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Ocean Liner History and Stories from the Sea, Past and Present. With an In Depth focus on Holland America Line

2026 Oct. 13; Day 04, Valetta, Malta.

October 14, 2026 / / 0 Comments

With the rising sun the good ship Seven Seas Navigator sailed into Valetta Harbour. The port is protected by two overlapping breakwaters so the ship has to make a 90o turn, from a South Westerly heading to a south Easterly heading while making the turn around the inner breakwater. For large ships that can be a bit hairy as then there is not that much room and the ship then comes very close to the fortification walls of Valetta. For a smaller ship like the Seven Seas Voyager it is not much of a big deal, just a very nice approach. Hence the Captain had announced yesterday that it might be worthwhile to be around early and see it.  It is indeed a beautiful sail in, although I prefer the sail out, as the sun is then at the back of you and  you do not have to glare into it.

Valletta Grand harbour entrance from air. (Photo courtesy Wikipedia) It shows the two breakwaters at the top. The 3 cruise terminals are to the left, with what looks like a zig zag pier under the built up city. The very large Malta shipyard is right in front to the right.

This was a busy cruise ship day in Valetta, two cruise ships of MSC, the Musica and the Opera and a ferry were in dry dock on the east side of the harbour, and apart from ourselves there was also the Seven Seas Navigator in port.  The oldest ship in the Regent fleet. She will transfer to “Vie de Mer” in 2019 and then become a Residence at Sea ship for going around the world. Then there was also the Four Seasons I here. Another of these ultra luxury yachts put into service by the Four Seasons Hotel chain.  We saw her yesterday anchored in the bay of Taormina and today she was behind us in Valetta. Since some time Valetta has a proper cruise terminal and everybody has to go through the gate. Hence the Four Seasons had two luxury shuttles covering the 1000 feet or so that otherwise their guests would have to walk.

We mere mortals just had to walk along the ship to the exit and then cross the street to go into town. The port is at the bottom of the city walls and thus it is a steep hike to city level. As they were rebuilding a part of the area, I missed the nearest steps and thus had a longer walk up the hill than anticipated. I had promised Lesley to show her some of my favourite haunts, just away from the main tourist area. But to my amazement, the main street had changed so much since 2019, that I could not find the correct side streets back, where the more simpler pubs and restaurants were. Same as in Taormina, more and more shops were taken over by “Brand Names” and what used to be a nice bar with local beer, was now an Rolex outlet.

The main shopping street in Valletta. This is supposed to be the “shoulder season” in Malta. The weeks after the high season, but it was not really visible to see, The streets were heaving with tourists.

So we walked the main street up and down, bought an ice cream and went back to the ship. We could have taken a ships tour to St. Johns Cathedral and the Grand Master’s palace but when walking by, the waiting line at the Cathedral was about 200 meters long. The local Tourist Office representative that came on board, advised that the tours and the main museum, had been greatly upgraded and worthwhile to do again. Looking at the waiting line, means that next time we will try to get there at opening time, so there will be no waiting lines hopefully.

That got us back on board and as we are now nearing the “maximum food intake red line” decided that as we were not hungry, we would go to the Pool grill for some fruit. This is a sort of Hamburger stand but then very elaborate. With full service and a larger side counter for fruit, salads and related  items, than seen on other upscale ships. For hamburgers (several variations), hot dogs and some more offerings you place your order at the counter and then it gets delivered. No beeper system, no coming back and waiting, but full waiter service. The waiters must be continuously monitoring who is ordering otherwise they would not be able to find the right person for the right burger.

Today I found out that they had several craft beers on board, so time to do some testing. Most of them North American beers but as the large majority of those on board are American it makes sense. Same as other cruise company’s they put Newcastle Ale under Craft Beers, which it really is not. It is a main stream brown ale, very good, but not special.  While on the beer subject, this ship does not do draft beer. No beer pumps. Maybe the clientele does not go for it,  or it is simply too hard to get the barrels back to where they came from as the ship does not have a real home port. It does not do loop cruises, so it might not see the same port in 2 or 3 months.

Having just “a bit of Fruit”,  turned into trying all sorts of nibbles on display so all our good intentions did not come to pass. Then it was time to think about the evening planning. Appetizers in the cabin (spring rolls and crispy spanokopita with champagne. There are about 9 options to choose from. There is a menu in the cabin and you let the Butler know in the morning what your selection is for the day)Then to the Observatory lounge for regular cocktails. Arriving there we found that they also had set up a Caviar Bar. The caviar (pacific, Caspian sterlet, Siberian, or Caspian osetra) was charged between $ 65 and $ 130 an 1oz. The basic champagne (Heidsick etc.) was included but the top champagnes (*)  were charged between $107 and $ 539 a bottle (Krug Rose brut) (*) Do not forget this is the “spotlight on sparking wines cruise)  Same as with whiskies, I cannot taste the difference between cheap or very expensive fluids, so we could give this all a miss, without being tempted.

Then we were looking at the Italian restaurant, called Seti Mari at La Varandah.

This is deck 11 with the Observatory lounge at the bow, sunning area around the pool (sheltered all around by high windows) and then the Pool grill, Verandah and Italian verandah at the back.

On deck 11 aft, around the funnel is on the starboard side, the self service (although there is a lot of waiters support…) buffet restaurant is located called Le Veranda. Which we have not tried yet, as the opening times interfered with the tour  times. It has a large self service buffet at the back so if the starboard side is full then the overflow can go to the port side. Then on the other (port) side, and it is identical in lay out and furnishings, there is the Sette Mari which serves Italian in the evening. This is a speciality restaurant, but you cannot book in advance you just have to try your luck, We spoke to Mr. Francesco the man in charge of all the dining rooms (a sort of Super Maitre d’hotel)  who explained what we could do best. He was the man in charge when they set this restaurant up 10 years ago, and thus very intimate with the flow. Suggestion was to arrive between 1900 and 1920, then the initial wave is in, but the place not yet full. Come later and you might be unlucky as guests tend to linger over dessert and coffees. So we showed up at 19.05 hrs. and the place was still half empty, but by 19.30 hrs. it was full and quite a few guests had to be turned away.

The sitting area of Sette Mari (which means Seven Seas in Italian) The other – real lido side is identical. So this is so far the “poshest” lido we have seen. Much better than Silver Seas, or Azamara.

The way it works, is that you get a menu, but in the menu there are options to get starters yourself if you want to, get a salad yourself if you want to, and then order apetizers, main courses and dessert. Service is attentive  and gentle and that is exactly the idea as you are supposed to savour the food, enjoy the wines and take your time. Next to us was a family who could not directly get the hang of this, so a few dishes went back as they were not recognised and one gentleman was comforted with a hamburger that appeared from somewhere. I think he had never seen anything Italian served on anything other than a flat plate. Near the end of dinner, the chef came out for a walk around. Originally from Nepal, also already a long time with the company, and explained how & where the concept originated from and how he handled it.  We were impressed.

The self service area at the back of the La Veranda. As both sides flow over into each other, everybody can always be accommodated during breakfast and lunch time. Apologies for the crumpled table cloth in the photo, but they were setting the tables for the evening and I was sort of in the way, while they were doing so.

There was no show tonight but there was the “Rock the Boat Party” at 21.30 in the atrium. There is a small show lounge/night club called the “Voyager Lounge”, on deck 4, which is hosted by a (I think philipino )  called “Power of Two Duo”. With two very nice voices providing a large reportoire of songs. At 21.30 they moved from the lounge into the atrium to support what turned out to be a sort of Line dancing (think ecky-brecky on steriods). All lead by the Cruise Director Callie Smit, his staff with several Hotel officers joining in.

The lay out of Deck 4 where it was all happening tonight. A very good thing is that the main dining room, the Compass Rose is in the center of the ship, and on the lowest passenger deck. So when the weather is wobbly, there is still a fair change that those who are not seasoned sailors  still have a fair chance to get to a Restaurant. 

About 80 guests were present, which is more than 10% of all guests on board so that was a good turn out.  Also as not all guests on board are still able to run the 100 meters track each day. This happening lasted for 45 minutes and then those who could not get enough of it, could move back into the Voyager Lounge to do some Karioke, followed an hour later by Disco.  We have never been good at Karioke so we called it a day. Opposite the Voyagers Lounge is the Casino  and some of the older guests disappeared in there. But we have not been good at gambling ourselves either, so another excuse to avoid going there.

The “rock the boat” party.. This photo taken from the stairs and from behind the silver sculpture in the Atrium. To the right some of the Hotel staff, who had a genuine excuse to “step out of the office” for a moment.

Tomorrow we will have a stormy day at sea. The Captain warned everybody to be careful and  advised that the outside decks were closed. A wise decision, as a. it will remain sunny so a lot of guests will not understand that it can be sunny and still stormy, and b. there are always (sunday) sailors around who think that they can handle it. But with 60 knots of wind on the bow and the ship going against it with 15 knots gives 70+ knots together and that is officially hurricane force winds. In the old days described as  “such winds that no canvas can withstand”. So the Captain is wise to keep everybody inside. I briefly looked at the swell diagrams for the Med and it looks like that the most “wobbly part” will be between 13.00 hrs. and 17.00 hrs. after which we will come into the shelter of Greece and Croatia. But as it will remain sunny all day, we will need a few “jolts” and “lurches” during the day to convince the “experts” that it is really bad weather and we are going through a very nasty storm.

The same party now from the other side of the Atrium  The man in the vest in the fore ground is the Cruise Director whipping the party along.

 

 

 

 

2026 Oct. 12; Day 03, Messina, Italy.

October 14, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Messina is only a short hop from Naples and the main navigational challenge here is, is that the ship has to go through the top part of the Strait of Messina. This is a very busy water way, with a lot of deep sea traffic, fishermen and strong currents (up to 4 knots). One of the challenges is that the fishermen drift with the current up and down the Strait and will simply not move when a ship is passing by. Then, when in season, there can be tuna fishermen who do not move either when they spot a shoal of tuna as they are on a mission………. And then there are the numerous ferries that sail between Sicily and the main land (Sicilians call it the continent). A nice mix of potential problems and hence pilotage is compulsory.

And it is one of the most unusual pilot services around. First of all, they do not like you to slow down for the pilot boat to come along side. They prefer 15 to 16 knots so there is no delay in the transit of the vessel. In a way it is not a bad thing, as I found through the years, the more you slow down for a pilot boat, the harder it is for the pilot boat skipper to come along side. Once on board, the pilot runs to the bridge and starts giving orders. He does not care very much about what the ship is as long as it does 15 knots, steers well and has a VHF to talk to the ferries to see if all is well and the transition of the Strait can commence. A lot of these routines go against BRM (Bridge Resource Management) where there first has to be a exchange of information with the Master, then with the bridge team and then the pilot has to find his place in the bridge team routine. Not here: it is full-ahead and there we go.  Then the pilot spends most of his time talking to his old colleagues on the ferries so he can weave in between them. He/(maybe a she) knows exactly what the current is doing and thus in what way the fishermen will drift.  For going to Messina dock, one traverses half of the Strait and then sails behind the ferries into the port. Sometimes you have to wait as the ferries have right of way. Almost 10,000 people use these ferries each day as they either work on the continent or work on the island and so there is a frenetic movement of a lot of ferries here.

The good ship Seven Seas Voyager arrived right on time and the dispatching of the tours commenced at once. Our tour left at 08.15 hrs. and this time we were in Coach 2. While driving off, we saw in the distance a large cruise ship approaching and so we will make it to Taormina at least 2 hours earlier than their tours.  When we came back to the port, we saw that it was the Odyssey of the Seas who had come in, 170.000 tons, 5500 pax. So our Voyager was just a small tugboat parked under the stern.

Taormina with Mount Etna in the background. To the left the bay of Taormina which is nice for sightseeing if you have the time, but you cannot get in too close as the bay is quite shallow.

Again a very nice ride but when coming closer and closer to Taormina, the roads got smaller and smaller especially when the coach started climbing up the hill towards the town. At some turns the coach needed the full width of the road to make the turn and was then dependent on the courtesy of the opposite car drivers to wait. And those opposite were not very good at this, so there was some waiting here and there. Our tour escort Lady was very good and was blessed with a very loud voice so no issues this time with not having a Bla Bla box system. We could hear her all over Taormina so to speak. She got very excited when the Volcano Etna came into view. The Sicilians call her the nice volcano as she always erupts the right way and does not threaten the towns around her on the slopes.

The Parking Garage. Like all the houses also perched against the cliff wall. Normally it does not make sense to publish a photo of a parking garage, but the construction of this one, had an enormous impact on the quality of the tours to Taormina as it took away the long walks up and down the hill to get to the old parking areas.

In the old days  you had to walk a long distance up the hill to get to the town but a number of years ago, they built a seven story car park and floor 7 is on town level. The tour coaches  park on level 1 and then there are 3 lifts that take everybody up to the top. Each level has toilets, although those close to town are not in a great state of repair. Mostly the toilet seats were missing so it looked as if the locals went shopping here when in need.  On Floor 7 there is a large square where the Tour guides can re-assemble their group by catching everybody coming out of these lifts. There are days that there are more than 50 coaches in there, not counting the small shuttles and private cars, and then it is hard work to keep the groups together.

Taromina is built on top of a mountain ridge and the town started out as a defensive castle (even the churches could be used for defensive purposes) and because Sicily is located in a very strategic place in the mediterranean sea and has rich soil, so for 2000+ years the island and Taormina was occupied by one outside Empire to the other. Until in 1860 Garibaldi “liberated” this island and it became part of Italy. Still the Sicilians only feel marginally part of greater Italy and in the more recent years they have re-established the local language as being accepted as the preferred daily language and Italian is  now only used when there is official business or when talking to non-locals. Next step they hope for is that the Pope allows that normal church masses could also be held in the local language and only High Mass is done in Latin. According to our Tour leader, as there is now an American Pope, there might be a chance.

The main street of Taormina. This photo was taken around 11.00 hrs. so the Italian sightseers were not out yet, and the coaches from the Apartment of the Seas only just started to arrive.

Taormina town is made up of one long road with houses glued to the rock wall on either side. There are 3 squares along the road, all in front of churches and then at the end is the Greek Amphitheatre.  95% of the houses in this street, the Corso Umberto, have been taken over by shops with restaurants in the side streets (steps up, steps down) With the place being so full of tourists, the result has been that a lot of expensive shops have popped up as well. I do not know what a watch shop like Patek Philippe is doing in a place like Taormina but like other designer stores, it had a premium spot along the road and they must be selling otherwise they would not be there.

The local Greek theatre. Work was done in the main arena as it is still in full use in the summer time. Andrea Bocelli, Pavarotti etc.  all performed here and each year there is a different theme, so they keep rebuilding the stage. Note the black gap in the middle. This was added by the Romans when they introduced Gladiator fights.

Under the guidance of our magnificent tour leader we marched to the end of the town and then moved uphill to the Greek Theatre.  The Greeks, over 2000 years ago, built it and  used it for plays and other public displays. Then came the Romans and they turned it into an arena with gladiator fights, For that purpose they dug a large chamber under what once was the stage area of the Greeks.  Then after the Romans, new invaders came and they let the Theatre fall into disrepair. But they did some shopping for free bricks and stones and thus you can see in the Norman churches in the city, Greek and Roman stone work and bricks. An early form of recycling that was practised all over Europe.  Here our tour ended and we had 90 minutes left for shopping and or looking in detail at the town.

We decided on having a drink after absorbing so much culture and when I saw Cafe “Wunderbar” on the 2nd square, I thought this was it. So I tried to order in German but that did not work at all. Still it must have been German in the past as the cafe logo was still a German crown, one that you see in Germany when you go to a restaurant that is called “Zur Krone”. But the local craft beer was good, and amazingly for such a tourist trap the prices for beer and coffee were not unreasonable.

And this is what the road looked like, when the Sunday morning crowd started to arrive and the tours from the other ship

Then we made our way back to the parking garage. The lady coach driver had already moved her coach out of the garage and was standing in the street waving the coach sign. Then it was an hour back to the ship.  Next event of importance is cocktail time. Our  butler, Mr Savanan, surprises us everyday with the quality and size of the apetizers offered. There is a apetizer menu in the cabin, and if you let the butler know by 11.00 hrs., your choice it will arrive at 17.00 hrs.   See below what we got today.

Cocktails at 2700 hrs. Champagne with a cheese and meat platter. And then we still have to go for dinner.

Dinner tonight was in the French restaurant, Chatreuse. It is french based, very french based. You do not walk in for a quick bite. You sit down and let the world float by, while you float on good food and even better wine.  Below photos of the menu.

This is the left page of the menu which is available every day.

It takes about 10 minutes to figure out how the menu works, but that is the whole idea that you take your time. You are not here to eat, you are here to dine.

This is the 2nd page and this changes every day. So you can come back to this restaurant every day if you want if there is availability

There are a red and a white wine included in the cruise. From there, there is a extensive wine list available. And if you are a  wine lover that might be great, but even the house wines are of a very high standard compared to the competition, so we were not bothered, to go beyond those complimentary.

Then it was time to go to the show. This was the first appearance of the cast with a show called “Rockin Soul”. The cast is made up of 12 members, which is a high number for a ship with only 700 guests. You normally only see this number of cast members on a ship with more than 2000 guests. So we were very impressed. The show was a very high octane experience. Known elements and routines from shows that we have seen on other ships, but it was delivered with a very high tempo and cheography. Very impressed, and I can understand why there is only one show each evening; they must have been exhausted.

A quick shot of the stage. There was no announcement about not taking any photos so I grabbed my chance without breaking the rules.

That brought the time to 22.45 hrs. and we called it a day. Tomorrow we are ind Valetta, Malta. The weather should be very nice so we want to walk ashore to see what the place looks like as we have not been here for at least 10 years.

Weather: Clear Skies, temperatures going from 20oC/ 70oF ,  up to 28oC/84oF. Hopefully there will be a little bit of wind, so it will not so warm in the streets.

 

 

 

2026 Oct 11; Day 2 Naples, Italy.

October 13, 2026 / / 1 Comment

By 06.30 the good ship Seven Seas Voyager was approaching the pilot station of Naples and I recognised the regular Italian chaos of this port at once. While the ship sailed in, she was overtaken in the breakwater by several small ferries who could not wait to get to the dock. Deep sea Captains do not like it, ferry boat captains think it is normal. Naples has a large but very compact harbour and from pilot station to being docked at the Cruise terminal is about an hour, including swinging around and be ready with the gangway out. I once managed 45 minutes due to an urgent medivac. The pilot thought it was wonderful as I kept the speed up; the Captain of the port had different ideas. But I took him to lunch and then he also thought I was wonderful.

Dictator Mussolini will never be my friend but for the ocean liner and later cruise business he did some good things. He merged the Italian ocean liner companies. so there was less chaos in the routes and competition and that resulted in some very beautiful ships being built; such as the ss Rex and the ss Conte di Savoia. And to make that all work, he built a number of new ocean liner terminals which have made it through the 2nd world war and are still in use. They are all somewhat similar and the 2 biggest ones I have seen are the one in Genoa and the one here in Naples. When I came here for the first time in 2000 with my Noordam (III) the inside was still very much prewar, with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd class waiting rooms and pre war customs stations. With the expansion of the cruise industry the interior of the terminal was upgraded and now it is more of a shopping mall. And I did not see that anything had been retained from those days, except the outside.

The Naples cruise terminal a throw back to the stark building style of the 1930’s. (Photo from an unknown photographer on the internet, but thank you for letting me use it)

The terminal has 2 elevated platforms one either side which can handle each 2 medium sized ships or 1 large. In the morning they normally let the tours go off on the lower level where the coaches are but when coming back you have to go through the terminal on the upper level, no doubt to keep the shopkeepers happy. Our tour left at 08.15 from the Constellation show lounge. No stickers here; you hand in your tour ticket and you get a small plastified ticket with the number of your coach that you hand in when boarding the coach. So nobody has to walk around with a sticker on their shirt or jacket. Each big coach is filled up to about 30 guests and that gives plenty of room for everybody to spread out. In port with us the Evrima of Ritz Carlton  Cruises (149 suites) , one of the new cruise company’s that are establishing themselves in the 7 to 8 star market segment with ultimate destination cruises. Explora cruises is another one that has just started to pop up.  They charge about double the price of Regent, and I really do not know if they can offer so much more, than we already get here, to warrant that price. But maybe it is about exclusivity so that Beyonce and Tom Cruise feel comfortable to walk around without sunglasses. Who knows.

By 08.30 we were on the way to Sorrento. It takes about 20 minutes to get out of the port area and it was interesting to see that the Italians are still good at building ruins as most of the infrastructure was from times gone by and could have been greatly improved upon. Our tour guide tried to give a narration about what was there was to see but constantly let his microphone either slip away or he held it away from his mouth and those halfway down the coach missed most of the narration. Not the way it was supposed to be. And that lets me to my first observation. Regent, or at least this ship, has no Bla-bla boxes in the cabin. Those little boxes connected to small earphones, that connect to the main unit handled by the tour guide so you can always understands him or her, even when you trail behind the main group. All the top cruise companies have it, Silver Seas, Azamara, Scenic, Emerald, so I hope that Regent will soon follow. It will at least ensure that a tour is not marred by a tour guide who cannot handle his microphone.

(Late note:  when discussing this with the General Hotel Manager he advised that the bla-bla boxes  will be rolled out Fleet Wide in due course.)

It is a one hour drive to Sorrento from Naples with some very beautiful scenery along the way. This was a very simple tour. We drove to Sorrento, did a 20 minute visit to a woodmaker shop (*) and then had 90 minutes of free time to explore the place. This was Sunday morning and as most Italians are not up and about until noon time, the coach driver only had to content with narrow roads and not with narrow minded car drivers.

The store where they have made inlaid wood since 1865

(*) The stop at this wood shop was more interesting than expected as none of us on tour had ever seen how wood-laid-in tables, boxes and other furniture (including a Lazy Susan ) were made. I am not an expert but I could see that this was of a very high standard. One of the shop staff gave a small lecture on how they did it, the cutting of the wood, how to get it so thin and then how to make the pattern and display into the wood. You need a house where such furniture can be put into a location where it can be shown off to its best advantage, But still very beautiful to look at, even if you do not own a castle.

Finished tables and plates, ready for export. The drinks (?) table in the front of the picture costs in the region of 2500 euros. The “paintings” on the wall about 500 – 600 euros.

The problem with buying these things as always: how to get it home. So most shoppers focused on the small – inlaid- boxes, coasters or chess sets of which there were a lot of variations available.

Then it was time to explore Sorrento, which mainly meant, marching up and down the long pedestrianised main street. Diving into a church for some more culture was harder today as it being Sunday morning, Mass was in full swing. The Sorrento area is worldwide known for Lemons. So the shops were bursting with souvenirs based on: soup spoons with lemons, washing up towels with lemons, regular towels with lemons, aprons for cooking and all printed with lemon patterns. Even the porcelain vases featured lemons. Even the fridge magnets were mainly showcasing lemons. And of course the Lemoncello liquor.

We have at home a very large kitchen in our apartment, through which a metal beam runs that supports the roof. That metal beam is boxed in and on one side we have numerous Holland America mugs hanging and on the other side a long line of Soup spoons. So we invested for 6 euro.s in a soup spoon and got a tea towel thrown in for 2 euros extra. Apart from making a thrifty Dutchman very happy it also supported the local economy. So a win, win, for everybody. And then it was time for a drink while awaiting the regathering of our fellow excursionists.  Sorrento also has a local pancake and they are quite proud about it. Not as thick as a Dutch pancake and not as thin as a French Crepe. It comes folded into a triangle with or without a filling and for euro 8,– you have can a nice light lunch.

The main street of Sorrento. It has a nice mixture of shops, cafe’s and pubs and souvenir shops. There was even a Irish Pub with a full British Breakfast. Because some people cannot leave their home cuisine behind when on vacation.

By 14.00 hrs. we were back at the ship and time to make up our mind of what to do for the evening. I was planning to do a ship inspection, but as we had a dinner invite, having a nap took priority.

Gifts today. A champagne stopper and a cold sleeve and a small box of chocolates.

And there were a few gifts coming in. This cruise has a Champagne theme and thus we were given a few gifts that were much appreciated and indeed very use full.

The whole cruise is elegantly casual (although they seem to do some formal nights on a world cruise) so we had to get used to not having to dress up, something we like to do. But instead of two dinner jackets and two formal dresses, now an extra cocktail jacket sufficed. At  18.00 hrs. there was the introduction of the Senior Staff by the Captain and we did not want to miss that.  I think that about half the ship showed up and that made the lounge 3/4 full.  As seems to be more and more the norm, the officers introduced themselves, which is very nice, except if there is one, who can really not handle a microphone. But this group did it very well. The only person missing was the Staff Captain and there was a good reason for that as we were going through the small passage East of Capri.

Captains welcome introduction. Nearly everybody came from a different national background and this cruise the ship has 40 different nationalities on board all focused on providing the best service possible.

I was a bit amazed that the ship went “through the hole”, as in all my years sailing here, roughly between 1987 and 2019, I never could go through, as 3/4 of the passage was designated a Nature Reserve and the narrow space left was too small in case you had to change course to avoid a collision with the numerous fast ferries, sightseeing boats and fishermen. But tonight we went through, and that accounted maybe for the fact that not everybody was in the lounge.

The ship sailing past Capri. This is a screen shot from the ships TV navigation display. Until recently the whole area to the right, as far as the ships course was heading now, was a large nature reserve. I do not know why the Italians moved the borders back, but good for the cruise ships.

We had dinner with the Captain and the General Hotel Manager, as no doubt they wanted to find out what a cruise ship Captain (retired) was doing on a busmans holiday.  But we had a very good conversation and we could touch on topics that for people not in the industry might find hard to understand.  This was in the Chartreuse restaurant and more about that tomorrow, when we have a regular reservation there.  So we had a very pleasant evening, and if the Captain and/or GHM read this, thank you very much, we felt quite honoured to have been offered this privilege.

In the mean time the show was going on, a singer with a dancer, and no doubt they will return later in the cruise. so we did not feel that we missed anything.  Tomorrow night is the first performance of the Cast / Revue group as they came on board in Civitavecchia, and we will make sure not to miss that one, so we have an early dinner reservation. There is only one show each evening, at 21.30 hrs. but with the diverse interests on board by the guests, the show lounge is never full, so it works quite well.

Tomorrow we are in Messina, and we have a tour to Taormina. Another port / destination that I sailed by with the ship many a times. It is about as scenic as the Almalfi coast, but you cannot get as close under the coast as near Sorrento.  Weather for tomorrow: Chance of rain in the morning, followed by sunny weather until late afternoon. Then rain again. Temperatures 23oC or 74 o F.  Perfect sightseeing weather.

 

2026 Oct. 10 / 11 Oct. Civitavecchia, Italy.

October 12, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Picking up from yesterday, we continue after embarkation. So the ship is only for 700+ guests and that makes it very intimate. From from one lounge to the other takes less time than to walk through the Lido on a large ship.  Seven Seas Cruise lines is somewhere between being very modern (all elegantly casual, except on world cruises) and retaining some old  world routines, so there is still a daily program with all the details. One thing that hit me straight off, was the paper quality of the Daily program, called “Passages”. It  is so much better than with other company’s. As a lover of books, for me it is important  to feel something good in your hands when holding it and this daily paper feels GOOD.  If you have a company that makes you live your cruise on an APP on the cell phone / mobile phone that is fine, but nice quality paper JUST feels good. (Although Regent has an APP and that is for reading your daily news and also magazines)

The Master of the ms Seven Seas Voyager is Captain Stanislas Mercier de Lacombe, he is french, very french and a very gregarious person who sailed most of his life with Regent. During his first announcement he compared himself to Inspector Clouseau of the pink panther and he sounds somewhat like it. But I like a man who does not take himself to seriously. He lives in La Boule on the west coast of France, a place I remember well, as I was there for the new build of the Noordam (III) in 1983/84 at St. Nazaire. It is a holiday town and during the summer season it is invaded by Parisians for the summer holidays. But he has a boat there, so he has a way out.  His wife is from Croatia so he is really part of a very international seafaring community.

Captain Stanisas Mercier de Lacombe. Master of the ms Seven Seas Voyager.

Once on board we found out that this cruise is a “spotlight on sparkling wines” with throughout the cruise tastings and wine pairings. Those are not included in the package (on average $ 235,– for an event) and a special sommelier is on board for the proceedings. Apart from having a “champagne breakfast” which is part of the cruise, there are special events which are of high quality but not free of charge.  My taste buds are not attuned to champagne so I do not know the difference between Krug, Dom Perignon, or Roederer, or Chateau Plonk, so I will stay away from it.  When we came into the cabin there were already 2 bottles of champagne waiting so we do not not feel left out. One as the regular welcome on board and one together with a large box of Leonidas chocolates as a gift from the management. It seems that they  have already found out about me and the blog and if that results in extra alcohol and chocolates, then I am all for it.

A very nice gift, and they say that Leonidas chocolates are calorie free so we have nothing to worry about.

Once on board, we had to make the obligatory visit to our muster station; we had to report to the Steak Dining room, called Prime 7. A very nice dining venue, so even if the ship would sink we can await our final fate in style.

The cabin has a walk in wardrobe which is sufficient for about a 14 day cruise, maybe a bit longer if there is no formal night. Any longer, then you will have to rotate from the suitcase. On the other hand there is free laundry for everybody, except dry cleaning which is not free, so you can get by with not too much stuff. Then just around the corner there is a self service laundry for those who do not like to send things down to the laundry.

There was some sort of of welcome on board deck party , a bon voyage social, on the pool deck, with the ships band, so we went there to get a feeling with what sort of guest cruises sail with Regent. A lot of guests are doing a back-to-back so the bar was full of (very) happy people. Drinks aplenty and a bar stand with nibbles, including Jumbo shrimp. While listening to the music my eye fell on the large array of Star Link antenna’s above the Deck. Never seen so many antennas’s on a smaller ship, so I think we can be insured  that we will have a good internet signal.

I think I am right to say that this is a “forest of antennas. It turned out that the internet (free except for streaming) was indeed very fast.

Next thing was cocktail time, where to go. . Based on our experience with Silver Seas where we found out that there was hardly anybody in the lounges in the evening, so we opted for cocktails in the Observation Lounge on deck 11.  We arrived that at 18.30, only to find the place heaving.   It turned out that at 18.00 hrs. there had been a  “Spotlight on sparkling wine welcome”, with an introduction by the guest Sommelier, Kelly McAliffe. So by the time we walked in, everybody present was already quite happy. Luckily the call for dinner was there was well and most guests made their way to one of the 4 restaurants on board.

This is a view of the observation lounge. I have not yet been able yet to take photos myself from the public rooms, So this a stock photo from the internet from before the 2026 upgrade. It looks a bit lighter now than what you see in this photo.

For dinner there is the Compass Rose which is the main restaurant on board, the Pool Grill (very casual), the Sette Mari at La Veranda (Italian), the Chartreuse (very french) and the Prime 7 (very beef steak).The latter ones are included in our cruise package with two visits.  We went to the Compass Rose for the first evening and the first thing I saw was Versace plates on the table. And those are not cheap, even when it is not the top range. When I was captain on the Prinsendam, we had the Versace Medusa range for the Captains table and the complete set for 10 seats was in the area of $ 15,000. Each wine glass was $ 175,— or something. When I dined from them, there was a special steward hovering around to ensure that each piece of crockery and glass work was taken, on tiptoe, to a special section of the kitchen so the dish washing boys and regular stewards could not get their hands on them. And here the whole dining room was full with it. But our waitress did say that she was very careful with them. The Maitre d’hotel, Mr. Francesco (27 years with Regent) said that he more worried about the Versace plates than about the service.

I will post some menus during the cruise, but lets say, there are at least 10 entre’s available every day standard, and another 10 that change each day.  And that is without counting the desserts.  By being there just after 19.00 hrs. we could easily make it to the show, as even at a gentle pace with good conversation (and good standard wines included), the service only takes about 100 minutes.

Cruise Director Callie Smit

The Constellation Show Room, is a 2 deck happening near the bow, with excellent sight lines. No poles anywhere and the upper level railing is low enough not to be in the way. Each seat has a table so you can have  a drink, if you want to. I have not found out yet, if they also serve before dinner.

The show was a sort of throw back to the olden days as this first Welcome On Board  show was a sort of variety show where the Cruise Director introduced the ships routine and had a singer do a small performance. Normally  there would have been a cast performance as well but they had joined the ship today and so they still had to rehearse. If you have dealt with entertainers /cast on board then you will know that when they are starting up. it is a few days full of drama and controlled panic so they are kept behind closed Firescreen doors until they are ready. The Cruise Director  who was the compare for this whole show is from South Africa and his name is Callie Smit. You can google him on line and he has a very good track record.

He was the man who spoke this evening the immortal words: “Welcome to Regent Seven Seas, Welcome to the Upgrade”.

And he was right, if you want to grade from 5 star, then Regent might be a very good decision. We will find out in the coming days, if VERY good applies. After the show we decided to retire as tomorrow morning we are going on our first (included) tour. With the coach along the Amalfie coast to  Sorrento.  I have taken my ship several times in the past sailing close to the coast as the scenery is very beautiful but I have never been ashore and seen the land based side so it will be very interesting.

Now  how does first day feel…………….. Extremely positive , I could not find anything wrong on board so far and that does not happen very often.

Weather tomorrow: Partly Sunny with temperatures around 70oF / 21oC and very little wind. Great weather for cruising and exploring.

 

 

 

 

2026 Oct 09/ 10; Day 01 Civitavecchia, Seven Seas Voyager.

October 11, 2026 / / 8 Comments

Today we embarked on our next cruise adventure and we are trying out Regent Cruises. Lesley had found a very good deal and a week before we left we were offered an upgrade from a Verandah to a Penthouse for £ 60,– a night, so we took it. A Penthouse is the lowest catagory of the suites and the first level that comes with a butler so it will be interesting to see how this compares to Silver Seas, Azamara, Cunard, MSC Yachtclub and Scenic.

Regent does not have cruises leaving from  the UK until  2027 so we had to fly to Rome to join the ship. Flights and transfers are included in the cruise price and it looked like Regent had arranged everything well. We even got the  replacement luggage lables with the new cabin numbers on time. Regent had their own hiccup as they had booked all guests joining today in a brand new hotel but it turned out that this hotel was only to be completed next year, so we were moved to an old (but luxurious) hotel in downtown Rome, a five minute walk from the Trevi fountain. Very nice for guests who arrived early and still wanted to wander into downtown Rome.

09 Oct. travelling.

So we flew from Norwich via Amsterdam to Rome and arrived there just before lunch time. Regent had advised  in their paperwork that there would be a representative waiting for us on arrival at the Airport but when we came out of the baggage area, there was nobody. We saw reps for Costa, Celebrity, and MSC but nobody from the most poshest of these company’s to be present. The paper work had phone details for emergencies (English number) but nothing local  (apart from the terminals in Civitavecchia). But while we were on the phone to England to get something sorted, a sheepish looking driver showed up with a tablet with our name and of somebody else on it.  That worked but not as we had been advised.  He found another couple while roving around with his tablet, from Texas,  and so with 4 in the van we set off.  The Texas couple were longtime Regent cruisers but had also never experienced not having a representative at the airport. So we will inform Guest Relations on board to advise the office to get the discrepancy changed.

But is was a nice shuttle bus with a long ride through down town Rome as most of downtown is one way traffic, so the shuttle bus had to weave around the main tourist areas. And they were choc-a-block with tourists. I think a lot of tourists had decided to postpone their vacation to later in the year as this summer Rome was unbearably hot. Long waiting lines for getting into the Vatican Museum and it almost looked as if China or Japan had taken over Vatican City.

Once impressive now a bit of faded glory. (Photo courtesy Hotel website)

The hotel, Grand Hotel Plaza Rome, announced as a very luxurious happening, turned out to be an old Palace from the 18th. century turned into a hotel in the late 1860’s.  It had a very big waiting room, no doubt a grand ballroom  from the old days. If the glass ceiling and the ceiling fresco’s had had a good restoration and cleaned it would have been breath taking. Now it was just impressive in a sort of faded way. We were too early for check in, so we left the suitcases and went into the next side street for lunch. The hotel is surrounded by expensive shops and  also the restaurants mainly thrive on tourists. The pizza’s were good and the service typical Rome/Italian, friendly, abrupt and a bit chaotic. But then the whole city is chaotic with the tempo driven by all the motorists  with a total lack of respect for Rules of the Road, and the very creative car parking.——- If there is a gap, then we park———– sign or no sign.

In the hotel was a lady representing Regent,  and she offered 3 departures to the ship. 09.30, 10.30 and 11.30. We took the last one, as we wanted to sleep in. Leaving from Norwich airport at 06.00 in the morning makes one tired. The procedure is supposed to be that we are picked up with a small van from the front door, and then driven to the “end of the road” to join the coach for an 1 hour journey to Civitavecchia.

At 3 pm the hotel room was ready and the first impression of the room, was quite impressive. High ceilings, big bathroom lots of space. Much bigger than was indicated in the paperwork. However the promised bathrobes were nowhere in sight, and the shower had been replaced by a much too deep bath tub. But there was a bidet in case you wanted to wash your socks.  We called twice for the advised bathrobes (1600 and 1700 hrs) but apart from the front desk remark, “we will look into it”, we never heard anything back and never saw the bathrobes. Now we just have to make sure that they do not charge bathrobes to our account when they make up the room.

The room. The only outstanding thing was the 60 inch TV., with approx. 250 channels.

For the rest the hotel was not what you would expect for the guests of Regent and I wonder how the Americans managed. There was only one two pin socket for which most travellers would have an adaptor. So a challenge for most Americans who would want to charge their cell phone.  We could manage with one plug, but not what you would expect from a Grand Hotel, as they thought they were.  The next interesting thing was the mini bar. The minibar was not filled accordance to what was on the paper listing (no pringles) so we have to make sure that we do not get charged for that as well. As there was no ice bucket in the room either, I went to the bar to get two colas and 2 glasses of ice, and that set me back 24 euro’s.  This is the first hotel where we stayed where the mini bar is cheaper than the regular hotel bar. (8 euro for a cola in the minibar)

10 October.

Breakfast was included and was very good and served in yet another old room with fresco and gold rimmed ceiling. Nice to sit and look at. When we came back to the room, the room next door was open so we poked our nose inside. This was a much smaller room but it had a kettle. And that is an important thing for the English so it set Lesley of in tangent, as we did not have one in our room, and hence she had to forgo her early morning cup of tea. At the Front Desk she enquired why there were no bathrobes and no kettle in our room and the brilliant answer from the front desk was:

Those 2 things are not part of the Regent package under which you are staying.

As if Regent would go through the contract and negotiated a kettle and bathrobes out of the program. So we will pass it all on to Regent and maybe they can arrange that future guests have it better.

The Via Corso. In the far distance is the San Anglo castle just visible and in the street the shuttle buses for our transport.

Getting to the ship was an interesting experience, as the street, the Via Corso. is too small to allow normal coaches in, so we were first transported in groups of 6 with luggage to outside the walls of the City and there transferred to a coach for the 1 hour journey to Civitavecchia. The forecasted rain did not materialize and it was a pleasant ride. When coming down the hill, we saw that apart from the Regent Voyager there was in port, the Costa Toscana, the Mariella Explorer and the Norwegian Viva. The last one dwarfed the other ships and did not look much look like a cruise ship at all, more like an Electric Power Station, with all those slides and other amenities sticking out above and behind the funnel. They even have a water slide that goes down from about 14 decks from the top to where normally promenade deck is.  In the corner behind all these large ship was ours, the small Seven Seas Voyager.

Seven Seas cruises is a subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line together with Oceana Cruises which operates in the same luxury market segment but is not All Inclusive. We have high hopes for this cruise as Seven Seas has just been voted the best Small Cruise Line in the world, from a poll of over 800.000 cruise travellers.

The Seven Seas Voyager. The ship was built in 2003 but extensively refurbished in 2026, so inside she almost looks like new.  With 42000 tons and 206 meters she is for nowadays standards a very small ship. She can handle 706 – 777 guests and that gives the very high passenger ratio of 63. There are 443 crew listed so a ratio of just over 2 to 1 to the guests.

As we came by coach, with about 35 on the coach, check in was a breeze and the check in ladies were very cheerful. I think they were happy to deal with small groups instead of processing 4000  NCL cruisers. In the terminal the Executive Concierge was supervising it all and on the gangway the General Hotelmanager and the Assistant Cruise Director wer there to say hello with Champagne. I still have not figured out if I like that when stepping on board, as you only have two hands and those are full with hand luggage. But the champagne was good. As the ship is “small”, it is a breeze to find everything on board so we did not have to embark on an expedition to find everything.

Cabin or suite 764. It has a sitting area separated by a curtain from the bed area. Desk with fridge and a make up table with a Bose speaker. Then there is a bathroom with a very large shower and a coffee machine. (We had that one changed for a kettle for tea)

We have cabin 764 on Deck 7 near the aft staircase, which is a suite with butler service. (That was the result of paying for an upgrade. Deck 8  was another £400 dearer and the only perk is that the cabin was located a deck higher). The cruise comes with $500 on board spending, so in a way Seven Seas are paying for the upgrade. Lesley is planning to spend the On Board Credit in the Beauty Salon as for the rest everything is included, so no further expenses. Even a number of tours are included.

While waiting for the luggage, the butler showed up, Mr. Savananan from Madras, India. His real name is about 30 letters long as is normal for that area, hence the short first name being used. He had been with Seven Seas for over 10 years and before that 10 years with Oceana so the crew must like the company to work for as change over in the hotel industry can be very high, and with the still expanding cruise fleet there is ample opportunity. A butler is basically there to do everything you want, including escorting you to restaurants if you do not know the way. That was handy on MSC Virtuosa some time ago but here less of an issue. He was followed by Nicolai and his assistant who  will look after the cabin. He was from the Philipinnes and it took them less than 3 minutes to find out what was my background so the regular discussion followed, “have you been to my home country etc.”.

To avoid to make this first day blog very long, here is the cruise that we will make, and the rest will come tomorrow, when we visit Naples.

Our planned cruise. Going around Italy to Venice / Fusina (Diagram courtesy of Cruisemapper)

 

 

 

 

 

2026 August 19 Southampton, England. Review & Verdict.

August 22, 2026 / / 18 Comments

So we drove home from Southampton and after a 5 hour drive we made it back to the end of the world, Cromer on the Norfolk coast.

Here my review of the cruise and my verdict.  Let me first  emphasize again that what follows is my VERY PERSONAL  view of  the cruise.

Partly born from what I have learned and experienced  in the last 42 years at sea and by being involved in the progress of the cruise industry and partly of what my personal preferences  are. And then there is of course a certain amount of knowledge in understanding of how it all works behind the scenes. Plus I am learning a lot now we are hopping from cruise company, to cruise company.

Did Lesley & I enjoy this cruise ? Very much. Would we hesitate to come back? Not at all. Will we come back? May by in 2028 after we have finished the list with”to do” ships and “to do” cruise company’s not yet tried. But the captain announced that P&O will invest in the good ship “Aurora” for the next 10 years, so that is hopeful.

P&O is a cruise company who hovers somewhere between 4 and 5 star. Five star for the  shows, speciality restaurants and service in the bars; Four Star for the “too fast” service in the dining room and the quality of the food. (The food is not bad at all, it just lacks that little extra that comes with a less rushed service)

The Glare: for those who do not know what this is, it is my way of testing the friendliness of the officers and crew.  What I do, when I walk by an member of the ships complement I will look the person straight in the eyes  and expect acknowledgement.

This cruise it came to 70%.   All crewmembers were friendly when talking to them during service but quite a few ignord the guests when not on the job.  E.G:  shopstaff will smile and talke when behind the counter but totally ignore you when walking through the ship.  Biggest disappointment was, when we went to  a captains party and lots of officers were lined up, but they were more interested in talking to each other than saying Hello  to the guests coming in. (only the cruise staff, used to doing doors, made an effort). During the party, they hovered around, but almost none of them made the effort to go around the tables for a quick chat. I only saw the captain doing that and one Jr. hotel officer.

So verdict: All house keeping, 100%, all the GPA toilets and on ship duties 100%.   Bar staff 90%. (100% on the job, not always when meeting in the corridors). Hotel officers varied greatly 60%.  Deck officers passing by (5x), one acknowledgment. Engineers passing by (3x), no acknowledgement. Sailors , only the two who make an attempt to paint our balcony and recognized me, because I waved to them in the cabin.

Let’s starts with all the positives:

1.If you like an older ship, with a very British atmosphere, this is a great ship. It has plenty of bars and nice lounges for whiling the day away and to have cocktails. Just avoid going to the dining room on the first night. Manic pace, including a long waiting line and once in we were out within the hour.

2.This is a very good world cruise ship. Again due to the ships lay-out and the more laid back and “gentlemen like” ambiance.

3.Very good tender service in Leknes. If P&O wants to pay for having soo many crew involved, that is up to them, but it did ran very smoothly, and I like the announcements given with the counts of how many guests are ashore, so the guests waiting understood that is was going smoothly. 1100+ guests between 08.15 and 11.00 hrs. for a 4 tender distance run is not bad at all.

4.The speciality restaurants are very good. With tasty food and unhurried service. Well worth the surcharge.

5.The Cast Shows were the best I have ever seen. Certainly on all the cruises we have done in the last 2 years. Princess Cruises came close but the current cast is very, very good.

6.A very personable captain with very good microphone and communication skills. He reminded me of myself with having the guests listen without curling their toes.

7.No announcements in the cabins (Saga & Fred Olsen please take note) unless really necessary.  Only for explaining the tender service and disembarkation procedure.

8.Various brands of Ale/Craft beer in the various lounges. Neck-Oil in the Crowsnest, Jolly Olly in the Glass house, Sam Johnson in Carmens, Ghost ship in the pub Champions. Very, very nice.

9.P&O still has formal nights, we had 3 this cruise and a bit of style is something we very much like. Officers & Crew were quite good in keeping the dressed and not-dressed groups apart, except on the last formal, when there was a glass of free wine to get from the bars. Still people seem to be on their best behavior when dressed up, so for the ms Aurora (she is different to the rest of the fleet anyway) keep it up.

10. Classical duo in the Play House. They were very good, but as the Playhouse was full for each performance, disappointed guests were forced to walk out again; it would have been nice if the recitals would have been screened on the Cabin TV’s.

Things that I would consider improvements to the product:

1.Directly for P&O office and NOT directly  for the ship:  Could you please issue a clear listing of the regular duties of the Butler in the Suites on the ships? Add it to the paperwork in the cabin?

1a. What is on the website is not correct as it states, among other things, a butler can help with packing and unpacking. Luggage arrives at the suites around 13.00 hrs. The butler only shows up at the cabins around 16.00 hrs. There are only 2 butlers on the Aurora and they cannot help with 14 cabins. So they are not doing it anymore but it is still on the website.

1b.. In the latest brochure for 2028 page 20: What is an optional butler? You either have a butler or you do not have one. If I buy a new car, I can decide for an optional sun roof, against extra costs. If that is what optional means, then I would have to pay extra to get the butler going. Or is it that the ship decides whether the butler is optional and we might have it or might not have one during the cruise?

1c. On board nobody could tell me what the exact duties of a Butler were. The standard (middle management) answer was, he can do all sorts, just ask and he will do it. But that is not fair, because one cabin might ask for something so far out and monopolize his time (and that was the case the cruise before us, and other cabins suffered). Then the work might carry over into their personal time and with 10 hrs,  a day available  according to MLC 2005, that day is already pretty full.

So I think that it would greatly beneficiary  for the service to the suite cabins, if the guests knew what the butler exactly could mean for them. Cunard can do it, MSC Yacht club can do it, so it cannot be that difficult.

2. On board discount due to Repeater status in the Peninsular Club. It is very nice to get 5%, 10% or 15% discount for your loyalty to P&O, very good and very nice.

BUT it is very NASTY that  that loyalty discount only kicks in after you have depleted your On Board Credit. That credit is a cruise arrangement for booking, so it is VERY NASTY that you penalize loyal guests for a extra arrangement  they got when booking a cruise.

On Board Credit is not always available and only offered to get the (early) bookings. So P&O is really saying, that On Board Credit does not really belong to you “in being your own money”. For us it is not about the money we save, as it is not that much;  It is the principle that a company’s Sales System,  that it gives something extra to “rope you in”, once they got you, they do not want to recognize it as part of the cruise contract.

3. Dining room service, too fast. This is going “to eat” not going  “for dinner”. It did not stop us from enjoying our time in the dining room, but it is a bit much, when one waiter takes away the empty soup cup and the other waiter slides the next course on the table at the same time. Stay away from the first night in the dining room, it is chaos with long liens in front of the door, before it opens. P&O is aware of this, and thus offers a FREE bottle of wine, if you go to a Speciality restaurant the first evening. We were more interested to see how it all run, so we observed the process.

4. Hot water out of a coffee kettle.  I drink green tea, so every night the dining room waiter pored hot water for my green tea and then it tasted like coffee (or close to it). On the 3rd night we realized that the  teapot he used, after going through the dishwash, was stored somewhere and then the next day taken from the hook/shelf and then randomly used for coffee or hot water.

Our waiter solved it on day 4, by managing ” to find” a  brand new kettle and guard it with his life against other waiters (who also wanted a new shiny kettle)  and supervisors (who did not understand where such a brand new shiny kettle came from and wanted it back) But for the remaining 8 nights, our whole section had hot water that tasted like hot water. So P&O / Aurora can you find a way to separate hot water kettles from being used for other purposes? It will take some leadership from middle management but it could be done. Also Most company’s use different model kettles for hot water and coffee to avoid this problem. A coffee pot looks like a coffee pot and a hot water kettle looks like a hot water kettle, so easy to recognize and easy to keep apart.

5. TV programming.  This is to a certain extent very shameful. If as  a P&O guest you come from the newer ships, you will not be impressed. The company put new T.V’s in the cabins but did not update the software.  There was no TV program in the cabin when we arrived but the butler found one but they seemed to have been very scarce. When Lesley checked it all, a number of the programs did not run in synch with the times listed. Nor were the channels numbered, named but that did work either.   We had every day to flip through all the channels to find the lectures (first sea day lectures, only appeared on day 3). Lectures  on the 2nd sea day appeared the next day. Lectures on the last sea day, never showed. Can you not do direct streaming and recording ?  There is no digital movie library that you can choose from and that is now standard on 5 star ships. Maybe all the money is spent on the shows but for the longer cruises, this is now standard to have certainly on 5 star ships. There are DVD’s in the library (not manned) but no DVD player in the cabins, so that does not work either. Hopefully somebody in the P&O office will bring Aurora into the modern day.

So as said we really enjoyed the cruise, The few niggles did not deter us but they could have been avoided.

Note: I know that a number of officers on board have followed by blog this cruise. Thank you for doing so, much appreciated. I also hope that you will read this last one. And please pass my observations on to the office. Those who make the decisions are often “layered” away from a direct connection to the “work floor” as every company has a middle group of managers who have no interest in listening to observations that do not fit in their personal” vision”.  So keep pushing.

To all my readers as usual, thank you very much for reading my blog, There are 2900 direct recipients and quite a few more who get  the blog “passed on”  (last year the Google pings reached close to 10,000 on some occasions).  I hope that I have not bored you with my observations and sometimes “ravings and rantings”.  I try to make it as interesting as possible.

Note : My website will go off line for a while, as more and more coding mistakes and software hiccups  are creeping in. Hence the site is going into dry dock and a qualified designer will give it a face lift.

I will be back on 14 October with our next cruise  on the Regent Seven Seas  Voyager as we have not tried that company yet.

Thank you and “smooth seas and following winds” wherever your own travels might take you.

Captain Albert.

2026 August 18; At sea sailing towards Southampton, England.

August 19, 2026 / / 3 Comments

An Electronic chart overview of our whole voyage. These screen shots come from the Navigation channel which has kept me up to date the whole cruise, Although not as good as the real thing, it is good enough to get a good overview.

Today is our 2nd sea day. We have now left the Norwegian Sea behind and have entered the North Sea. By 08.30  the ship joined the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) off the port of Hull and we will remain sailing in these “highways” at sea until we arrive at the Southampton Pilot Station. Even when sailing through the Straits of Dover, we will be in the Traffic separation zones.  The English channel was one of the first area’s where a TSS was implemented as it is one of the busiest channels in the world. It is and also one of the most chaotic ones, as apart from the North – South  traffic and vice versa, there is also the cross channel traffic, the fishermen and a lot of coastal traffic that stays away from the TSS, but can still come very close.

Entering the TSS on the English side near  Hull.

When looking at the more detailed chart, it looks like it has contracted a bout of measles. The purple lines are Traffic  Separation Schemes, with one on the English side (dark purple). then one in the middle which is especially for the deep drafted tankers,  some of them with a draft so deep that they would run aground if sailing in one of the others. And then there is the 3rd one, which follows the Dutch Coast and is primarily meant to keep the traffic to the Dutch, German and Baltic ports away from the rest of the North Sea.  The blue dimples are depth marks , with water depths less than the standard chart reference which is normally 10 meters.  Most of the time these bumps are wrecks of ships, airplanes  and materials dumped during a long forgotten past. It is not advised to drop the anchor here as it might hit something and blow itself up. Or when retrieving an anchor having a complete 2nd world war lorry hanging on one of the flukes. (That happened to me once, when I was ordered to anchor off the Thames pilot station). Then the sea bed is full of purple wriggly lines, which are communication cables, anchor chains from oil rigs and pipe lines often inter connected between oil wells, still in use, but where the oil rig above water has already been removed.

This 3rd screen shot is what the navigator will have on his screen. Here we see the Aurora approaching the TSS with the intention to join. The Rules say, that when you are going to join a TSS, you should approach it under the smallest possible angle. So that other ships are not confused about your intentions and the Rules of the Road are simple to apply. When crossing, it should be done under a 90o angle or as close as possible to it.

The routes of the TSS, and there where the TSS turns direction are normally marked by a buoy. All ships now have Electronic Charts which come up on the radar screen, so the radar picture (that picks up most of the traffic) shows these buoys on the screen but a secondary confirmation of your position, by looking out of the window is always handy. Last week one of the Saga cruise ships reported that Russia had disturbed their GPS satellite signal so much that they could not enter their scheduled port and had to go to another one. Most ships do not have plan alternative B anymore = paper charts= and rely on a plan B which consists out of an Electronic back up with independent power of the same equipment. When you have such an electronic back up system, paper charts are not required anymore. That is fine during a black out , but not when Putin starts playing around.  If there is an (up-to-date) paper chart on board, then you could resurrect old time navigation again by looking out of the window and taking bearings of land marks and even buoys if necessary.  During the Koeweiti war when Allied forces removed Saddam from power, the President of the United States almost decided to stop the GPS system (which is a USA system) as the Iraqi tanks all had GPS as well for their desert navigation. However when it was realised that the Allied Forces would have been up the creek as well, using the same system, the plan was abandoned.   The Russians have their own GLONASS system and Europe is working on their own Galilei system. All to bring redundancy and to stop one world power from flipping the Big Black Switch.

I did not need GPS to find meyway around the ship today but it would be nice to have a gadget to help with packing. Apart from 4 bottles of Gin (savings, over £100,–) we have not bought very much but for some reason it is always harder to get the clothes back into the suitcase, than you put them in at home. I wonder if there is somewhere a professor out there who has a developed after much testing (packing suitcases) a convincing theory for this.  Without GPS we walked the ship as it is always interesting to see what the guests get up to on the last day. The pub “champions” was well filled with lonely men, most likely turfed out of the cabin by the good wives who were packing.  The Curzon theatre was full for the two lectures, one about the big freeze of 1947 and one about how Viking and Nautical Words have seeped into the English Language.  Most interesting was the shops, who were doing a roaring trade. Since the invention of “On Board Credit”, the shops in general have seen an upswing in sales on the last sea day, compared to the times before.

The Sindhu lunch menu. We found it money well spent.

We had booked lunch in the Sindhu, the Indian restaurant which is also the breakfast place for the suites. We had done a dinner years and years ago on the ms Arcadia of P&O. We had looked at the menu and it did not seemed to have changed very much. But as we were still interested we decided to go for lunch. That costs £ 11.90 a person and brings three courses.  They serve Kingfisher beer, the 650 cc Premium version, so I was directly in heaven.

The ms Arcadia is the 5th. Vista class ship that was pushed over when building, by Carnival from the “Holland America Brand” to the “P&O Brand”. At the ship yard the hull was much modified and then Holland America incorporated those changes in the ms Eurodam and ms Nieuw Amsterdam, being the Signature Class.

Traditional Goan Beef Vindaloo dish. Simple in setup but extremely tasty.

The space of serving, although the food still comes very fast out of the kitchen, is somewhat slower than in the dining rooms and also the waiters have the time for a little chat.  The taste was excellent but they had tuned down the “heat” somewhat as there will be many guests visiting who are not familiar with the dishes. The average British person is very familiar with ordering an Indian Take-away, but the restaurants have little “red pepper” markings next to the the dish, but otherwise they tend to play it safe. so my “Beef Vindaloo” was not as hot as I was expecting it to be, but if the spices are right, it will taste very good, and indeed it did.

And then there was the rest of the afternoon, my struggling to get 3 suitcases packed with aim of getting them packed in the same way as they came to the ship. Should make it easier to get everything back in the correct ward robe when we get home.   We received our “landing papers” and that gave some confusion again as it did not state that we could have Breakfast in our suite restaurant, the Sindhu, only that we could wait there 30 minutes before disembarking (08.10). However our butler confirmed that breakfast would be served. Why not just list all the venues? At 5 pm. the Cruise Director came into the cabin via the P.A over ride to explain the disembarkation process and also forgot to mention that the Lido was open for Breakfast and not only the dining room.

Accumulated pop-up cards in the cabin. It took me two days to realize what was different to this cabin compared to others. It was the number of pop- up notification cards everywhere. No fixed signs, no stickers.  Bathrobes for use, hours forward / back. Flushing the toilet. Don’t take the Bose speaker home and also not the Handwash bottle in the toilet. We later also go a hard copy bill statement, instead on an electronic copy mailed to our Email account,

On other company’s many of these cards have been replaced by fixed signs so the amount of paper used is reduced. P&O, at least on the Aurora has not gotten there yet. Also as the T.V system is very antiquated.  (There is no TV movie library either only 2 streaming channels with movies, but they are not in synch with the TV program and they often do not run on time)  BUT: the captain announced that P&O will start investing in the Aurora so it will be ready for the next 10 years. And that is good news. This is a very nice ship, and excellent for longer cruises. so an update of the T.V system, a spruce up of the public areas (I hope they do not decide on a complete revamp, as that takes some of the ambiance of the public rooms away) would all do the ship very good.

And finally now I have to reveal the real reason  why we are on board.

  • We were asked by Gemma, Lesley’s Chiropodist to take a cruise on the ms Aurora to meet her favourite Cruise Director who had promised her an Aurora-teddy bear.  How could we refuse, any excuse to make a cruise, is a good excuse. Hello Gemma, we have the bear , we are going home tomorrow and you will your teddy bear at your next appointment.

Gemma’s Teddy Bear.

After final cocktails in the Crowsnest and dinner in the dining room it was also time to go to and see the final show. Another performance by the ships cast, the Headliners called “Applause”. This time a compilation of the best known and most successful songs from Broadway and West End musicals.

The Headliners in “Applause”.

This was another very good show and they received a standing ovation at the end. This was their most  high powered & fast costume changing show of all, so quite rightly most of the audience stood up. (Some were beyond getting up, due to age) Maybe also partly as there only had been regular applause during the previous shows.  This is cruise number 5 this year and although the cast of the ms Sky Princess was very good as well, this was the best we have seen this year. The number of shows they can do (eight of them) and also the quality and high octane performance of the group was extraordinary. COMPLIMENTS,

Tomorrow morning the ship will at the Southampton pilot station at 03.00 hrs. and should be docked by 05.30. Then self disembark will start at 06.30 followed by us at 08.30 hrs. If all goes well, we should be home around 17.00 hrs. tomorrow.

As is normal routine, then the day after tomorrow my final blog will be posted: Review and Verdict with the total overview of the cruise.

Weather for tomorrow: Overcast with 22oC, so it should be good driving weather.

.

2026 August 17; At sea sailing towards Southampton, England.

August 18, 2026 / / 2 Comments

Today we have our first of the two days at sea to get back to Southampton. We have all night sailing on a nearly 180o south course and we will stay on that course until  we merge with the Traffic separation scheme near Hull on the British coast.  The arrival in the separation scheme means that we will see a lot more traffic, being the main reason that the separation scheme (A sort of motorway on the seas with the separation zone in the middle between the lanes) has been created there. More about that below.

First of all thank you to several readers for answering my question about the mysterious door at the foot of the mountains. I had never heard of “Google Lens” but it seems that if you put a photo in that system, Google looks for the meaning of it.  Impressive, but also scary in a way.   But it came up with the answer.   I will give the most extensive answer as collated by Mr. Ruud van Deventer. (Son of the late HAL captain H.L van Deventer, see biography on this website)

One of the many similar “doors” giving access to a power station carved out of the mountain.

The door is the camouflaged mountain entrance to an underground water power station of the Norwegian, state owned, energy company Statkraft.  They can be found everywhere and anywhere in the Norwegian landscape.  Hence I saw three of these doors during our train excursion.

The front door covers the entrance to a long access tunnel, leading to a Turbine and Generator Hall cut out of the mountain rock.  The front entrance is heavily protected against falling rocks, avalanches and un-authorised access. The access gate is wide and high enough to allow for heavy traffic for maintenance.

The water collected at the top  falls down in pipes into the Turbine Hall which drives the turbines that generate the electricity.  Where we rail-roaded by on the train, the mountains were on average 1.2 km high, so water going down in the pipe under the influence of gravity, gain quite a momentum before it hits the blades of the Turbines. Keeping everything inside the mountain stops the need for having ugly pipes and generator buildings dotted over the scenery.

As we still saw lots of waterfalls and other places where water was cascading un-checked over the mountain side, I do not think that Norway is going to run out of power very fast.  As a matter of fact Statkraft just announced that they are going to spend 80 billion NOK for more Wind, Sea and waterfall energy generation.So they will be digging for many years to come. I do not know how many electric car load stations they have in Norway, but it seems safe to say, that if you take your electric car to Norway you will not have much of a problem getting your car charged.  Petrol / Gas for a regular car is still about 10% dearer than in the rest of Europe, even with the current high prices, everywhere, caused by the rumblings in Iran.

One leg of the VanderBilt card room. The other leg is slightly shorter but not much.

As we had following winds, it was quite pleasant on the outside decks and many guests found a sunny space to enjoy at least one day of having a “cruise” experience while being on board. For the rest everybody was out in force, all lounges filled (at those that were open for service) and that left only 2 relatively quiet spaces on board, The Crowsnest (drinks service starting at noon time) and the Anderson cocktail lounge (2nd Cocktail making lecture starting at 13.00 hrs.).

So we have 3 major distinctive groups on board, first are the card players. This ship has a very large card room on board, the “VanderBilt” located on Deck 8 and L shaped and positioned around the Midships Lift Staircase. On port days it is a haven of  tranquility with a few people trying to complete one of the many puzzles laid out on the tables. On sea days, the place is almost completely taken over by the Bridge Players. There is a Lady on board who directs it all, with a lecture in the morning, and then the rest of the day it is full time play.  This is ideal for longer cruises when company’s like P&O and Cunard always have larger groups of Bridge Players on board.

Apart from the regular bar area, the pub also has booths in the windows and these are highly sought after and also full all day. (This photo was taken in port in the mid morning when all were ashore. The little gold looking displays in between each booth are full of small figurines that  belong to the Art Auctioneer and are for sale.

The 2nd distinctive group huddles all day in “champions”, the Pub. This Altar devoted to Bacchus opens up at 10 am. and then apart from being plied with drinks from then on, one can spend the day quizzing.  The first quiz starts here at 10 am. ,  the next one at 12.15, the next one at 14.15 hrs.,  and then all have to shift to the Masquerade Lounge for bingo at 16.15 hrs., as on sea days the Pub is too small for this. But you can be back by 17.30 for the next quiz, followed at 18.30 by the “Busker” singer/ guitarist, followed at 19.30 by the next “pre dinner” quiz, then the busker returns at 20.15 hrs. Followed at 21.30 for an “Evening at the races”, followed by the busker again at 22.30 hrs. until late into the night.  For those who do not like Horse Racing (it is played on a large monitor with real horses racing and you bet on the end before it is shown) there is the option of yet another -group- quiz in the VanderBilt cardroom.  So with 10 distinctive features, and at 1 pint an hour, you can have a very happy day. British pub life is split between those who drink Cider and those who drink Beer and it looks that this cruise the split is almost 50-50.

The “Curzon Theatre” names after an Director of P&O from the good old days. I estimate it seats about 500 and has excellent line of view everywhere.

Then there is the 3rd distinctive group who are not into quizzes but follow all the lectures. We have two lecturers on board, one is specialises in Viking History this cruise, and another one who is a bit more over the place with topics but held one today about the British “Shipping Forecast” . This is the weather forecast system for the mariners that in its 100 years of existence has never lost its importance. These lectures are held in the Curzon Theatre where also the main shows take place. It is one of the better ships theatres we have experienced, good elevation to look over the rows in front, the chairs staggered with the row before, so you can see between the heads and a fair amount of leg room to stretch out or let people pass by. I have not seen it as explicit on other ships as here, but for some reason, the end of row chairs are always first occupied. And then those people then have to get up several times to let later arrivals in. I think it is to be a able to make a quick run to the toilet, or to be first out when the show ends, I have no idea. Or maybe they like the exercise of standing up and sitting down 10x in short succession. We always try to arrive a bit early, as Lesley with her proclivity for shows, likes a center view. But we are still beaten by the “end of row huggers” on many occasions.

Deck 7, walk around deck

We have now taken up a daily walk in the afternoon. In the morning there is a large contingent out there, worrying about the weight they are putting on, but we avoid that as with so many out there, it is hard to keep a regular pace, and then there are the joggers trying to overtake. The main problem here is, is that the Promenade Deck is only wide in the center at the lifeboat embarkation stations. Then goes very narrow at the bow (3 feet / 1 meter) when curving around the “Curzon” show lounge, and is also somewhat narrow (1.4. meters) when it curves around “Carmens” show lounge. In the afternoon all this people seem to disappear and one can make the rounds at a much brisker pace. 3.2 times around the deck is a mile so it works quite well to get some steps in.

Tonight was our final formal night of the 3. We brought a separate outfit for each night so tomorrow I have to try to get it all in the 3rd suitcase we brought for this occasion. Normally I do not like to travel with 3 suitcases as it is just harder to handle three at airports but as we are with the car, it does not matter too much. And dressing up is part of the fun. The ship is doing its best to get the guests out as much as possible and gave each guest a voucher for a free glass of sparking wine, I do not know what sort of sparking wine they serve but as it is on the sweet side, so we let it go. The result was that the waiters were run of their feet in the public rooms with getting as many champagne glasses out, having them washed between sittings and then ready for 2nd sitting cocktails. This was the time this cruise that I had to wait longer than 3 minutes before a waiter popped up to take our order.

For this occasion we returned to the Crowsnest as a musical trio was playing there. I was keeping an eye on the gentleman’s formal jackets as I wear different colours for each Formal night. It was heartening to see that “Male England” is also slowly moving away from the “penguin” standard. A lot of older gentlemen will be members of the “Masonics” and still have “full penguin” attire ready for use, but there is a shift.

So tonight I clocked out of about 50 male guests in the crowsnest: 4 x white, 1 x green, 1 x grey, 1 x red velvet, 1 x kilt (of an unknown Clan as the tartan was dark grey/ lighter grey and dark brownish (?) cross stripes, it came closest to the “grey Watch, but I am not sure) 1 x  dark blue. Then a large number of black jackets, but where the owner had been splashing out on a multi coloured bow tie.  (*) And then the regular plethora of lounge suites.  And ONE T shirt. This evening the ships complement did not have time to enforce the dress code and one slipped through, or overstayed  from pre cocktail time. Most British are very good at adhering to the dress code so most T shirts and shorts were tucked away in the Lido restaurant and the Pub. (People wearing shorts indoors really seem to like quizzes……..)

(*) The shops on board sell formal attire but the peculiar thing is that although they have a considerable range of multi coloured and multi patterned bow ties,  they only have Bow tie & cumberbund in Red, White, Black and Blue. I was quite interested in some of the more extravagant bow ties but without a matching cumberbund it is not worthwhile the purchase. This concessionaire, Hardings, also has the concessions on Cunard and Fred Olsen, where the Formal collection is identical. So the hunt is still on to find a cumberbund that goes with a light golden patterned bow tie that they sell. Maybe next cruise.

Dining was another experience tonight, with a special menu designed by the world famous Chef Marco Pierre White.

The festive dinner menu for tonight. Instead of Blue, it was printed in red.

He had some fancy names dishes on the menu, but I think that it did not come out of the Galley, the way it was intended. Most likely due to the speed with which everything is being served. That does not gives much chance to attention to detail.  So again it was good, but not excellent or outstanding. And we were out again after 1h. and 17 minutes.

The trio The Knights in action.

Tonight we had the show of the 3 gentlemen that had it made it to Andelsness on time, while “Blondie”did not do so. It turned out that the group called “The Knights” referred to the “knights” of singing such as Sir Elton John, Sir Tom Jones and Sir. Rod Steward, plus a few others that had been ennobled through the years. They brought a very good show and all the guests liked it. They seemed to have come from Cunard as they named the orchestra “the Royal Court Orchestra” and that is Cunard speak.

P&O does not do turn down in the evenings (except in the suites) but there are no towel animals. Except on the first formal night when this little fellow popped up.

A wise looking “P&O” schnautzer doggie. Which is partly towel and partly added things like ears, nose and eyes.

Tomorrow is our 2nd day at sea, and we are expecting the same weather, same seas and same temperatures as today.  By the early morning we should be coming closer to the British Coast and then zipped though Dover Straits by early evening and this all at a warp speed of 16 knots.

 

2026 August 16; Andalsness, Norway.

August 17, 2026 / / 7 Comments

It is about 40 NM. to sail into Romsdahl fjord via Isfjord. The ship docked at Tinderkaia and from there everything is close by for the tourist. To the lower left you can see the red (course) line out of Alesund. So the ports are not that far apart, there are just these high mountains in the way.

The ship is working its way slowly southbound again and today we are in Andalsness, As we are now used to, it rained again on arrival, and it did not change very much during the day. Rain off and on. Luckily there was no wind so it was chilly but not as cold as it could have been.  The ships dock is located where the old ferry dock used to be and the new ferry dock still is close by. Because of the old ferry connection, the train station is right across from the dock. With the train you are connected to the national rail network of Norway and travelling to Olso from here takes about 6 hrs. including one transfer. First with the regional Rauma Line, which we will partially travel this afternoon with the ships tour, then change at the end of that line (Dombas station) and then it is one other train ride to Oslo with several stops including Lillehammer, well known from the Winter Olympics fame of some years ago. A beautiful ride through the Norwegian landscape and often more reliable than the flights from the little local airport.

Andalsness. Overpowering the dock side is the Norwegian mountaineering centre with a sort of rock wall inside. To the left is the “Gondola Hus”  from where the Romsdal cable car leaves.  Just visible behind it  is the “Golden Train”, called so because the carriages are looking -gold-shiny on the outside. This is the tour train up the mountain. The Red roofed building is the regular Bus and Train station. The small town itself is further to the right.

The ship suffered from that rain and cloud as a new entertainer act was supposed to join today. A tribute act to “Blondi”, but her plane got delayed from England and once on Norwegian soil, the connecting flight to Andalsness was cancelled. So no “Blondi” show  this cruise but another “Westend” act, The Knights of Music” made it to the ship and we will find out in the coming two sea days what they will have to offer.

From the Gondola Hus a cable car (approx. 20+ people in each cabin) goes up to the top of Romdalseggen. From here you can have breath taking views of the area. Today it was mainly looking at Norwegian clouds more than anything else.

 

 

The rain did not stop our Guests, grown up with and trained in the English weather, and thus feeling right at home. As it was Sunday, the town was closed except for the Train & Bus station (with souvenir shop) and one (large) stand alone souvenir shop at the edge of the main street.  Thus most guests were on one tour or the other; up to the top of the mountain with the Gondola, or with the Golden train up the mountain, or with the bus for a 3 hours journey to the troll road (with a lot of 180o twists and turns) and the Troll-Wall, which is the highest cliff -mountain-face in Europe. Because it was Sunday, the Customs Officer who was supposed to come to the ship in the afternoon, to refund VAT charges (The UK is out of the EU) did not come and thus guests who had bought things and had VAT receipts did not get their money back.

A corner of the Medina restaurant with Moroccan tiles and tapestry on the wall.

We decided to mentally prepare ourselves for our afternoon invasion into Norway by catching up on emails with the on board wifi connection. We had bought a one device for the 12 days. you can still use it for another device, you just log on and it throws the last user off. It is very fast, unless a 1000 go on line at the same time, which happens occasionally around 1700 hrs. This time we took advantage of the “fast serving” of the dining room service by going to the open seating in the Medina Restaurant for a quick lunch. As expected it was very quick and thus we could easily make our excursion with the train on time.

The Golden Train at the Bjorli train station. This train station is 575 meters above sea level so the locomotive has quite a pull to get it all up the mountain.  The Diesel locomotive also changes position here. There are toilets (with long lines as nobody wanted to go on the train, being afraid of missing a highlight like a troll running by) but no Station Buffet,  just a pop up. – see below.

The ship had blocked 2 carriages with the other 2 also being also full but with independent travellers. Although the train carriages are new, their outside tries to make it look like a throw back to the days of Pullman carriages but the inside has a regular train layout. So if you are sitting forward facing up the mountain, then you are back facing when going down the mountain.  The only thing that changes location is the diesel train which at the end of our scenic trip “up” moved around to pull us “down” again. This happens at a train station called Bjorli, which is where the tour turns around The regular train service stops here (there are a lot of small (ski) resorts around here) and then continues to the end of the line.

The diesel locomotive changing location at Bjorli. While all railroads in Norway have been electrified, the Rauma line has not although there is more than enough electric power available in the area. The tour guide was a little vague about the why but I think that at certain locations it is just too difficult to get the supporting pylons in place. There is also a regular train travelling on these tracks, connecting Andalsness with the rest of Norway, and is also a Diesel train.

When boarding you receive a “Golden Ticket” in exchange for you tour voucher and then it is a scramble to find a seat as only 2 people can sit at the window. Through out the trip, there is a running commentary but as the narrator is sitting somewhere away from the passengers, he has never been able to update his story with questions asked by the passengers. He narrates all the main stuff, but you cannot ask a detailed question about something he does not explain. See the end of this blog.

Our “Golden Ticket”. I just felt like Charlie and the Chocolate factory when I got mine. But it is a nice souvenir.. The tour which lasts 3 hours, cost about £100,– a person. You can try and book your own, cheaper (about £65,–) but today the train was fully booked. So you would have had to do it way in advance.

The first part of the  journey up the mountain goes  by the Trollstigen, the steepest  cliff – mountain- face in Europe and the train comes quite close it, making it not so easy to take a photo. Plus today there were a lot of interfering Norwegian Clouds around and that made it even more challenging.

I lifted this photo from the Golden train website (thank you) www.thegoldentrain.com, to show what the journey is all about. This is still in the lower part of the valley, where the incline is still quite small. But it shows the Trollstigen cliff wall.

The below photo was my feeble attempt, hampered by the height of the mountain cliff is it is anywhere between 1000 to 1700 meters, so hard to get done from a train. Also the Norwegian rain clouds were not helping. The tunnel at the foot of the wall is for the regular road which also runs through the valley of the river. Apart from Norwegian cars it was mainly Dutch cars coming by,

This is this cliff wall “Trollvegfen”(it runs for quite a distance, see the photo above).

The train follows first the valley of the Rauma River and works its way up the mountain which means it crosses the river bed and then goes through a tunnel, making an 180o loop to keep the elevation of the track reasonable while going 570 meters uphill.

The valley is quite wide and thus full of small farms busy with harvesting during the short Norwegian Summer. This is a shot taken about halfway up the mountain. We saw cows and sheep but to our amazement no ducks in the clear water ponds on the sides of the river. Maybe the water is too cold for any food to grow in.

The biggest danger of living in the valley is the constant threat of avalanches. The mountains are constantly moving and thus eventually rocks come loose.  Last year they had a big one, with a large rock slide of 1.2 km.. from the top of the mountain all the way down the valley reaching river level. It made the train journeys inoperable for a quite awhile.  A house near the train line was spared as the avalanche stayed about 10 feet clear of it. Some people are lucky,

Avalanche path, left over from last year. The horizontal line in the landscape is the Rauma train line and the vertical slit under it, is a newly installed drain works to deal with the water that now comes down the newly created bare rock face path..

We made it without any mishap to the top of the mountain ridge at the station of Bjorli where we had 20 minutes to stretch our legs, visit the toilets and inspect the small museum attached to the station. This museum describes the 1940 derring- do of the Norwegian Army when they managed to get 50 tons of gold just in time out of the Norwegian Central bank in Oslo. It was taken by truck and this train to Andalsness and from there by ship to Gr. Britain; and from there to the USA. By the time they had loaded the last gold on the trucks, the German Army was marching into Oslo, hurrying to the Central Bank.

A re-creation of the way the soldiers guarded the gold while waiting for the train. Simply by sleeping on top of it. Must have been an interesting experience of sleeping in a bedroom worth billions.

My interest went more to the “station buffet” set up outside the train. All the train stations along the route are unmanned (Bookings go by an app on the phone) and thus there is no exsurberant waiting room with refreshment in Biedermeyer style or Jugendstill from the days that the stations were built.  So the train people had a “pop-up” buffet set up. And they sold a lot of coffee (40 NOK a cup)  for those who felt the need to drink coffee on top of the mountain.

The world famous Bjorli train station “pop up buffet” buffet. And being served by somebody in a train uniform.

In the mean time the diesel locomotive went to the other side, now becoming the head of the train, to pull us down the mountain again. So after getting the last guest out of the toilet, we left after 20 minutes. As we now knew what to expect it was a lot easier to be ready for taking a good photo and the Train driver also slowed down twice to make it even easier. (Slowing down while going down hill, is a lot easier than doing it going up hill).

Withso much rain and snow around, there are waterfalls everywhere, including this spectacular one cascading more than 1000 meter down hill.

So we made it back by 15.45 hrs. and were advised to visit the local souvenir shop where you could buy train souvenirs (baseball cap, handbag, and some other trinkets) and who does not listen to the Tour guide ?  The rest of the shop sold exactly the same stuff as the other souvenir shops we visited along the way. Troll, Troll, Troll. The only one I had not seen yet was a fridge magnet with a troll on a motor bike.

The cast show in the smaller venue of “Carmen’s which brings it closer to a cabaret performance.

Back on board it was time to upload yesterdays blog and to get ready  for cocktails. The Headliners were performing again in Carmen’s, and here they have drink service, so we could combine cocktails with some more culture. Tonight’s show was “Top of the Billboards”. Which turned out to be a musical journey of some of the highest scoring songs in the hit-parades. Again a great show. We have not finished the cruise yet, but if this high level quality of performance continues, then this will be the first time that we have not seen a Cast show, in a series of shows, that did not have a dip. Compliments.

Cocktail pianist Paul Cassidy, performing in Charlie’s. The doors into the cocktail venue “Andersons” are wide open, so the music also reaches in there. Same goes for the venue’s around the Atrium.

We had our second dinner in “The Beach House” but as we had to move it from last night, as it conflicted with the Captain’s “Repeater Party”, we had the same menu again. It changes here on a 3 day cycle, so we lucked out. But there was enough variation to still have a very good meal.  I also have to correct myself about my comment, why were we not offered, coffee or tea last time; it says on the menu “please ask for our coffee’s and tea’s”. Why you have to ask, I do not know but it is not volunteered. On the way down I finally managed to get a picture of our so far elusive cocktail pianist.

When arriving back in the cabin, I saw us passing Alesund pilot station again. Andelness has (or had) its own pilot station, so what was the ms Aurora doing here? Pilot or another Medivac? I do not know. Maybe we will get an announcement tomorrow navigational update. During the Captain’s repeater party, I asked one of the nurses about the patient that was disembarked in Alesund some days ago, and he reported that the person was doing fine. .

Tomorrow we have a sea day. Weather should be a lot better than today, maybe even with some sun and as we will have following winds i might be even warm enough to sit outside. As soon as the ship is clear of Alesund it will be  a straight line down from Norway, until about coming abeam of the town of HULL in England and then veer slightly towards the British Coast to follow the shipping lanes to Dover Channel.

I am posting below photo as nobody could tell me what this is for, a door in the bottom of the mountain. I saw at least 3 of them during the train ride. It does not look like that it has anything to do with Electricity generation and our Tour guide did not mention it. So my guess is a: storing equipment for keeping the roads open in the winter or b: military depots as with the terrain it is not easy to get military equipment from A to B.  Anybody any ideas ??

A mysterious door in the bottom of the hill. What secrets could it hide ?

2026 August 15; Trondheim, Norway.

August 16, 2026 / / 3 Comments

Today we are in Trondheim which lays about 40 miles inland, when counting the steamer distance from the pilot station, but it is a fairly open fjord called “Trondheim fjord” so  it does not feel as if we sailed between the high cliffs of a real fjord. The rain remained with us and only lifted briefly in the late morning. It seemed that the “Trundles” (this is what they call themselves in this province) had decided to make the best of it and had descended in great numbers on the local indoor pool located across from the cruise dock. It it called Pir Badet, which translates into something like Bath of pool at the pier. When I was here in the past one of my officers translated it into Dutch as “piere badje”. which is Dutch for very small pool. But it is not a small pool at all, it is a very big one. At the ship side, there are at least 4 wading pools and behind there is at least one 50 meter pool for regular swimming within the lines.

After evaluating the weather and the fact that we have been here so many times we decided to stay on board. We would have gone ashore if it has been dry as the town is quite nice, although similar to all the other Norwegian towns we have visited.  It is comparable to Olso and Bergen but then on a much smaller scale. This city was the first capital of Norway and it kept its importance through the ages. Founded sometime in the 11th. century it has a cathedral and an archbishop’s palace which is now a museum. And there is a music museum as well. It is Norway’s National Music museum with a collections of over 2000 musical instruments from all over the world. 2000 is a lot, but I hope they are still collecting, as there must be more than 2000 out there.

The Pir Badet at Trondheim,this is the only port in my experience of sailing to, where a cruise ships docks opposite a public swimming pool.

Being a larger place, means that there are a lot of tours available. Of course there is the Big Red Bus, always my favourite if you visit a place for the first time. Then walking tours, kayaking tours and many tours into the country. There is even something called an “Arctic Floating Tour”. Here they put you in a cold water survival suit, same as we have on the ships, and you float in the cold arctic water “enjoying a tranquil floating experience”. They offer you a cup of hot coffee afterwards, so it might not be so tranquil, but cold instead.

The ship was docked starboard side along side and we were facing the fjord side. Trondheim fjord is not a narrow fjord. Hence the wide open water. Not on the photo the yacht was too far away, was the Norwegian Royal Yacht “Norge”. There are only 3 countries left in Europe that have a Royal Yacht. Having one in Norway does make sense as it is much easier for the King to get around and into his country with all these fjords and small and remote villages located so far inland.

We were not the only ones how gave Trondheim a miss, the Horizon (Lido) was full  all morning and there was still a  line with people queuing for a hot breakfast past the closing time of 11.00 hrs.  Exe. Chefs that I sailed with always told me that there was a correlation between the amount of hot food consumed and the outside temperature. So in Alaska more “sunny side up” eggs were consumed than when in the Caribbean. Same went for coffee. If that also goes for a P&O ship then today the guests made a good dent in the egg stock on board.

” Seaside Escape”, by Suzanne Marazzi.

As a follow up to yesterday’s Paintings in the Staircase display, here is one of a few hanging in the Atrium section around the Shops. I could not find out very much about this painter, except that she was born in 1971  and thus I also could not find out why the painting is called a Seaside Escape. It looks more like “Contemplating Cocktails”, but then I am not an art expert.

The Raffles Cafe, on a photo taken from the other side of the Atrium. The above painting is hanging in the top left corner.

This painting is hanging in the Atrium opposite the shops but also at the entrance to “Raffles Bar” and lounge. Although all cabins have coffee and tea facilities (A well raised English person cannot face the day without having a cup of tea first) but a lot of guests still like to go out for a morning coffee with free cakes. It is a similar lounge as The “Grand Dutch Cafe” with Holland America or the “Carinthia” Lounge with Cunard. P&O serves “Costa Coffee” in  its lounges and it must be good as the lounge is packed all day.

The Peninsular Club Party invite. We are going up in the world.

For the evening we had another lounge to go to. We returned to Carmen’s Lounge as we were invited to the “Peninsular Club Party”, as we are proud members of the lowest Tier in the P&O repeater club. You need 15 days to get an invite and we have about 40 days, courtesy of trying all the P&O ships from Southampton (except the very big new ones). We were even on the maiden voyage of the ms Britannia which was a most “interesting” experience. So we wanted to go and see how P&O did such a party. We had heard that for this cruise the numbers were not so very high, with many guests being on their first cruise, but they will no doubt catch up in the future.

We both got a nice invite with the promise that we would be entered into a Raffle if we handed our invite in. So our expectations grew considerably. What would the Raffle be, a free cruise, a dinner for two in a Speciality Restaurant? The mind boggled at the options.

With said paper in hand we arrived at 19.50 hrs. at the entrance of the lounge (we have now learned to show up 5 minutes late at each venue after opening time so we do not have to deal with the British love for queuing and indeed the line was gone. We said hello to the captain, had a very short chat about mutual friends working for Cunard, had our picture taken (we still have to figure out how that works for buying) and then sat down to watch the proceedings.

Captain, loyalty team and longest sailing cruise guests on the dance floor for the obligatory photo. Hopefully the cruise couple with get a free copy.

After an introduction from the Loyalty Manager, the captain conducted a sort of One Man show, engaging the audience in a very good way. As mentioned before, he has excellent mic. handling skills and has a very open and gregarious personality.   I used to do the same in a more Reserved way (I am not good in telling jokes, I am better in telling stories, hence the lecturing that I do)  as I also believe that those who pay your salary are entitled to some TLC from the Master of the vessel. But I always felt that the Holland America Line Entertainment was not universally happy with this  because you stick out above the average and that makes your ship stand out.

I hope that P&O let their captains “soar” if they want to, as a captain with a bit of flair for presentation is an asset to the ship. The couple with the highest number of sailing days (2000+) came forward to receive………………. a bottle of champagne. Come on P&O can you not do a little better here. 2000 days x a per diem of £150 a day = £ 300,000 +  so you already made a lot of money from them. So a bottle of champers is a bit cheap……..

Then came the raffle, won by a couple having a cabin somewhere near the dungeons and that was also a bottle of the same champagne. For the raffle, a bottle is not bad, but somebody who has 2000+ days, should then get something better. What amazed me, and what I had not expected from my fellow British guests, was that there were several who took double the free drinks offered. Drank one glass at the party and then took the next one down to the  dining room. The mind boggles……………

If you want to you can make the “Grand Entry” in this dining room by descending down the stairs from deck 7 to deck 6. For those who are not that good in descending any more, there is a door on the side on Deck 6, so you can come down with the lifts to an even level.

The Alexandria Dining room is located under the Carmen’s show lounge. Arriving again 5 minutes after opening time, and yes the queue of eager eaters had just dissipated, we saw when walking in was that half the tables were empty at the least in the forward half of the dining room. That made the service at our table even faster than usual and within 1 hrs. and 10 minutes were were out again.

The banner for the cast show “Unbelievable”.

Then it was up to the show. We had the “Headliners Cast” again, this time with a show called “Unbelievable”. This was a combination of a regular sing and dance show interspersed with the cast doing magical acts. It turned to be very interesting. You do not have to be a David Copperfield or a Houdini to present a good magical trick. The cast members were very good at it as well.  Cast member cut in half, cast member levitating, one cast member going in a cage and six coming out.  etc. etc.

The moment the dancing girls popped out of the box after one of the singers had disappeared into it.

We have now found out that this cast has 8 shows in their repertoire and as a result they doing one every other night. Quite impressive, so we have 5 in the Main Show Lounge and at least 2 more in the smaller Carmen’s show lounge. I am very impressed. I sailed most of my life with American cast and for them it was already stressful to have 4 shows on their list, let alone to do 2 smaller ones as well. But British cast are totally different and do not seem to be phased at all by some more work.  But as this group was selected out of over 1500 applicants when doing their auditions so they cannot be bad, even if they tried to. Compliments once again. Tomorrow they will be in the Carmen’s and we will be there……….

This came on the screen. As you can see most of the audience had already ran away, before I could get this shot. Maybe those who stayed were as flabbergasted as I was.

Every main entertainer / head liner, we had had so far, was allowed to plug their own C.D’s or Music stick (sales table outside the shops)  and I was amazed that P&O would let them. Tonight I found out why. The company does it itself as well. To my utter amazement at the end of the show, a large photo popped up on screen urging the guests to buy the “Exclusive” Unbelievable P&O Magic set. Including a link to U-tube that explains exactly how each trick goes and how to do the trick.   So now I am waiting to see the Head Waiter coming on the stage to plug the Cocktail of the Day, or somebody from the shops, advising that they still have some bottles of Duty Free left……………….  The possibilities are limit less.

Tomorrow we are in Andalsnes. This town has seen cruise ships since the late 19th. century when steam powered ships started making cruises to the “Nordland”. If you see a photo of a ship of the Hamburg America Linie or from Holland America Line in a fjord, then there is a fair chance it was laying at anchor in Andalsnes. It is fairly deep into  “Isfjorden” at the edge of Romsdalsfjord. This sailing in & out goes by steep Fjord walls and that has attracted attention since a very long time. We are having a train tour tomorrow afternoon as this tour is one of the very few her ladyship has not done in her long career.  I certainly have not done it as Andalsness has always been a port where I did boat drills, as the boats are normally in the lee of the ship and thus out of the wind. So I would not be amazed if the captain does the same.

Weather tomorrow: Overcast with rain showers with a chance of dry spells. Temperatures between 8 and 12 ocC or 46o and 54oF. Chilly but not cold as there is not much wind expected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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