We’ve reached the final write-up from our 2022 Island Princess European cruise!
Our final port of call had been Zeebrugge and we’d spent our final day with a truncated walk around Blankenberge followed by some photos inside Island Princess, so all that remained was to sail away from the Belgian port and make our way home across the channel to Southampton.
Zeebrugge is a port we’ve visited quite a few times now but if you think that means I won’t take far too many photos of the commercial port area from the balcony of our cruise ship then clearly this is the first time you’ve read any of my travelogue posts before.
“Ferries and cargo containers, Mark? Boring. What I’m here for are an excessive number of pictures of wind turbines!”
“Well, my fictitious friend, you’re in luck! Behold! Wind turbines on the exit from the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium!”
Eventually, the port infrastructure and ships passing in and out of the harbour entrance and even the wind turbines gave way to the open water of the English Channel and we enjoyed this final sunset at sea, albeit on the wrong side of the ship to truly appreciate how pretty it must have been. I like to take lots of photos, but sometimes I can’t be bothered to move from where I am to go and take better ones.
Dinner was taken in main dining room after pre-dinner drinks in Crooners. Then we spent the remainder of the last evening of the cruise in the main lounge being entertained.
One of the staff members – my namesake, Mark – sang for the passengers present and cracked a few jokes in his camp style. We couldn’t have known it at the time, of course, but we would end up bumping into him on a cruise aboard Ruby Princess almost exactly one year later.
And, to conclude, the sad photos of Southampton that mean the cruise is at an end, although we did have some decent weather to get off with and take back home to Portsmouth.
So, following a write-up about the final evening leaving the final port on a cruise, some final thoughts about Island Princess.
The ship was an older ship and it showed in places, but you expect that and if you book a cruise on a ship like this then complain about things liked dated designs or lacking modern equipment or signs of age then there’s no nice way to put this: you’re an idiot. Far from moaning about things like that you should embrace them and cherish them because the last thing you want is for all the ships to all become clones of one another. Cough, cruise lines, cough.
We very much enjoyed this cruise on Island Princess because we got to visit several new places, even if we didn’t take quite the advantage we could have with booking excursions. With the exception of Gothenburg, perhaps, we didn’t regret anything we did because we saw some lovely new things and had some lovely experiences.