town UK. It was completely flattened in WW2 I believe, so it's all very modern.

Falmouth <- This is a lovely place in Cornwall, on the tip of England.

Glasgow
Inverness
Edinburgh
Looking at these 3 Scottish destinations, I am guessing the proposed cruise is in a small boat which is going to sail along the canal into Loch Ness and out at Inverness, then down to Edinburgh. Otherwise it would take days to go round the top of Scotland (and Glasgow is kind of inland isn't it? I haven't been there) and why would the boat not visit any of the island.

I've done this. It's really popular in the UK and has been in Vogue because Harrison Ford and Carlista Flockhart went on one (really). You hire a highly decorated "Narrowboat" which is long and thin, then after 5 minutes instruction, you are on your way, at a top speed of 4 miles an hour! In Oxford lots of people live on these boats (see also the 'Gyptians' in His dark Materials by Philip Pullman. they live on narrow boats). Some of the big canals are still used by a lot of commercial traffic, but for holidays people use the smalls ones in places like Stratford-upon-Avon. Mostly, people just go along slowly, admiring the view and stoppint at pubs. In some places there are aquaducts where you travel on a kind of water bridge up in the air. I have seen these from the road, but never been on one in a boat. Lock gates are acutally quite physical hard work to open. In the aforementioned Loch Ness canal, they've all been automated and open at the touch of a button.


Narrowboat.
http://www.jandlindustrialpaints.com...20boat_WEB.jpg

I went on just a weekend trip from Evesham.
Bidford Boats for narrowboat cruises on the River Avon

dsultemeier

My husband I went on the Princess cruise of the British Isles in summer 2005. The itinerary looks similar although ours did not go to Amsterdam or Brussels. We flew in to London and then took a train to Southampton which was pretty easy to figure out. Then we took a cab to the ship from the train station. For me Dublin and Edinburgh were the most interesting stops. For both we walked around on our own. One problem we had was that it rained a lot on the first half. But I got the impression it just rains there all the time and that is why it is so pretty and green.

I love cruises so always recommend that people go on cruises. For the Princess cruise my only complaint was that the on-ship part was kind of generic. They didn't really try to bring in food, educational talks or entertainment from the areas we were visiting other than one night of Irish step-dancing.

We stayed in London for some additional days after the cruise. We had fun there but I would recommend doing it the other way and staying in London first. We had a hard time adjusting from the all-you-can-eat and free entertainment on the ship to having to pay for everything. (I realize we had paid for the cruise but it was a psychological issue) I will try to look for anything I wrote down shortly after we came back when it was still fresh in my mind.

ChiSquare

Very cool! Yes, that is exactly what my friends did - several times - and loved the experience.

Incidentally, when we visited Hamilton College last week, I noticed an ad for similar boats on the Erie Canal.