Had a wonderful 10 day Spain, France & Italy cruise on board Island Princess.
We had a 4 night pre cruise stay in Barcelona that we booked ourselves because we found a more central hotel than those offered by Princess & Bolsover.
Cost wise it was no different but we had to make our own transfer plans from the airport to Hotel & Hotel to ship which was relatively easy.
We did however take the transfer from the ship to airport in Rome to make for an easier disembarkation process.
Regarding our stay in Barcelona we didn’t see any issues with demonstrations against tourists considering that the media were reporting it during our stay.
The cruise itself was excellent overall including tendered stops at St Tropez & Portofino which are great places to visit & rare stops for larger cruise ships.
We also had a port call in Marseilles which is not a place we would pick to visit again & if we did would take an organised excursion.
Never been to Marseilles before so was disappointed on what we found there taking the shuttle bus to the town centre.
We planned on taking the Hop on Hop off bus but there were long ques & they weren’t releasing anymore tickets when we tried to get one so ended up having a short walk round the harbour and back to to the ship via the shuttle.
Island Princess itself is a smaller ship with 2,200 passenger capacity one of their older ships which does show its age in places.
Entertainment was very good but due to its size not as varied as their larger newer ships.
Food quality & general service across the ship was excellent & being a smaller ship made it more intimate.
Overall another excellent cruise with Princess.