Portsmouth: The Dubai of Southern England?

Portsmouth is a harbour city in Southern England. My Mum had been saying for a while that she wanted to go because of the historic dockyard. I quite fancied being in the sunny south coast with a nice waterfront and Dubai-like sail, while watching the ships pass by. And it was a breath of fresh air.

The Historic Dockyard is quite something. There are various old boats to see, including  the Mary Rose, Henry the Eighth’s boat which sank in 1545, saw preserved in silt at the bottom of the harbour for 437 years (Yes, 437 years!!) before being dredged up in 1982. It is just like the Vasa in Stockholm, Sweden, which was on the sea-bed for around 300 years and is perfectly preserved. There are also ships like the HMS Victory which was Nelson’s ship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and the HMS Warrior from 1860 which was heavily armoured so no-one dared attack it and it never engaged in battle. Note: tickets are expensive and confusing – see the travel tips section at the bottom of this page.

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Royal Caribbean versus P+O Cruises

A comparison of our Royal Caribbean cruise and our P&O cruise, for all those cruise nerds out there! 🙂 I will compare several aspects, including embarkation, cabins, food, activities, safety, hygiene, service, and disembarkation.

Check In / Embarkation

On RCL, boarding the ship was seamless. 

Cruising on Harmony of the Seas! (Biggest cruise ship in the World)

I have never been on a cruise before, so what better way to start than with the biggest ship in the world, right? 🙂  The Harmony of the Seas is a brand new ship; the newest boat in the Royal Caribbean fleet. It is also the biggest ship in the world. So how does it check out?

The ship itself was massive; it was lovely to stroll around Central Park, which has hundreds of trees and thousands of plants. We even saw small birds in the park while the ship was at sea (!). But if that’s too outdoorsy for you, why not try an indoor promenade with bars, restaurants and shops? It is very easy to forget you are on a ship altogether!