While Northern Europe had strong winds with tornado watches and torrential rains with flood alerts, we had “to cope” with flat calm sea’s and sunny skies. So with that happy thought on our mind we approached the pilot station early in the morning as we had to be docked by 7 am. From the pilot to the dock normally takes about 35 minutes but docking took longer this time as we had been assigned another berth. Behind us was the Adventure of the Seas who with 340 meters of length was given our normal dock as it was much longer. Continue reading

As expected it was a beautiful day at sea while we sailed around the south side of Spain from Barcelona to Cadiz. This stretch of water is called the Alboran Sea after a small island that is located slap bang in the middle of it. As soon as we were out of Barcelona we “moved with the flow”; all the traffic going in the direction of Gibraltar is basically on the same track line and creates a sort of highway at sea. In the same way as you have a motorway on land, with the difference that there is no restriction in leaving, crossing or sitting still on a sea highway. Traffic going to the harbors in the Northern part of Spain, the Southern part of France and the Northern part of Italy are in the other lane a bit more to the south. On the radar you see 20 to 30 ships nicely separated by an invisible line going one way or the other. Continue reading

In the past we had to travel through a bridge to get to our dock at the World Trade Centre. I assume because everybody got fed up with having to wait for this bridge being open all the time, they decided to give the older port area its own entrance. When the new port area was under developed it did not matter that much as hardly anybody had to go over the bridge but when the cruises ships started to dock there, the waiting times became very inconvenient. Now the ferries and the smaller cruise ships, plus the fishery traffic and the traffic for the dry docks have their own entrance, relieving the pressure on the bridge considerably. Continue reading

The weather turned out to be beautiful indeed and that made approaching Marseilles very pleasant. The wind had died off completely and the sun was shining straight over the hills making the area look very “Mediterranean”. It was an active port day as far as traffic was concerned with the Prinsendam leading the parade. We were followed by the Coral (Lois Cruise Lines) The Costa Pacifica (Costa Cruises) and the Bleu de France (latest off-shoot of Royal Caribbean to get it into the French market). For the rest there was a whole line of ferries coming in as well about an hour later. Continue reading

I had really hoped that for this port it would be a wind still day as anchoring in La Spezia with wind would have been an unpleasant challenge. Well it was. La Spezia is a big cargo and navy port. There is no real cruise terminal or a half decent cargo dock available that could be used to dock a cruise ship. Thus the authorities have decided that cruise ships should anchor and tender directly to the boulevard of La Spezia. Not a bad idea in principle. Instead of needing a shuttle or paying for a taxi, the ships tender deposits all the sightseers directly in the nicest location. For that reason an anchorage is allocated that is nearest to the tender float and out of the way of other traffic. That works fine as long as there is no wind in the port. Continue reading

The pilots had a major shuffle with getting all the ships lined up properly. I had already seen yesterday that it was going to be a busy day, so I had brought my ETA (estimated Time of Arrival) forward to ensure that I would not be delayed because of others. The only uncertainty now were the ferries who have their own schedule and just come in when ever they arrive at the port entrance. By setting the pilot time for 05.30 I was at least ahead of all the other cruise ships except the Celebrity Solstice. That ship had come in at 3 am in the morning and in order to make that time it had to race from Naples to Civitavecchia going full out. Especially as she had left an hour after us from Naples. However for that ship it is a necessity to arrive very early. With 2850 guests onboard, it takes a while to off load the luggage. If each guest has at least 2 pieces of luggage then it means that over 5700 pieces have to be off loaded. We can do about 800 pieces in 2 hours and if they do double with two shore gangs then it still takes 3.5 hours for them to be finished on time before disembarkation starts. Continue reading

Naples today was the last port of call of our cruise. Tomorrow we are in Civitavecchia where the majority of our guests will go home. Some have been onboard since Fort Lauderdale (April 30th) and some were onboard for only this one cruise. 22 guests that also boarded on April 30th. will stay with us until Amsterdam (June 19th) and some even beyond. Then there is a group onboard of 125 who embarked on 20 May and who will also stay with us until Amsterdam. This is one of the beautiful things of the Prinsendam, as no cruise is the same, you can just keep stringing the cruises together and eventually you will have made it from Antarctic all the way to the Arctic. Not a bad way to see the world from the comfort of the Elegant Explorer. Continue reading

Sailing through Steno Elafonisou turned out to be a pleasant surprise. There were a lot of ships but most of them were going with us in the same direction and we were able to overtake them as we were going full out to make up for our delayed departure from Piraeus. The only moment of excitement came when a car carrier next to us confused changing course to starboard with changing course to port and suddenly started to come in our direction. However before I could pick up the VHF and ask him what he thought he was doing, the error was obviously detected and we saw a rather fast course change to starboard. From then on all was well in the world. Opposite traffic mainly consisted of three cruise ships, the Crown Princess, the Ruby Princes, the Noordam and one small coaster. Continue reading

I have never been to Piraeus without something happening, something happening that made our schedule not work out as planned. This time it was no different. It seems that with whatever they organize, the Greeks need to create it from chaos (which is a Greek word to start with) first and then take it from there. I have now been coming with the ships to Piraeus since 1987 and every time something occurred that livened up the day. The good news was that it was a beautiful day; hardly any wind, temperatures in the mid seventies and we were docking at the pier location 3 West which is the official passenger terminal. That is the easiest one to get outside the dock area from. If you are at one of the other docks then there is bus shuttle to take you to and from the ship. That works well, but it takes time. Continue reading

Sometimes the best is saved for last and this was certainly the case this time. With the cruise slowly coming to an end, the transits of today were a big highlight of the cruise. We had sun shine all day and the thus all the sights were clearly visible, as the cruise schedule had been planned in such a way that both transits would be made during day light. For somebody who would follow the ship from a distance it would look rather strange. On departure from Sevastopol we went full ahead crossing the Black Sea. Then for the transit of the Bosporus we went slow with an average speed of 14 knots and then we cranked the Prinsendam up again to full ahead for the crossing of the Sea of Marmara; and then we went down again to 14 knots for the Dardanelles. Once clear of the strait we continued with a speed with 18 knots for an early arrival in Piraeus. To a cargo ship captain this would never make sense. Continue reading