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In late October, Patty and I flew to London to start a 17-day Transatlantic cruise aboard the Emerald Princess.  Connecting through Dulles International Airport, we flew to London's Heathrow Airport on a British Airways flight in one of the new Airbus A380 airplanes.  Using AAdvantage miles to fly business class made the trip much more enjoyable and interesting.  Like the Boeing 747, the A380 is a double decker, but unlike the 747, its upper deck extends the entire length of the plane.  And, I've never had the pleasure of using such a large, clean restroom in any airplane!

Upon arrival at Heathrow our baggage and we were collected by the Princess staff and transferred to the Mayflower Cruise Terminal in the Port of Southampton, about 75 miles southwest of London.  There, we were checked in and finally boarded the ship for our cruise.  We departed Southampton around dinner time and spent the evening hours sailing across the English Channel to our first port-of-call, Le Havre in France. 

Le Havre is the second largest port in France (Marseille is the largest).  After a relaxing morning, Patty and I got off the ship and walked around town.  While on our walk, we discovered the amazing St. Joseph Church, which is one of the most recognized symbols of the city. Its bell tower is one of the tallest in France, rising to a height of 351 feet.  The bell tower can be seen from just about anywhere in the town and it, as well as the rest of the church is lined with stain glass windows.

We departed Le Havre and, after a day at sea, arrived at our next port, Vigo on the northwest coast of Spain.  We didn't do much in Vigo, but Patty and I spend some time ashore walking around the city some enjoying the beautiful day, the churches, wonderful reflections in the water and the time together. Then, it was time to depart for an overnight cruise to the next port-of-call, Lisbon, Portugal.

Located on the Iberian Peninsula and in the southernmost portion of Portugal, Lisbon is the capital and the largest city of Portugal. It is the westernmost large city located in continental Europe, as well as its westernmost capital city and the only one along the Atlantic coast.  While at Lisbon, we took the only organized excursion of our cruise:  a visit to the Sanctuary of Fátima.  This sanctuary has two basilicas, the Basilica of the Holy Trinity and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, as well as several monuments and other memorials that are important to the Catholic church.  Fátima is important to the Catholic church as it is the site where, in 1916, on three separate occasions, Lucia Santos and her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, began witnessing apparitions of an angel in the region of Ourém. These visitations persisted until the 13 May 1917 when, while tending their family's sheep in Cova da Iria, they witnessed the apparition of what they later assumed was the Virgin Mary, and began doing penance and self-sacrifice to atone for sinners.  The shrine attracts a large number of Roman Catholics, and every year pilgrims fill the country road that leads to the shrine with crowds that approach one million on May 13 and October 13, the significant dates of the Fátima apparitions.  Overall, about four million pilgrims visit the basilica every year.  While there, we attended a mass at the Basilica of the Holy Trinity.

After departing Lisbon and another day at sea, we arrived, on Halloween, at Ponta Delgada, the largest municipality and administrative capital of the Autonomous Region of the Azores in Portugal.  Located on São Miguel Island, it is the largest and most populous city in the archipelago.  Ponta Delgada is a beautiful town with many beautiful churches and Patty and I enjoyed a couple of walks around the town.  Although we had no organized excursion in Ponta Delgada and did nothing specific there, I believe that it was my favorite of all of the ports that we visited.  It was just so clean and pretty and peaceful and I found it so easy to relax there.

Following Lisbon were four days at sea as we headed towards Bermuda.  These days were pretty much uneventful except for one minor bit of excitement.  One evening during dinner, the captain announced that a couple of people had reported seeing flares and that he was turning the ship around to go investigate.  He asked that these people identify themselves so that they could be interviewed to try to determine better the location of the sighting.  So the ship began it's maneuver to reverse course.  A little while later, he announced that several people had come forward (including those who made the original report) and that some even had photos.  It turns out that there were no flares and that what had been spotted was a buoy.  Therefore, having determined that there was no one in distress, the ship was returned to its heading towards Bermuda.  Aside from that little bit of excitement, Patty and I just enjoyed watching movies, marveling at the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, walking the deck, playing Scrabble, napping (her) and reading (me).

After arrival and docking at the Royal Naval Dockyards at West End on Ireland Island, Bermuda, Patty and I spent a little time ashore wandering around.  Here in Bermuda, the water was beautiful, unexpectedly somewhat like we had seen in the Caribbean.  The dockyards served as the principal base of the British Royal Navy in the Western Atlantic between American independence and the Cold War and were strategically important during the wars of 1812-15.  It has now been decommissioned and is being developed as a cruise port with shops, artist colonies, museums, and a dolphin "experience" park.

The final five days of our cruise were spent making our way to Houston with a day spent in Port Everglades, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  On the final night as we approached Port Everglades, we passed a small sail boat out alone on the Atlantic, most likely heading to Bermuda.  It reminded us so much of Diana and Andrew and their 35,000 mile, 4 year journey around the world in their 40 ft sailboat, the Saviah.  As Port Everglades was our entry point into the USA, all ship's passengers and crew were required to disembark and clear US Immigration before anyone could reboard the ship.  This led to standing in line for over 1-1/2 hours as we waited our turn with approximately 4500 other passengers and crew.  Port Everglades is a popular and very busy cruise port and, in addition to the Emerald Princess, there were 4 other large cruise ships in port that day preparing to start or continue cruises.

One unexpected surprise was that Port Everglades was the destination of about 2/3 of the passengers who permanently disembarked the ship  So for our last two days, we enjoyed a much less crowded ship.  We had two beautiful days cruising through the Gulf of Mexico towards Houston.  Again, relaxation was the main activity during these final two days.  Patty and I competed in a ring toss game where one tries to toss a rubber ring over the neck of a champagne bottle, and I was successful in capturing the final bottle of champagne.  We arrived at the Bayport Cruise Terminal in the Port of Houston (Pasadena, TX) to a beautiful sunrise and cool weather.  This was the first arrival of the Emerald Princess at this new cruise terminal and it took longer than expected to dock the ship, but we were finally off and ready to get our rental car to drive back home.

Conclusion.  This was our longest cruise thus far, having covered 6500 miles in 17 days.  Of all the cruises we've done, and many have been interesting and wonderful, I think that this cruise has become my favorite.  The ports-of-call were pretty and interesting, the sea days were great, the length of the cruise was satisfying, unlimited great food (lobster 2 nights, unlimited bacon, pizza, ice cream cones every day, and more ... and only 8 pounds to take back off), the weather was beautiful, the seas mostly calm and never as bad as expected, I had the loveliest date aboard for dinner every night, and the time relaxing with Patty was just perfect.

Photo info.  Having read the long account of this cruise, you can now enjoy the lengthy slideshow.  Simply click the slideshow icon to see the photos.  The slideshow format does not allow right-click saving of individual images so, if you would like to have one or more of these photos, please send an email to Dave and quote the sequence number that is found to the right of the page navigation arrows (see circled area in example below):

All photos were shot with Patty's Canon PowerShot ELPH 130 IS or Dave's Canon EOS 7D DSLR and Sony DSC-WX50 cameras. All images were shot as JPG (130 IS & DSC-WX50) or RAW (7D) and adjusted as needed in Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 5.6.  Additional photo data is provided below each photo in the slideshow.  Enjoy the photos!

All photos are Copyright © 2014 David & Patty Boston