In the last post I blogged about our onboard adventures on our Westbound crossing from London, aboard Princess Cruise Line’s Sky Princess, November 2025. This post will focus on some of our port stops along the way.
OK, let’s get off the ship and explore some of the ports on this 16 day transatlantic cruise. Our first port stop was Portland, England, a short overnight sailing arriving on the second day of the cruise. We didn’t have an excursion booked here, so we took the shuttle bus into the town of Weymouth. Weymouth is a quaint resort town, and as this off-season, It wasn’t very busy. (Note: All links this page are from Wikipedia, unless otherwise noted.)
We first walked around the town of Weymouth, past the old and former brewery, which is now closed and is making way for some new luxury homes or condos. The town itself was located along a river, with scores of row-house type buildings lining both sides of the river bank. With the many colorful buildings and row-homes, it reminded me a bit of Copenhagen.
The town of Weymouth, England, located by the river, with colorful buildings on both sides of the river.
By lunch time, we were getting hungry and decided to have lunch in port, instead of going back to the ship. After scouting out a few pubs, we found one that seemed to be our favorite, so we had lunch there. As the pub was very busy, we couldn’t find a place to sit and they didn’t take reservations, or have a standby wait-list.
Scouting out a pub for lunch. This one looked nice with outdoor seating, but it was in a smoking area, so we moved on a bit down the street to the next one.
Had lunch at this Pub; the Ship Inn. It was very busy, but an elderly man sitting alone asked us to join him for lunch, which we did.
Fortunately, however, an elderly and well dressed gentleman saw we were looking for a place to sit, and invited us to join him as he had a table for four, and he was by himself. Well a slight correction, he had his darling Shih Tzu dog with him, who quietly sat under the table by his feet. Dogs are allowed in all the pubs, and it seemed like all of the locals had a dog as they walked them about the town. This man’s Shih Tzu was his companion in life, and had traveled around with him over the years, although he had never been on a cruise, he said. I didn’t catch his name, but he was very kind and we had a casual talk with him over lunch. It was nice getting a local’s perspective of the town. As he left before we did, I only have this quick photo of him, reaching down to pick up his Shih Tzu’s water bowl as he was leaving, but there are also a few other pictures of the pub itself here.
Here is gallery of photos from our port stop in Portland, England and the town of Weymouth.
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The next day following our Portland stop, (the third day of our crossing), we stopped in Cherbourg, France. Cherbourg was the second and next to last stop of the Titanic, as is also the gateway port for tours of Normandy and Mont-Saint-Michel. There were quite a few excursions offered in Cherbourg, however, with my knee surgery replacement from April, I wasn’t sure I would be up to a couple of them that were labeled as strenuous such as the stop at Mont-Saint-Michel, which was an all day trip with a two hour bus ride each way. I would really like to see Mon-Saint-Michel some day, as we’ve seen this on screen many times from watching the French film in EPCOT’s France Pavilion, which briefly shows this and other French highlights, and according to the Wikipedia link above is the second most visited place in France, after Paris.
As it turns out that was a good decision as it was not a very good day weather-wise and the other tours were sold out months prior to when we had booked, including all of the Normandy excursions. We did make it a fun day, however, and went to a museum right in the port of Cherbourg,. There was a small but well done Titanic museum, a couple of film attractions about the Normandy and Cherbourg areas, luxury liners of the day, and an actual French submarine you could tour, as well as several nautical interactive displays as well. At Cherbourg 22 passengers debarked the Titanic (having boarded in Southampton) and 274 passengers embarked at Cherbourg via tender on Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage.
The cost was €21, and it was good for all of the attractions in the museum complex. You could literally spend a whole day there if you had the time, although we only spent about 2 1/2 hours total with the Titanic museum first and then the submarine. I would’ve liked to have seen the film on Normandy, and another film on the ocean liners of the 30s, but will save that for another Trans-Atlantic crossing. You actually exit the museum through the baggage hall on the way back to the ship.
After touring the Titanic museum, DOS and I toured the French submarine that was outdoors and adjacent to the museum. The submarine was quite amazing to see as you could view the whole submarine out of water, as it would appear in a dry dock, which really showed how large it was.
I am rather claustrophobic so it was a bit hard for me to tour it in places, so we didn’t go through out the whole sub, but we saw enough of it to confirm I wouldn’t want to be stationed on a submarine! (God bless the brave military service people who do though, and thank you for your service!)
DOS walking thru the entrance of the submarine.
As we self-toured the submarine, the further we went, the narrower and tougher the corridors were to walk, minding your head in many places. We walked past and viewed the Captain’s and other senior officers crew quarters, bathroom, galley, and small seating area, before we came to a hard stop for me, which was a ladder down to the next level.
While my walking was doing well, I’m still having a bit of trouble with stairs, and imagine a ladder would be difficult for me right now. Fortunately there was an exit door nearby, although we still had to walk up stairs to the outside catwalk back to the museum entrance. It would have been interesting to see the non-officer quarters below, as the modest Captain’s quarters were quite small, and I can’t imagine how much smaller the rest of the crew’s quarters were. Touring the submarine was truly fascinating though, and ’m glad we did it.
Here is a gallery of of the Submarine, which is docked outside the Titanic Museum at Cherbourg.
Of course, like all museums, they end up in a large gift shop! This gift shop was quite nice actually, and had lots of Titanic books, replicas, models, magnets, key chains, posters, you name it, and it was probably there somewhere.
They even had a “Heart of the Ocean” blue diamond necklace for sale for only €13 euros! Hard to believe as it was a 56 carat priceless; i.e. Hope Diamond-like piece of jewelry in the Titanic movie! LOL!
No we didn’t buy the necklace, but DOS did buy a couple nice Cherbourg fridge magnets. I told him a Titanic cap was tempting fate as we were about to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and eventually heading to Bermuda; and towards the Bermuda Triangle!
We were back on board the Sky Princess by mid-afternoon, and we then sailed for two Sea Days in a row, before arriving in Vigo Spain.
At Vigo, Spain, we took a ship arranged tour that took us thru the large city of Vigo, out into the wine region, where we stopped at the beautiful Granbazan, an estate-owned winery, where we had a nice sit-down wine tasting. (Link from Granbazan’s website). Unlike some wine tours with large cruise groups, this one was well organized and had a nice private ballroom setup for our group. We were served by a couple different servers, while a host explained the wines and region of Spain where they are grown.
City view of Vigo, as seen from our aft balcony on the Sky Princess. Here we watched as the many tour buses pulled into port, prior to us debarking and taking the winery tour.
The huge P & O British ship Iona was docked in port next to us in Vigo, Spain.
Driving thru the city of Vigo, Spain on the way to the vineyards.
DOS at Granbazán Estate Winery.
After the first stop, we again boarded the tour bus, and were driven to a Cambados, a charming town which we then toured on foot, with our guide explaining that most of the town was once privately owned, and now has been subdivided for local owners. The town church was formerly a private chapel for the owner-family, but is now a public church.
After touring the town on foot, we went to a nice local hotel, and stopped at the hotel for another wine tasting along with local cheeses and other snacks; again well organized and served in a private room for our group.
Hotel where we had our second wine tasting on our Vigo, Spain tour.
Lounge area with dining seating in the rear where we had the hotel wine tasting.
After the tour, we re-boarded the Sky Princess, and then had two more Sea Days, as we sailed westerly to the Azores, specifically Ponta Delgada.. As we sailed westerly, we regained some of the lost hours of our easterly flight over to London, gaining an hour each of the next two days. As France and Spain (but not London) are six hours difference from the east coast of America, we had actually lost one hour early in the trip from Portland to Cherbourg, so now we were starting to gain some leisurely time back with 25 hour days. These westbound time changes; i.e. adding an hour to the day are one of the many things we love about Trans-Atlantic cruises!
Our next port of call after our two Sea Days, was at the Azores Islands, specifically Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island. The Azores Islands are part of Portugal, and Lisbon, the Capital is approximately 900 miles from Ponta Delgada. The Azores are volcanic islands, and we would see some on the tour some of the affects of previous eruptions that created lakes and destroyed cities.
We once again took a ship excursion for our day stay in Ponta Delgada. The tour was labeled as a city tour and wine tasting excursion, which was really quite misleading. It was really more of a windy, mountainous tour of remote areas and towns affected by volcanic eruptions in the 19th century. It was interesting, but the one hour drive each way through mountainous and curvy roads was something we might not have done if we had known. We didn’t get car-sick, but several people felt a bit queasy from the drive, especially in the back of the bus.
We passed by several lakes, one that was literally separated by the volcanic eruption years early, forming a blue and green lake. Along the windy, mountainous drive, I was amazed at the number of hydrangeas growing everywhere it seemed. I asked the tour guide if they just grow wild, and she said they are planted and maintained by the government. I tried growing hydrangeas home in Florida, but didn’t realize they only like morning sun (not full sun like I planted them in), and prefer more shaded conditions otherwise. Anyway, the hydrangeas were the dominant flowering plant I noticed along the drive.
In addition to the natural scenery, the lava craters etc, at the top of the mountain was an abandoned hotel. The guide explained this, but I was still curious so I googled it, and found this interesting site called NeverEndingFootsteps, which I’m linking to. The site is amazing, and the author has photos and stories of touring the place; quite interesting and definitely off the beaten path!
Apparently it was called the Monte Palace Hotel, and it was a 5 star hotel overlooking the valley and lakes below, opening in 1989. Unfortunately it went bankrupt within 18 months, and has sat vacant ever since. I’m sure a big part of the problem was accessibility up the mountain roads, and lack of things in the area to do, or enough people wanting to stay there, even though it had a spa, restaurant, and even a bank. (But where would you spend your money on top of the otherwise vacant mountain?). Anyway, it’s still there after 35 years, but nature has been hard on the property and vandals and graffiti have taken over it. The structure is still standing, but no longer inhabitable. The NeverEndingFootsteps website has much better and informative photos than mine, but here are a couple pics I took during our brief visit there.
After visiting the abandoned hotel and several stops overlooking the lakes, we headed back to the ship, with one last stop at a hotel in the port area. By the time we got to the hotel, it was around 2:30pm, and no one had had lunch so we were all a bit hungry. At the hotel we were offered a glass of red or white wine and served with some cheeses or cookies (self service snacks off of several tables setup). Although nice, I guess we were expecting going to a winery or two, and having several wines to select from. It was an ok tour, but I think the abandoned hotel overlooking the mountain-side and volcanic lakes was the highlight.
After the tour, you could either take the bus back or walk, and most of the group decided to walk, as it was literally across the street, although it was on the other side of a busy highway, so you had to go thru an underpass and walk thru an area of shops and restaurants by the port to get to the ship. DOS and a couple of friends we had met on the ship stayed in town for a quick browse of the shops, while I wondered back to the ship alone as I was ready for lunch, and there wasn’t enough time to eat in port.
After leaving Ponta Delgada, we sailed for four Sea Days as we traveled onward to Bermuda, gaining an hour a day in the process. Now we are on our 4th sea day in a row heading to our last port which is Bermuda, where we will arrive tomorrow. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. For now, Cheers and Give Thanks!
