Royal Princess, Grand Mediterranean

We booked the last sailing on the inaugural 12 day Grand Mediterranean itinerary and had time in Europe for both before and after the cruise.

Princess Cruise Line provided one of the best itineraries and this voyage did not disappoint.  There were no problems incurred like the week before when they could not retrieve the anchor in Mykonos.

We boarded promptly in Barcelona and our itinerary including the ports of Toulon, Florence, Rome, Naples, Mykonos, Istanbul, Kusadasi and Athens. After an overnight stay onboard, we would be disembarking in Venice.

This was a very busy itinerary, with few days at sea and lots of exploration time and can get a bit tiring, particularly if you choose excursions including lots of walking through ruins. We loved the destinations!

The ports were great. We did one “Princess Shore excursion” at Toulon and really enjoyed the experience, it was run very well. The Amalfi coast and Pompeii was one of the best shore excursions we have ever been on. We had an amazing guide, and found this tour very good value. A close second was the changing of the guards in Athens, our tour guide timed our arrival perfectly and we were very lucky to see the full parade.

The itinerary allowed us to see sights and places we had only dreamed about, Cote D’Azur, Leaning tower of Pisa, the Vatican, Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Amalfi coast, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Grand Bazaar, Acropolis and many more. The Acropolis was a sight to behold but very strenuous, so be sure to wear comfortable rubber soled shoes so as not to slip on the marble and cobblestone ground. This was the inception for naming the blog “A Hole In My Shoe” as I wore a hole in the soles of my shoes as the common denominator in each port was all the walking.

We also loved the actual cruising, although with the itinerary being so port intensive we didn’t get much opportunity for relaxing out on our balcony with a glass of wine.

The Captain decided to bypass Kusadasi port due to high winds, much better to be safe than sorry and I understand all who had Princess tours were refunded charges. Overall it was a great trip and we had a wonderful time.

The sail in to Venice was amazing, very emotional with Pavarotti playing on the ship’s speakers creating the perfect atmosphere for our first glimpses of this beautiful city.  We stayed on the ship overnight before disembarking the next day. Once in Venice, they conveniently charged $15 per person to our account for a round trip direct water taxi to St Marks square but you could go to the desk to have them remove this fee if you didn’t want to use it.

Princess arranged for our luggage to be taken direct to our hotel and used the people mover to get to the closest point to our hotel. We had decided the day before when we wandered through Venice that we would spend our first day to take a vaporetto to Murano & Burano which was lovely and we thought was well worth the visit.  We loved Venice, not a cheap place but not as expensive as we were expecting.

If you can afford the time, build in extra time at each end. Barcelona and Venice are both worth some extra time.

This itinerary was very port intensive with only two sea days which were much appreciated and it was an outstanding cruise. We experienced some wet weather and the ports were a little crowded but we did expect this at this time of year.

We have been back home for a week now and we are still in post cruise blues wishing we were back on the wonderful Royal Princess.

Thank you Princess you made our dream holiday come true!

Is this cruise on you buckets list? Have you cruised this itinerary? We’d love to read your comments below?

*All opinions and photos are our own and we were not financially compensated for this post.

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