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

Category: HAL History (page 1 of 11)

2026 August 11, Alesund, Norway.

August 12, 2026 / / 2 Comments

After a slow cruising night at sea, out of the fjord of Olden, we went back in, into the Fjord of Alesund. Although not very much inside as Alesund is located at the entrance of a fjord. Not just a fjord, but Alesund forms the entrance  to the Storjorden Fjord system, which includes the Geiranger fjord system and the Hjorund fjord. (that is the one with the steep cliffs and waterfalls).  So apart from being a port and destination in itself it is also the gateway to a lot of other destinations.  Hence there is a large pilot station just outside Alesund which provides pilots for all the (cruise) ships going in.  In the past a cruise ship would pick up the pilot at a pilot station somewhere (Bergen has a north and south pilot station and there are a lot more, like Alesund) and then keep them on board for the duration of the cruise. Through the years that became very expensive as these pilots had to be paid, as if they were working even if they were not working. So, when the ships were  docked,  the cruises were adapted so that the pilots came on for the day and then left at the end of the day. The ship would then spend the night at sea and then pick up the next pilot up the next morning. The pilots of course did not like that very much, they way too much enjoyed life on board, but their managers of course did, as they had many more pilots available for ships and did not loose any idle piloting hours.

Air photo from Alesund. This photo comes from my 2018 blog when I was there with the ms Koningsdam. The red line is the regular cruise route sailing in

This cruise the captain kept a pilot on board when travelling up the coast because of the bad weather. If the weather is too wobbly outside, the pilot cannot board and the ship cannot go in. It is very seldom that they allow a ship to sail in a few miles themselves to get into the shelter to make a lee for the pilot boat. The coast is very dangerous. I will point that out when the ship gets to Bodo. Then the option is there to get a pilot on board and keep him/her for the duration of the time when the ship is travelling in one pilotage area. That made is possible that the ms Aurora was not that much affected by the bad weather on day 2 and 3 of this cruise.

So by 0800 hrs. the ms Aurora was docked at the Alesund cruise terminal, a berth we shared with the ms Aida Nova. That ship is 180.000+ tons with 6000 guests on board so considerably larger than the ms Aurora. The most outstanding thing is that this ship has on board, is a fully operating brewery, and a Fahrrad Meister or bicycle boss as the ship carries about a 100 bicycles for tours. That gives rise to two funny observations, When I talked to the captain of another Aida ship, he explained how the brewery worked; and in the distilling process there is a critical moment, when the brew in the copper tanks has to be as motionless as possible. That gave the Brau-Meister as the only crew member on board the right to call the captain directly and ask him to slow down. change course or whatever was needed to prevent any motion.

With the Fahrrad meister is was something else, I saw this myself when in 2018 I was as Fleet Master visiting one of our ships that was docked next door in Bergen. Walking over to see how their gangway operation worked, I arrived at the moment that these 100 bikes were carried ashore. This was done by a trained crew of 10, who worked on a highly drilled system that got the 100 bikes out in 10 minutes over the gangway without hindering each other, lining them up perfectly on the dock side (60 cm. apart) and giving them a final check. When asking I found out that this routine was developed to ensure that the gangway was not blocked any longer than was absolutely necessary.  This was not just a group of crew carrying some bikes ashore, no this was a “eins, zwei, drei” drill routine, preparing for a German invasion of Bergen by bike.  I wonder if they still do this, as it was really impressive and professional to watch.

One of old Alesunds main streets. Cobbled stone and Jugend Still Houses. Courtesy of the German Emperor

 

Alesund has another German connection. Most of the town, made of wood,  burned down in January 1904. The German Emperor Wilhelm II had (as most Germans have) a deep love of the Norwegian fjords and took his yacht their often for holidays When he heard about the catastrophe  (over 10.000 people were made homeless) he sent a number of  ships full of aid. food, medicine and building materials and also specialised labour. Very quickly the whole town was rebuilt in  German Jugend Still / Art Nouveau style. As a result most of Alesund does not look like a Norwegian town at all, but a German town from around the turn of the 20th. century.  While Wilhelm II has not gone down in history as a very popular person, as he more or less started World War I, in Alesund he is very fondly remembered with a street named after him and a monument. Also when we walked into town, we saw his photo in several areas.

We decided to go ashore  in the afternoon as it was dry by then and also because we expected that most of the 6000 Germans of had returned to the ship. Alesund downtown area is not that big, so 6000 extra people make an impact.  So before we went for lunch in the Lido.  I think that the alert readers of this blog have already noticed that the food on the Aurora (and also on the other P&O ships) is not as distinctive as with other company’s.  Our visit to the Lido  at 12noon confirmed that. I am getting the impression that P&O is spending more on the entertainment which has been more than excellent so far than on  food. It is not that the food is bad, it is more the sameness and the lack of choice. The only positive thing I can say about it, it helps me from putting on too much weight. Which is a real challenge with the Lido’s of Holland America, Princess, Celebrity and to a certain extent Cunard.   No more said about it. What did amaze me, with all the British around, that there were more then enough crew members to clear tables, but here was not a single bar waiter around to sell drinks. Is there a secret that British suddenly do not enjoy a drink with lunch anymore ? Who knows.

The cruise dock is about a 10 minute walk away from the gangway, with the tour coaches, sightseeing trolleys, and local buses all lined up directly at the main bus stop just outside the Gate.  The “downtown” area of  Alesund is then right there. We first ended up in a small shopping mall which gave us the idea of the local prices; about double of the prices in an English supermarket, and then walked into the street, which there where a large number or Real Estate agents congregated. No reason to buy a house or apartment in Alesund, expensive for regular size dwellings and very expensive for the large stuff. We saw a mansion for sale, which came to £ 28 million but would have gone for about £ 5 million in the UK. But that is maybe because the UK has a lot more mansions than Norway. And then there seemed to be a lot of secondary taxes to consider as well. Let’s say you do not move here for a cheaper housing market. But then Norway is one of the richest countries in the world.

When back on board, we stepped in what I call Life On Board Surealism. We had already found out that there were officers on board who were reading my blog and up our return two gentlemen in white popped up shortly after we were back in the cabin. They were there to inquire if we were enjoying ourselves and if everything was ok. It seems that they were alerted by my remark about table cloths some days ago. So we had a good conversation and I ensured them that the Butler was doing great and the cabin stewardess was doing great as well.  As is nothing easier for a supervisor to do but to blame something on a crew member.

So I managed to get the conversation on the fact, that P&O Office (brochure, website) is very vague about what the duties of the Butler exactly were, as there is nothing on paper. The brochure even talks about an “optional butler”, whatever that is.  After I explained that other crew had spoken to me in confidence (it is amazing how fast word travels around of who you are) that one Suite Cabin on a cruise before had taken advantage of this, to the extent that other cabins were suffering (luckily the other cabins understood and banded together with the crew to make it work) a light bulb went off.

Then I said if I can ask the Butler anything, can I ask him to paint our balcony ? That got  them off the butler topic  and on to painting. And then they explained, which is the same with every  company, that there is a balcony maintenance program on board but it is very hard to get permission from the guests as they do not want have the sailors coming through the cabin. So I offered them, to do our balcony and we will be out early and work around them for the day.  Then at least they get one balcony done.That was very well received and we will now wait to see what the Staff Captain can plan.

Miss Abbie Edwards with the tribute “Adele Express” performing in the Carmen’s lounge.

Then it was time to think about cocktails. With the 3 show rooms on Deck 7, it is hard to choose where to go, but today there was a 19.15 hrs. performance by a lady who was a tribute to the singer Adele (well known from the title song “Sky-Fall” of the same named James Bond Movie). In was in the  Carmen’s lounge where there is Bar service during the show and thus we could combine both. This was an English Lady, called Abbie Edwards, who had boarded today, had never been on a cruise ship and was thrown directly into the deep. But Oh Boy, was she good. She sounded like “Adele”, could belt out the songs like Adele and even looked like Adele.  She was already booked for more P&O ships in the rest of the year, and I think P&O is on to a winner here. She was very good.

That ended just on time to make dinner. Tonight service was more relaxed again than yesterday and this time I clocked  1h. and 20 minutes.  There were Indian dishes on the menu and that made the dinner not so bland. We are dealing with an English crowd here, and the English kitchen is not known for food with a bit of a zumpf. But this way it was nice.

Then we had made sure that we made it on time to the Show Lounge (This lounge does not have Bar service, as the chairs are too close together in a cinema set-up) to see the next show. Tonight we had an Electric Harp player called Rebecca Mills.  Nice songs and she also explained how an Electric harp (called a lever harp) works. It goes a bit like a piano where you can change the length of the piano wires for the black  keys.

Mrs. Rebecca Mills in concert together with Harpo Marx.

The highlight was when she played together with Harpo Marx. Harpo was the 3rd Marx Brother who did not speak but communicated by musical instruments. She showed a recorded small Movie called “the Big Store” where he played the harp (and the cello and the violin) So she played along with him on the movie screen and it was very good, and very intriguing to watch and listen.  They do have some very good Entertainers here.

While we were in the dinning room 20.30 hrs. the captain came on the tannoy, to announce he had to go back to Alesund (we left at 18.00 hrs.) because there was a medical evacuation. So he was going back to the pilot station and do a boat transfer. As it is a slow speed run to the Lofoten (Port of Leknes) the deviation was not going to affect our arrival time. I calculated that he would be back at the pilot station around 22.30 hrs., make a lee lower the tender platform and do a quick transfer. Something must have happened as by midnight, the Aurora was just again leaving the downtown area of Alesund. I just hope the patient is ok. Hopefully there will be an announcement.

Coming back to the cabin, we found two sun glasses in the cabin for observing the eclipse of tomorrow evening. We are not inside the full eclipse band but we should see a partial one. Whether we will  see something remains to be seen, as it is expected that it will be fully overcast but hopefully I will be wrong.

 

 

2026; August 10, Olden, Norway.

August 11, 2026 / / 2 Comments

Today we are in Olden, a small town deep inside the Norwegians fjords. We are in port from 09.00 hrs. to 18.30 hrs. This is one of the towns that came to more prominence when the Norwegian Government put -cruise- docks in, in the smaller ports to boost the local economy. In the past Olden was only visited by smaller cruise ships who had to anchor. Now every large vessel can dock here and unload thousands of cruise guests. The town has not grown with the dock and the place is still mainly a stop for taking tours. It was raining today with a low cloud cover so we decided to stay on board. Readers might remember that we were here a few weeks ago with the ms Sky Princess. Then we had glorious weather and did a walk around.

This is the link if you want to read up on it. https://www.captainalbert.com/2026-july-15-olden-norway/

Main reason for the stop are the tours to Briksdal Glacier located about 20 minutes away from the ship and then there are also a number of other tours you can take. like renting a canoe or RIB boat and going to the Loen Skylift which is one of the steepest cable cars in Europe.  Lesley and I went to Briksdal glacier about 15 years ago, when she was working for Page & Moy of the UK and I was travelling with her as a spouse (much to the shock of the Greek Captain of the Ocean Majesty) and was summarly appointed  tour leader of coach nbr 1. (Navigators do not get lost………) Then the Glacier face was just behind the Visitor center but now it has retreated so far that it takes a 45 minute walk to get there from where the coach drops you at the visitor center.  Global warming is even hitting cold Norway very hard and the end is not in sight.

With the Sky Princess we were docked starboard side alongside, so we saw the fjord, Today the captain docked port side alongside and we had a good view of the Souvenir shop from our balcony.

But as you can see from the photo it does not affect the local tourist trade, yet, with all the regular options still available. The tour buses had just left, when I took this photo, and they parked right in front of the ship, where the apron is empty and now the Trolley train is standing. Not on the photo but on the far right is a white marquee where they rent out bikes and a bit further down the road there are also quad bikes for hire.  As was expected a lot of guests marched directly across the street to visit what must be one of the largest souvenir shops in Norway.  The one near downtown is also big  but it is combined with a regular clothing shop.

One thing have not mentioned yet, is that apart from Safety announcements, there are NO announcements in the cabin, it is all nicely kept in the hallways and public rooms. Thank you P&O; finally a British company that respects guests who want to sleep in. With Saga and Fred Olsen every announcement comes into the cabin and at the most un-appropriate times.  Here we have the staff captain making the arrival announcement. It is a P&O tradition that the arrival announcement is done by the bridge and not by the Cruise Director (Entertainment Manager here) and the departure announcement is done by the Captain. In between there might be an Entertainment Manager daily update or a Shore Excursion announcement , but nothing in the cabin, very civilised.

So we had breakfast in the cabin and continued exploring the ship. The ship is blessed with a large number of public rooms and nooks and crannies for sitting down, so it takes a while to get everywhere. Compared to similar ships, such as the Vista Class of HAL and the QV and QE of Cunard, this ship has a very good design for offering the guests on board a large number of locations to while away the day. Especially good for longer cruises.

Our first stop was the Gymnasium and Fitness Room. This is part of the Ocean Spa as I call it (Official name Oasis Spa and Health Club) and has an entrance on Deck 12 where the treatment rooms are located but the Gym is located a deck below and can be reached via a Spiral Staircase. But it has also its own entrance on Deck 11 and  I had not seen that yet. It turned out that it was a bit hidden between the cabin corridors near the main staircase.

The fitness area on Deck 11.

The fitness area is compact but has all the torture machines you normally would expect on a ship. The only thing that made me laugh is that the dumb bell rack is above cabins located on Deck 10. So if you are having an afternoon nap, and somebody drops a dumbbell, then there is not much of your nap left.

Anecdote: Why it made me laugh is that with my own company the captains on the Vista Class suffered from this problem as the Fitness area there is located above the bridge and captains cabin. The dumbbell impact became such of a problem, that the area had to blocked off in the afternoon when the captain had his down time. That of course impacted the service to the guests, so after much deep thought by people in the office,  the Chief Engineers were consulted whether they slept in the afternoon. The chief engineers, being tough guys, all said no we work all day, so the dumbbells were moved to the other side, above the chief engineers cabin.

Next stop Casino. They have one here, not very big and not as well attended as on the ships with predominantly Americans. But it has everything a Casino needs and on this ship it is sort of combined with Champions, the on board pub.

The Casino on board.

Champions is  a lounge that has a Pub / Sports Bar like atmosphere  and there are daily football games broadcast live. Weather permitting of course, so today there was no TV at all, let alone games, as the antenna’s are just under the rim of the blocking mountains.  This place is full all day, with the first punters arriving for a pint around 11 am. and then it continues until “Late” and I expect that might be not “late” but “early the next morning”.

The Champions Bar. The sitting area on the other side, carries along with little booths well along the ships corridor. If you look at the TV screen at the end of the Bar, there is only the test screen as there is no signal coming in, due to the mountains.

Noon time called us to the Medina Restaurant for open seating lunch and we decided on a shared table. We like those  as we always meet interesting people. The only thing I ask the Dining Room host is to make sure that those at the table already have not started eating yet. But they had it well organised, the waiter (although clearly restless) waited until the table was full. It turned out that the 2 ladies at the table had cruise experience, with one lady making 4 or 5 cruises a year. The other two, a very nice couple, where on their very first cruise and quite upset with their travel agent, as the travel agent had advised them that P&O was casual so no Formal and also no Gentle mans jacket needed. Guest services had tried to help them with a jacket but they were out of the size needed. Which suggested that more couples on board suffered from the same mishap. The gentleman was a very small man, otherwise I would have loaned him one of my jackets as I have 5 different ones with me. We suggested that upon returning home they bitterly complained to their Travel agent, as they now missed out on 3 formal nights. Food was extremely fast as usual and seems to work as a conveyor belt in the galley to make this possible. I asked for two scoops of vanilla but I got what was on the menu (one scoop vanilla / one scoop chocolate)  For the cook who does the scooping, it does not take more time to do one or the other, so it has to be with the waiter service. When I wanted to point it out, the waiter was gone already, so I left it.

The pub is named Champions and on the port side of the pub there are two boards listing “champions” in various disciplines. Varying from Lester Piggott (horse racing) to Mark Spitz (swimming) to George Foreman (boxing) to Johan Cruiff (football)

Back at the cabin, the Butler popped up, as somehow he had heard that I had been blogging about the table set-up in the cabin. We had a long and convoluted conversation but in the end it became clear that P&O has no set rules for Butler service. You just ask them what you want and they follow up.  So if we wanted a table cloth he would do that, but the routine was no table cloth if it was cold food and a table cloth (to protect the table) when it was hot food. So now we knew, no table cloth, as on the Breakfast menu there is no hot food, it is more of a continental breakfast thing.

A hot breakfast is served for the Suite Guests in the Sindhu Indian Restaurant in the morning but that closes at 09.30 on sea days and 09.00 on port days and then we are just out of bed. Getting hot breakfast in the cabin is also possible as he just gets it from the Sindhu on a serving tray, but it is not standard to have that Hot food breakfast -but there is no Sindhu-breakfast menu in the cabin, so ordering is complicated again.

But we are happy with what the regular cabin breakfast menu offers.  One has to try to keeps one’s weight down. Our Butler (without being asked)  gets us better fruit instead of the regular offering from the dining room, so we are very appreciative. We do get the dinner menu from the Alexandria Restaurant in the cabin and now we learned that we can have dinner in the cabin if we place the order on time.

So  it was arranged that we would keep everything as is, as we a not demanding people and certainly do not want to put pressure on crew members who are busy already. We have been crew members ourselves for 40+ years. This Butler duty thing is something for shore side management to follow up with, as it is them who keep sending out vague information and Mr. Anoup should not be suffering because of that.  He is doing a good job for what we ask him to do. But I think he got confused by it all as well, because when we came back from dinner, a table cloth had appeared on the table.

An un-expected surprise, a Craft Beer in the Crowsnest.

Dress code for tonight, and every port night, is Evening Casual. And everybody on board seems to understand that this means not to wear T shirts and shorts in the ship after 18.00 hrs. And it works. Gentlemen in jackets are still far and few in between and you can see that those who do wear one, also wear one at home in the evening when going out.

We went to the Crowsnest and it was full of happy drinkers again. This evening the Roving Pianist had been scheduled from 19.15 to 20.00 hrs. so it was very nice to listen to that. Apart from me loving this lounge, it has also something special: Neck-oil IPA Craft beer. A light IPA with a mild citrus taste. It is made by a brewery called Beavertown and I was gobsmacked to see it on board. P&O  are scoring BIG brownie points here. I had found this IPA for the first time last year, when entertaining Australian Friends during a visit to the Norfolk Broads (Lake area near where I live) and then never saw it again. As they also have a fair selection of Gin &Tonic available, her Ladyship had no problems with me carting her up to the promised land for a good pint.

The music stopped at 8 pm. right on time as we had a booking for “The Beach House” which is a speciality restaurant tucked away behind the Horizon Lido Restaurant on deck 12. It has a cover charge of £ 11.50  and we were advised that it was very good. So we booked.  Nice table in the window as the First sitting generated rush was already over.

The Beach House, Speciality Restaurant, aft on Lido Deck, deck 12.

Because it is attached to the very informal Lido Restaurant it is a very informal place, but it suits the menu, which has some quite unusual perks to it. Giving it a sort of Beachy Atmosphere. See below, the dpi of the upload is high enough that if you want to copy & paste it out to your laptop you can easily read the entries.

The menu of the Beach House. It is not a large card but enough for 2 visits and with some very nice dishes.

As an example, I had as a starter:  Sea Salt Pork crackling with 3 dips.  Crackling is something very English that is normally served during the Sunday Roast Lunch at home.  A bit comparable with Pork Belly but then without the fat. I have never seen this twist on something that simple but it was very nice.  Main course: Sizzler plate made up with Chicken Tinga  & Tiger prawns with Stir Fried Rice and vegetables and with flour tortillas and guacamole dip. So here we had a fusion between an Asian stir fried dish and Mexican sides. Again never seen before but again extremely good.  And the rest of the menu is similar. Known foods but re-created in a very unusual way. We thought that the cover charge was more than worth it. And when asking for plain vanilla, 3 scoops, I got that well.  So less conveyor belt and more personal service. Hence we have booked for another night. The only strange thing is they do not serve coffee or tea at the end of the dinner, but maybe the menu designer could not come up with an unusual twist for a cup of green tea.

The main show tonight was the 2nd performance of the Harmony group “Tiptronic”. Again less people in the audience than last night. I think that the cold weather is taking its toll. But those who were there enjoyed again a very good show. This time with songs from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Evergreen’s we all know, but revamped in  an harmony singing package that I have never come across.  So another good  show tonight.

A shot with my small smart phone of the show.

Tomorrow we are in Alesund. Which is basically on the other side of the mountain but as there is not a ship tunnel or a canal, the captain has to go out of the fjord, and then a bit further up go back in again. Still it is only a short distance, so the good ship Aurora trundled the 90 miles back to sea with a speed of 12 knots. On occasion the rain lifted somewhat so the guests could see some of the very beautiful scenery.  Temperatures won’t be much higher than  today, so around 13o C / 56o F  but there is a chance that the weather system has moved away far enough so that we will get some dry hours during the day. We will be together with the Aida Nova of the German / Italian (but also owned by Carnival Corporation) company Aida Cruises. 180,000 tons and a max. capacity of 6600 guests. So Alesand will be invaded tomorrow by around 7500 cruise guests not counting the crews. I hope they are ready for it.

This is a diagram from the “From the Navigator” T.V channel. Although it has no information one can see that it is a long sailing out to open sea.

 

 

 

 

2026; July 19, Review and Verdict.

July 21, 2026 / / 10 Comments

As with every review, to those who read this, this is an extremely personal review of what I think of a cruise. Some readers find me very critical but I believe that it is never without good reason and as I put a link to this website in each and every request for feed back (we all get those via an email at the end of the cruise) I hope that the cruise companies see it as positive. You can never improve your product if you do not get feedback and certainly not if that feedback has no details. Not necessary with the names and functions of the crewmember(s) but if needed with the function of the high ranking officer involved. Having a leadership function comes with responsibilities.

So  this 7 day cruise to Norway had beautiful weather with no influence of the heatwave laying over the UK. (Apologies to those for whom 90o to 100oF is not unusual but in the UK 90 – 95oF is a big deal). We did not cancel any ports, did not crash into an iceberg and did not lose anybody overboard. We had some medivacs, one by helicopter and some in the ports but that can be expected with 4000 guests on board. And we were the only ship in port in most ports.

To start: I do not like large cruise ships as it becomes more a destination in itself instead of a real ship that carries you around in good style. So the Sky Princess was too big for me. But that is personal. We had the added entertainment of the World Cup football, with the three 3 main lounges full of happy & not so happy punters, being cooped up several evenings. Princess must have made a killing with the drinks.

For the rest, this was a very good cruise. The ship is well maintained. It offered something for everybody with the caveat that you have to book everything in advance on the App, which you can download from the Play store, if you want to get the best out of it. Worthwhile, at least Lesley and I thought so, was to have the Princess Premier package. It comes with enough special restaurants (at $55,– a cover normally but you have to book the restaurant’s early on the app or try to get a booking when you first board otherwise the Premier package would not be worth it ), gratuities included, unlimited drinks (up to $20–) and a small amount for shore excursions as well. Lesley decided to up grade to it while dealing with the booking, so with our standard routine of going for cocktails and a good glass wine for dinner in the speciality restaurants, we think we broke at least even, even when we were also having drinks in the Concierge Lounge, during cocktail time,

If you like a suite, then the Princess Concierge lounge is a great bonus. It is a lot better than what you get on Cunard. It is about the same as with Holland America (except that drinks are here included from 1700 – 1900 hrs.) and on the same standard as the MSC Virtuosa Yacht Club.

The Glare:  I came to about 70% with those working on deck failing as standard, middle Hotel management scoring about 90% and the hotel staff 100%. Apart from the bridge tour, I did not come across any Deck and Engine officers so no rating there. Sr. Hotel staff participated in a lot of Games with the guests and this seems to be some sort of a signature item for Princess. I am all in favor, but do wonder if you loose on seadays about 2 hours of the 10 hours you are allowed to work, so what has to give?.  Hopefully they have more middle management to take the slack as other company’s do.

Things that impressed us:

  1. Food in the speciality restaurants. Of a very high standard but you have to pay for it of course. Steakhouse, Pizzeria, Italian, all very, very  good. Same as in the International Cafe, which is free of charge (you only have to pay for drinks), where you can get sandwiches and cakes.
  2. The medallion. I wish that every company had something like that. No searching for a door key or cruise card. Plus when you order a drink, one’s name, cabin no. and cruise package comes up  on the tablet of the waitress /waiter when being approached.  And it is nice to be recognized with Sir Albert or Capt. Albert and Lady Lesley.
  3. Embarkation in Southampton. This is the fastest we have seen in the last 10 years. 5 minutes from Taxi to Check in and 5 minutes from Check to going on board. Compliments.
  4. Places to sit, except on sea days around the Atrium, we never had problems finding at seat. Even with 3920 guests on board.
  5. Going ashore. Thanks to the medallion that goes very smooth and with 2 gangways out, there was never a long line.
  6. Disembarkation went well, with the remark that they do self -disembark also in between the regular colour tags. That showed things down, bottle neck at the gangway and on the long pier sky bridge. With guests pulling, towing  large suitcases and being in the way of  those who had put their luggage outside the cabin.
  7. Shows in the main theatre. Without any doubt, the best we have ever seen on the high seas. Even the show on the last evening, first performance ever, was pulled off without a glitch, and looked as if the cast already had several months of routine. Really, really impressive.
  8. Service in the Concierge Lounge with nibbles and soft drinks all day long.  It is on par with the Holland America Neptune Lounge and that means very high standing.

Things for improvement:

  1. Service in the restaurants.  In the three regular dining rooms it was not very personal, it felt like being on a conveyor belt with tables constantly being reset around you. The crew tried to be friendly but had not much time. Service in the speciality restaurants was slightly less speed driven but all the staff cut corners. Instead of the correct serving at the table, they all had invented short cuts, something one does not expect if there is an extra cover charge. One waitress forgot a drink for Lesley and when questioned, just announced “Oh I forgot” and did not even bother to apologise. So I had a word with the Maître.
  2. Lectures. I understand that with only 2 sea days that has to be a bit limited, but there are 3 public “theatre” lounges so there is space. I was not impressed that the lecturer was put on at times when 3/4 of the ship was still in bed or at breakfast and his second performance was moved without advances warning.  Princess must we able to do better here, as they have cruises with a lot more seadays, so they have the routine.

Compliments to:

  1. Waitress Judith, serving in the Crown Bar and in the International Cafe. Polite and friendly and always having a moment for a  personal chat.
  2. Suite concierge ladies, Anna and Dorothy, very friendly and personal. That is their job but this felt genuine. Same for the 2 bar tenders who came in, during the free drinks period 1700 – 1900, for trying to get me drunk. I appreciated the attempt and it showed that they / Princess were not shrinking away from pouring a few extra free drinks. they kept everybody well lubricated.

I did not mention our cabin steward. He did his best, but I think he was just starting, as he was often checking his “perfect cabin setup manual” to get it right, but he is not here yet. But I have high hopes as he seemed to be keen and willing.

So in short: If I will sail again on a 4000+ guest ship, then I will choose Princess. It was on the whole very pleasant to be on board.

Thank you to all my readers, who follow the blog. Our next escape is on 7 August 2026 when we will make a 12 day cruise on the ms Aurora (from 2000) , the smallest and oldest ship of P&O Cruises. https://www.pocruises.com/cruise-ships/aurora/overview

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2026; July 17, At Sea.

July 19, 2026 / / 7 Comments

And thus with an hour back, the last seaday arrived while the ship sped through a peaceful North Sea towards Southampton. The captain announced that he hoped to be docked by 07.00 hrs. but I think he will be a lot earlier as otherwise he would call down the wrath of his Chief Housekeeper very much who has to get all the luggage off so that disembarkation can start on time, which is 07.00 hrs. for the first luggage tag.  By this morning we were passing the border between Denmark and Germany, by 11.00 hrs. We passed, far away, the metropolis of Cromer (my home town is 10 times bigger than Olden) by about 19.00 hrs, we will be in the channel and around 3 am tomorrow morning we will be abeam of Nab Tower for the Southampton pilot station.  After arrival we can leave anytime being in a suite, although they have scheduled for 07.45 hrs. when our colour luggage is off,  with our own transport we do not care very much whatever time we arrive.

Wise words and a nice welcome by the Master of the vessel.

Yesterday the Concierge suddenly popped with an Invitation to visit the Bridge at 09.30 this morning. I did not ask for it, but the concierge had found out what I did in a previous life, so I got one. Lesley was more excited than I was, as since all the Carnival Corporation ship bridges are the same since 2016, there is not much different to observe. It turned out that, although Princess does not do bridge tours officially, if you write a nice letter, you might still get one and the 4 top suites seem to get it included in the cruise package.

The Navigation center of the bridge. At sea, 2 of the 4 stations are occupied. There is a navigator (2nd. or first officer) and a Co navigator (3rd officer) The main duty for the co-navigator is to answer the phone and any alarms so that the Navigator can fully concentrate  to stay on the planned track. They can swap positions if they want to have a break.

So we were all assembled by Anna and Dorothy our 2 concierges, then checked off by the Chief Security Guard and then with the Chief Guard in the lead and -not so chief- guard in the back, we were marched to the bridge. I felt like an illegal  immigrant but the ship remained secure from any threat or hi-jack. There we were received by the Captain for a short Q&A and then handed over to two deck officers for the tour. The captain then disappeared again most likely to pack his suitcases as he is going on leave tomorrow. A 3rd officer and 2nd Sr. did the tour.  The bridge tour was very well organised, we even received a flyer with the pertinent information. Then we were split into two groups and moved to each bridge wing.

To my amazement for a ship built in 2019, the Sky Princess does not have Azi-pods but regular Pitch propellors and two rudders. I wonder why.? Did they listen to an old fashioned captain or was it a budget decision ? Nobody on the bridge claimed to know.

The bridge layout is identical to the Pinnacle class ships and the new  Seabourn ships. So I can assume that the new Carnival and P&O ships are the same as well. The center navigation island has 4 chairs, + one for the quartermaster. There is  GMDSS communication console (for regular and emergency communication) behind it and then on each bridge wing there is a docking console. As the bridge wings stick out from the ship considerably, there is no glass floor as the captain can see the side of the ship without any problems. Princess has a mix of British and Italian Officers a left over from the days that P&O/Princess was one company. In the same way as Holland America has a mix of Dutch and British Officers, a left over from the days that HAL could not get enough Dutch. That problem has raised its head again in recent years as during my last visit to the Rotterdam (VII) there was a Vietnamese Lady Deck officer in the 8-12 watch.

Having two navigators on duty is not a luxury, but a necessity. Just look at this chart of the English Channel. The rules and regulations are getting are getting more complicated each day. And even an overview chart as this one, needs to be kept updated, see the white paper texts glued in.

Then it was back into the ship to see what was going on. Quizzes and games everywhere and all very well attended. With some difficulty we had found out that there was also a lecture, by a world famous actor, that I have never heard of, but when we watched it on TV it was very interesting to learn how one gets  a role, or a walk in, or  a small part.  We found him on the TV on the first seaday but his lecture was a t 09.00 in the morning so we missed it completely. The second lecture was scheduled for 13.00 hrs. in the afternoon, so we were going. Then at the last moment the Cruise Director (28 years with Princess) rescheduled it to 09.30 in the morning  so we missed it again and by 1700 hrs. on our last day it was still not on the TV. It does not seem that Princess is big on lectures but maybe they do more during cruises with more sea days, as you cannot fill all those days with Trivia and games.

Princess has nice touches of history and I liked this one, A small display next to the Guest services desk. A little commemoration of the christening of the ship. The two godmothers of the ship, Captain Kay Hire and Engineer Poppy Northcutt from Nasa who went into space several times. Very appropriate for the “SKY Princess”. (I have uploaded the full dpi of the photo, so if you want to read the text dust expand or download the photo)

We did found out that they play movies on the top deck Screen 3 times a day. Contrary to Cunard they do not hand out head phones, so everybody there has to enjoy the sound. Forest Gump was the movie of the day, to be followed by Lilo & Stitch and the place was full. In Norway you are not allowed to have noise on the outside decks (so there was not even an emergency drill. although that is legally allowed, if done with discretion. So  only on the first and last seadays there was a full day of movies. I did not see popcorn but the bars, soft ice sand and the Hamburger outlet were well attended.

We decided to have lunch in the Concierge Lounge as the small “tapas” make it easier not to get carried away with all that is on offer. Still it was hard enough as they had excellent rolls with barbecue diced chicken in a sauce I had never tasted before. So there was the temptation, but if one is tempted then there is nothing better for one’s Mental Health than to yield to temptation. So I yielded twice.

Tomorrow our cruise is coming to an end and apart from buying 2 bottles of “no Ten Tanqueray Gin” (50 % cheaper than ashore) we have not bought anything so what came out of the suitcase should fit back in. But why does it always seem to be more difficult to -repack on the ship than to pack at home ? Even following the same process step by step. I even put my wife’s formal dresses back in the bubble wrap that I use for coming out. (No wrinkles and creases due to travelling) I do it for the way back as well as it save’s me time not having to iron it all again when at home. I do most the ironing at home, my wife even admits that I am better than her, as I was a sailor all my life. Even with a ship’s laundry available at your finger tips, sometimes doing it yourself saves time and “Housekeeping  Red Tape”

That brought us to cocktail time. We had met some very interesting people on board, multi cruisers and very loyal to Princess, and they explained about things going on that are not in the daily program. or not directly. So one lady always asked for Bible Class, Princess found a Vicar somewhere, and “voila” every morning at 09.00 there was a class in the wedding chapel; and then they do put it in the program.  Maybe I should ask next time if they put a “Real Ale drinking group” together for a daily meet. Same as AA, friends of Dorothy, LHBQT (and all those other letters) and have a RADG meeting in the Take Five jazz bar which is very quiet in the mornings and also have a top secret handshake. I am mentioning Real Ale, as that was about any sort of beers missing. They had New Castle Ale on draft, but that is not the real stuff  than RADG members are looking for.  I found out that there was a veteran’s meeting, (various age groups, from WWII to The Middle East and Kosovo, I went into to pay my respects and asked) but no Masonic meeting. P&O was always great in that, there was even a period that you could not make captain if you were not in it but it is totally different from American Masonic societies so maybe that is the reason.

The final show “Spotlight Bar” first time performed on board, but we did not notice that, it was very good. (Photo courtesy Princess Cruises)

For dinner we went to Pizzeria Alfredo again as it was so very good. To our amazement it was not very busy, (1800 hrs) and also by 20.30 hrs.) it was still quiet, giving the whole Medical department (6 doctors and nurses) the chance to eat out and do some family bonding.  We went early as we  wanted to see the final cast show of the week.  We found out at the end that it was was the first performance ever, of this show, and it was very very good again. Contrary to the first evening, the show lounge was only 3/4 full, but the audience made enough noise to it being not noticeable. This show revolves around music in various bars, you can find in the city. Cocktail bars, Cuban bars, 80’s, 90’s. 2000’s it all came by with very good dancing around and on the tables. The only thing  that was missing was Billy Joel’s The Piano Man.  So in my opinion, married to a wife who knows the London West End shows by heart, Princess Cruises really lives up to the reputation of having the best in the industry.   The 3 shows this cruise were vary varied, so you have to be open to other stuff than just “Mama Mia”, but it was very good.

The “Liars Club”. we did not stay but Lesley from her cruise staff days, liked doing that game show.

Then we made a final round through the ship, and the quizzes were still going on.  Cruise Director and Cruise Staff had assembled in the midships “Princess Live” lounge for “Liars Club”. A golden oldie from the 1980’s but still fun to do.

Tomorrow we will drive home again to the promised land of Cromer Norfolk. The heatwave is nearly gone so it should be a comfortable 5 hrs. drive. After this post, one more will follow with the “Review and Verdict”.

 

 

 

 

 

2026; July 16, Stavanger Norway.

July 17, 2026 / / 8 Comments

For today one more Apartment building was added to Stavanger. Luckily for both the locals and our guests it was only one extra building.

The good ship Sky Princess arrived somewhat early at the entrance to the old port and the captain decided to swing on arrival. Which made sense, as A. it is always better to be docked nose out, so you can get away if an un-expected calamity pops up, and B. they will need the time getting back to Southampton  as it is a long run, and you cannot afford to be late as there are a lot of suitcases to off load with 4000 guests on board (3921 according to the Lady from the Loyalty Desk). Gangways were out by 10 am. and the invasion of Stavanger could start. We were the only cruise ship in port today  so the locals did not have to brace themselves too much. There are days with 3 mega liners in port that the 15000 mark is reached.

Even with one ship in port there was considerable pressure on the facilities. The tour to Lysefjorden with the Pulpit Rock was sold out and here the whole ferry is being filled up. See also next photo.

I took the chance to run ashore and have a quick look at the shop side of the Maritime Museum. I visited the exhibition in the  museum several times through the years, there are some nice models from the Norwegian America Line ships, but the exhibition is fairly static. The maritime history of Stavanger is not that elaborate, having been a sleepy fishing village until well into the 19th. century, before the herring boom and the later oil boom. For the oil boom there is the “Petroleum Museum” on the East Side of the old harbour, which well worth visiting. So the Maritime Museum focuses more on the stuff around fishing. The shop was even smaller than last time and the book section reduced to 2 small bookcases. One with new books and one with second hand books. But nothing there for me, it seems that my collection is getting too all-compassing. I was a bit startled by a question of the sales lady behind the desk. She was on a gap year and helping out here was part of her immersion in the local culture. She wanted to know why I was looking for Maritime Books I said that it looked normal to me, maritime books in a maritime museum. Her Norwegian colleague now collapsed with laughter but the lady herself remained confused even after I pointed out that there were no maritime books on Tik-Tok so I looked for hard copy’s of new maritime books that were not available in the UK. But puzzlement remained, who buys maritime books ?.  So her colleague had some work to do.

They got everybody on board  the tour catamaran but it was standing room only.

We had a tour in the afternoon so we continued our own tour around the ship. Now having a look a the Lido area or the “The Fresh Market Place”. Because of the size of the ship it is open nearly 24 hrs. a day, with breakfast rolling into lunch and lunch rolling into dinner, which is served until 22.30 hrs. They can do this as this self service restaurant is, apart from an identical port and starboard side, also split up in a forward part and an aft part.

The aft part of the Lido restaurant with the “Wake View Bar”.

So while breakfast is winding down in one section, the other section can be set up for lunch. In between the two is an extensive “Pastry Shop”  so that those who get withdrawal symptoms between meal times can still get something.  Scattered around in the area are a few more outside bars which, even in port, were well attended with the nice weather. That Lido continues on the outside, with an elaborate bar and small swimming pool wedged in between. Apart from the Piazza it is one of the most densely populated areas of the ship, where food, booze and sun come together.

“Vines” the wine bar, located on the Starboard side of Deck 7.

Around the piazza there are a few more public sections, there is a sushi bar, manned by two very friendly cooks who are absolutely not from Japan (one is from Ghana, the other from Guatemala) which you have to pre -book as it is very popular.

Bellini’s. Could not get a clear shot, as this gentleman marched in and did not want to wait a few seconds. The need for a cocktail must have been urgent

Then there are two more bars, Bellini’s which is advertised as a Champagne Bar but seems to be selling more coffee than anything else, and then on the starboard side there is  “Vines Wine Bar” and wedged in between is “Good Spirits at Sea”  a cocktail bar. All three are open from 11.00 onwards but until cocktail time they act also as seating area for those who decided to get their lunch from the “International Cafe”, open 24 hrs. a day.

We went for lunch in  the Lido this time, as I wanted Taco’s and Lesley Spaghetti Bolognese which is made fresh on the spot. Drink service was fast and attentive but then the restaurant was still mostly empty as the tours had not returned yet. We did an early lunch, as we had booked (part of our Princess Premium package) a panoramic tour called “Easy Stavanger”.  We did this tour, with another ship, about 10 years ago and now wanted to see if Stavanger had changed.

It had. A large number of apartment building had been constructed, courtesy of the money flowing in from the oil boom. roads had been upgraded and parking garages tunnelled into the rock on which Gamle Stavanger, or the old city, sits.

Some of the apartment buildings gone up in the last few years. All on land left empty for years and years before the oi came in.

Standard and compulsory stop for all the tours is at the fjord were in 1983 King Olav unveiled 3 , ten meter high replicas of Viking Swords. The sculpture is called “Swords in Rock” or “Sverd ifjell”,  and overlooks the fjord. The life size originals are in a Norwegian Museum. It commemorates the battle of Harsfjord in 872 AD which united Norway of the old days. Then Norway became part of Denmark and Sweden until independence  was managed in 1905.

The monument /sculpture of the three swords at the fjord. The authorities were busy with remodelling the bus top, so there was very little space, so we were lucky to be in the only ship in port.

Our guide was very knowledgable and took us in a very pleasant way through the Norwegian history. You do not often get them like this. He even handed out is own made time frame of Norwegian history with an explanation why the Norwegian land was empty between  542 and the early 600. In 542 there was the great meteor bursts in Siberia and the shock waves flattened most of the trees in Norway as well. So most of the population left only two return 2 generations later when the forests had restored themselves. Then there was 782 when king Charlemagne defeated and massacred  4000 soldiers of the Saxon army where the Norwegians were part of. That gave rise to the Vikings as we have heard of them, and the raids on towns and cities as far as the South of France. Apart from raids they also settled down there (Do not forget William the Conqueror from 1066 was a Viking) and they even made it as far as Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland.

Most farms have mixed land. Grass for the cows, vegetables for the markets and also cereals for bread etc.

What was also of interest was that Norway , with all its ice and rocky mountains, can supply about 80% of their town food. For this the Norwegian Government has to subsidise the small farms in the fjords but as it sits on pots of money (from the old and current oil and gas revenues) but it also has to do it, as most of the Norwegians want fresh and pesticides free vegetables and fruit. The story goes that a few “forward looking” politicians wanted to stop these Government Grants, and found themselves voted out of office. Not something politicians like, so since then it has been quiet. It is also one of the reasons that Norway is not in the European Union but has open borders and agrees to most of the international agreements.

The other large apartment building in Stavanger, if only for the day, blocking most of the view of the old town. The houses in the foreground have been built in old Stavanger style but are modern and are part of a large Marina complex.

So, with the tour we were up-to-date again with what is going in Stavanger. We will check again in a few years time. Back on board we had to get ready for the Captains Circle Party, for repeat guests. Although we are first time Princess cruisers, we had been invited because we are Platinum status based on our P&O days. When P&O and Princess split up a number of years ago,  both side recognised the other sides Day count and thus here we are. Tonight was also formal night and thus we knew that the guests at the party would be decently dressed. According to our Concierge the dress code was also enforced at the party, but it turned not to be the case, so there were still a number of guests in T shirts, shorts and Jeans.

The Officers who came on stage to support the captain with saying thank you.

We arrived 20 minutes late (partly to avoid waiting in line and partly because we were talking to other guests in the Concierge lounge) and the Loyalty manager had already started the proceedings. But there were appetisers and free drinks at the bar, so were ok. The captain did his speech and then the three highest day cruisers (between 862 and 1100) were recognised with a bottle of Prosecco  not champagne. Then  a large group of officers appeared on the stage to say thank you, followed by the most mind boggling thing I have ever seen during a repeater party.  Guests were invited to have a photo taken with the whole group on the stage. Luckily there were only 15 of them but still the whole group of officers had to stay on stage for about 20 minutes, as if they had nothing else to do.  I said to the captain when I met him I told him that was for me a call way beyond duty………………..

A new twist of have your photo taken with AN Officer, to have you photo taken with ALL the officers.

We went for dinner to the Italian restaurant Sabatini’s  for the 2nd time as the food had been so good and there were some 20:10 reservations left. The Food was very good again, the service lacklustre with all the serving staff taking short cuts while serving. (Reaching over the table, delayed serving of sparkling water, changing cutlery before the last dish was cleared away,, etc. etc.) So when the Head Waitress popped up to ask how it went, and expecting compliments, she got a listing of all my observations with the request to do some re-training or a refreshment course) She ran off and 5 minutes later there was the Maitre d’hotel to investigate my complaints. I was not complaining, no moan, moan, as it had been a good meal and I was just pointing out that I was not expecting excuses and “I am so sorry” but a promise that it would not happen again. He promised that he would do some training for the benefit of future guests. Maitre left, and the waiter pops up, apologising for his imperfect service. When I asked him what he was apologising for, he could not say, but the Maitre had told him to apologise…………………… and that was not what this was all about.   So I gave up my little bit of trying to lift Princess to a higher level of quality.

It was formal night, so we went for a photo shoot again. In the Princess Premium package we have included all the digitals of any photo shot we had, and each 3 hard copy’s of the best one.

We did not go to the show, as it was “The Trawlermen”  who had a show of a mixture of folk music and sea-shanties. I know American country music, but I do not think that English Sea-shanties should be sung with an American accent.  The 3rd show lounge Princess Viva, was full again eager guests attending the “Trivia quiz”. followed by a game show with the option to win a real Princess Notebook. In the Vista Lounge there was “family dance” going on, so we went to the Crown Bar for nightcap listening to the in house pianist which was most enjoyable.

Tomorrow we are at sea, mainly cloudy skies are expected with with the ship being at sea and going against the wind it will be a lot chillier than in the last few days, with temperatures. Being around 16oC / 61oF.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2026 July 13; Bergen, Norway.

July 14, 2026 / / 2 Comments

We did make it to the pilot station at 10.00, and saw the pilot boarding at 09.57. Always nice if you have a cabin in the midships and you recognize the sound of the pilot boat engine. I suppose that will stop when they go electric, but I do not know how good electric engines are versus diesel in bad weather. And they have a lot of that here in the dark winter. Many guests were on the balconies as it was a sunny day with no real wind and 16 knots of relative – ship generated wind- is not something that blows you from your balcony. And it is a scenic ride into town with all the posh houses on the fjords sides interspersed with some industrial activity.  Most of it linked to the North Sea oil exploration. Norway itself derives most of it power needs from White Water but it has large oil deposits and thus sells to the whole world. By 10 am. we were docked with the tranquility of the arrival being broken by announcements of the Cruise Director trying to keep everybody away from the gangway and out of the staircases. In all my years of sailing, I have never been able to figure out what is better: no announcements (so guests are not alerted to the option of going and line up at the gangway) or to make announcements and hope that the guests will listen (mostly they do not).  In port with us was my old ship the ms Maasdam now sailing for Ambassador Cruises as the ms Renaissance and serving the French Market. Later on the Hurtigruten ferry/ cruise ship the Vesteraalens came in. She is officially a mail boat and coastal ferry but a lot of the (few) cabins on board are snapped up by tourists. Especially the Germans as they are heavily focused on it.  Our ship was docked at the Jetkeviken dock, which is a container cargo dock but the regular cruise terminals are too small for a 330 meter long ship. It also means that the walk into downtown Bergen is about 10 minutes longer.

The ms Sky Princess approaching the dock. The terminal facing the sea is the one in use by the local ferries.

As expected, at least 3500 guests marched ashore, so that gave us ample opportunity to inspect and enjoy the ship.  We decided not to go ashore as after a 100+ visits or so, there is not much new to see.  On board we could see a lot more as now there was nobody milling in the way of all the public areas, even if some of them were closed. We even managed to get a free soft ice cream today. There is a complimentary stand on Deck 16 (There is also a Gelato ice cream bar on deck 7, but they charge a considerable amount for artisan Gelato) Yesterday we could not even get near, as there was a enormous pile up of little children in front of it, who were in deep focus on a triple soft ice fix.  (The way that works is, that little Johnny gets a soft ice, rejoins the line, moves through the line while eating the ice cream and is ready for the next one, when arriving at the counter again.)

The Internet Cafe on Deck 7 midships. It is somewhat hidden behind “Collections” which is the chocolate shop. the pocket book exchange is in the back. The two center computer stations have no chairs as they are meant for wheelchair users.

The next discovery was, hidden yesterday by a gaggle of guests who did not know where to go, was the Internet cafe. Complete with printer, so if you have to print out your airline tickets, you do not have to go to the front desk. Here we also found the pocket-book exchange. The ship does not have a library, according to face book, Princess cruises expects everybody to embrace the digital future. But for those who only reluctantly follow modern times, they open up one of the dining rooms for undisturbed reading. In the same way that “The Catch” by Rudi’s restaurant has a section where you can play games. It was only a small pocket book exchange, especially with having 4000 people on board but many might not have found it yet. The only other one I have discovered so far is the one our Concierge lounge but that is not accessible to most guests.

The “Celebration” candy and chocolate store. Although in port the shops were closed, 3 weary shop staff were busy refilling the shelves. Looking at the empty boxes coming out, this shop must be in high demand.

A thing that is more and more coming is the increase of candy and chocolate sales on board. Where a small candy stand was once part of the General Drugstore on board, now a small drugstore section is part of a much larger candy store. If you look at the photo, you see at the top left a read sign hanging from the ceiling: “Spend your on board credit here”. And yes this shop is ideal to get rid of any dollars still left on the account, amounts when not enough left to buy something bigger.

The “Take Five” Jazz Club lounge open everyday from 17,30 onwards.

Another quiet lounge in port is the “Take Five” jazz lounge on the port side, which has a resident Jazz band which plays every evening from 17.30 hrs. onwards. It does not suffer from the “marching crowds” on their way from one show lounge to the other, as it is wedged between  the ships theatre and the photo shop. Main reason is that less people come out of the Show lounge on the lower level and those that do seem to favour flowing / marching through the Casino, which is on the Starboard side. We have not visited  this lounge yet, as we only like old fashioned melodious jazz and are not fans of a Dizzy Gillespy “Glissando’s” going through the sound barrier.

A lonely table in the Piazza, but no goofy’s.

Then we wanted to see what the Cruise Staff did on port days so at noon time we moved to the Piazza for “Goofy Golf” only to find a lonely table but no “goofy’s'” around at all.   There was a cruise staff lady present but she was much more interested n chatting up the Sound Guy then assembling a gaggle of goofy’s to play golf.

But as there was hardly anybody there, I saw for the first time, the center piece sculpture in the lower sitting area.

A double headed bronze sculpture. Located in the lower level sitting area of the Atrium.

I can not tell what it is supposed to be as there was no name plate nearby. And that is a pity, there is a lot of art hanging around the ship but while the framed artwork in the staircases and the corridors all have name plates ( as have the photos in the cabins) the more elaborate art does not.

The art in cabin R604. A photo by a certain Greg S. depicting as shot of the house of Parliament in Budapest and an unknown painting without a description.

I am always very interested in art on board the ships, so I would love to know what this painting is called, who made it, and what it is supposed to mean. Here I can also say that Housekeeping is certainly not into art, as this painting is almost falling out of its frame as the glue around the edges has dried out. But checking that does not seem to be of “perfect cabin set-up” that most ships have.  (Princess has one, as I saw a new cabin steward checking his manual of where the toilet brush should stand. (Left of the toilet when looking in)

We decided to have cocktails on the balcony as it was a very pleasant temperature outside and if you pay for a balcony then you should use it when possible. Our cabin is entitled to canape’s before dinner and what I like is that you have to pre-order them the day before with a sort of Room-Service menu so you can choose out of 5 or  so options. It certainly saves wastage in case people are not in the cabin to eat them, or do not like them.

Then it was time for dinner and as part of our package we had “The Catch” by Rudi included.  We know Rudi Sodamin for a long time. My wife sailed with him in the 1980’s when he was sous chef on the Vistafjord and then for years he was involved with Holland America. That eventually led him to get married to a very rich Dutch Lady that he met during a ms Rotterdam world cruise and with whom he is now living in Monte Carlo. Now he has the “Sel de Mer” restaurants on the Holland America Line ships, “Rudi’s Sea Grill” on the Carnival Ships and “The Catch by Rudi” on the Princess ships.

The menu of “The Catch by Rudi’s” restaurant. The restaurant lay-out is nothing special and I could not get a photo of it, without anybody in it, as nowadays it is so difficult to take photos, especially if there are children in it.

The food was very good, with large portions (The jumbo shrimp looked like the size of a small lobster) and a nice wine list. Service was good, friendly but not very focused, as with the continuous resetting of the tables, it is just a restaurant like the others albeit, with a dedicated menu. Sel de Mer on Holland America started out as a real speciality restaurant with high quality waiters and then it was slowly but steadily was watered down with not so highly trained stewards and having too many guests at the same time for the waiters to serve properly. Here there was no shortage of waiters but they had to keep the pace going to keep it all under control. According  to repeat guests, Princess has been squeezing here  on the product with one full main course removed and the champagne served at the start “watered” down as it used to be in bigger glasses with fruit in the champagne.

This got us through to 22.00 hrs. so we had to skip the show which started at 21.30 hrs. This evening it was an acrobat duo, and her Ladyship prefers shows, so all was well in the world.  When coming back to the cabin, we had another surprise, the TV popped on and showed both our Mugshots on the screen as welcome back. I assume again due to his medallion sending out a signal ahead of our approach.

People who are vain, must love this product as one’s face keeps popping up everywhere.

Tomorrow we are in Skjolden in Sognefjord. And that is a new port for us. It used to be frequented by smaller cruise ships but in 2018 they put in a dock and now the big boys are calling as well. I am looking forward to see how a small town can be engulfed by 4000 invading tourists.

Weather for tomorrow:  Clear Skies, wind still (we are in fjord with steep cliffs on either side) and temperatures with a max. of 27oC / 80oF. so it should be very pleasant to walk to “downtown”.

 

 

 

2026 May 28; Rotterdam, Netherlands.

May 29, 2026 / / 3 Comments

So today we were in Rotterdam and came across a bit of weird MSC organisation. We were supposed to dock at 07.00 hrs. but the clearance announcement only came at 09.00 hrs. So why ? It turned out that when the ship is cleared early they only make the arrival announcement in the public area and not in the passenger corridors.  According to the concierge desk this is, so the childeren are not woken up too early. But they do not update the daily program on your App, that just gives the official arrival time.

We docked with the bow inwards, which meant the ship will swing on departure. In the distance we can see “De Hef” a bridge which in the old days used to go up and down. Now they have added a new crossing under it. Just visible behind the tall black tower is “Het Poort Gebouw” or the “Gatehouse” that was the office of the HAL between 1889 and 1901. Then they moved to the Wilhelmina Kade where we are docked now.

So if we had gone to the gangway at 07.00 hrs. we would have to have to wait another 20 minutes while they connected the gangaway etc.  But if you patiently waited for the announcement then you would have gone ashore 2 hours late. So we are slowly finding out that the organisation for the whole setup is not that perfect. According to the website we are asked to vacate the cabin by 08.00 hrs. on disembarkation day, according to the concierge desk it is 07.30. When we pointed out the difference, the concierge desk said: you are reading the general information, “We are the Yacht Club, we do things differently, you have to wait until you get the disembarkation paper work in your cabin during the last day”.  Which now seem to mean we have to get out of the cabin earlier than company policy. So we will see. When we asked why so early, as embarkation for the next cruise only starts around noon time, the initial answer was “we want to have the cabins ready by 10 am. “…….. Ok, if so, then why do we have to wait on the ship to 13.00 hrs, before the Yacht Club cabins are ready. Then they backtracked and started waffling.  The background behind all of this, is that there is simply not enough crew on board, to do the cleaning of the cabins, do the luggage and provide a regular cruise experience on disembarkation day. So they tweak the schedule around it and hope you do not notice.  Does it affect the enjoyment of the cruise, not really. Is it irritating when things do not make sense, yes.

On Deck 16 – 18 and 19 aft are the childrens and sports areas. The ship has a 2 level sports court on the portside for football, basketball and volleyball.

So we had Rotterdam to day, and our main plan was to go to the Migration Museum in Rotterdam, that opened last year in the Fenix building.

This is a sculpture located in the Yacht Club Lounge. In quite a few nooks and corners of the ship, this more of this sort of art tucked away.

The ship has a musical theme as the red thread in the lay-out although it is very subdued. Each deck is named after a composer, our deck 16 is named after the french composer Debussy, and there is a portrait of each composer on his own deck. (There is no female composer selected, only the very big names) Then the decoration in the cabins has a musical theme and here and there in the ship is a bit of art that has a connection to music. Then there is a series of silver sculptures scattered around the ship but here there are  no tags with them to explain what they mean. In the Tropic pool are a number of tropical animals to highlight the tropical character but that is about it. MSC policy is obviously not about enrichment as such, more about actiivities and non stop fun.

Lunch on board with todays specialities. Standard there is always Ceasar Salad, A hamburger or spaghetti.

After a nice and quiet lunch in the Yacht Club restaurant, we walked off the ship, went around the Holland America old head office, now Hotel New York to the Fenix building. There is now a bridge from the Wilhelmina Kade to the south side of the Rijnhaven, which in the old days used to dock the Holland America cargo ships. The Fenix is a complex that in the grey mists of time used to be the cargo sheds of Holland America from when they opened a service to the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba and also to the west coast of North America. Around 1926  they built a new Warehouse called “San Francisco”. At that time the largest shipping /storage warehouse in the world. It went through several transformations when the traditional Liner service of Holland America faded away and has now been re-opened with this museum and next to it a  multi functional meeting place called “Het Plein”. (vilage square as in meeting place or The Common in english) It is only a 10 minute walk from the ship by crossing the pedestrian/walking bridge in front of Hotel New York.

This is an artist impression of the Fenix, witb on the top the silver “Tornedo” which is a look out post for very nice views over the port. (Google photo from the internnt, owner unknown)

It opened in May 2025. I had heard both positive and negative comments about the place, so we decided to have a look. Once we arrived we first went to the top deck. To have a look at  the msc Virtuosa and the port suroundings. Although the museum had more than a half a million visitors in its first year it was very quiet today.

The Silver Helix, or Tornedo, runs up through the building from the entrance to the top floor. You can walk or take the lift.

From here we had indeed a wonderful view  and it also gave an impression of how big the MSC Virtuosa is. During the heydays of HAL, 3 passengers ship would dock where there is now only space for one mega liner.

The Wilhelminakade. You can see the stern of the msc Virtuosa, the tall tower of the Harbour masters office; then the old Holland America head office, now Hotel New York and then to the right, the new Holland America Office which houses HR, Europe Sales and Purchasing. The yellow boats are the Water Taxi’s that run a regular service through the city part of the port of Rotterdam. Behind there is now a pedestrian and bikers bridge, where once was open water for the cargo ships to sail through to go to their docks.

That kept us busy for about 2 hours. It is not an emigration / immigration museum as such, like a museum that tells the whole routine from Rotterdam to the New York. For that you are better off in the” Emigranten Museum” in Bremerhaven which gives a much better intrepretation.

The photo section of the museum with photos of refugees, migrants and immigrants from all over the world. It is all about leaving people behind and saying good bye. There are only a few photos from the Emigration Days from Rotterdam. And to my amazement also nothing about the period 1945 – 1952 when The Netherlands and Indonesia split up and a lot of Dutch and Indo Dutch had to leave their roots behind.

It shows more of a worldwide issue of humans having to leave their place of birth, due to displacement by war, famine , genocide etc.etc.  Then the other 3 sections are giving over to artists interpretation of how travel took place and the stories of individual migrants with their experiences.

This is the Art part of the museum. The bus on the left is an artist interpretation of a bus in New York used by migrants when going to work etc. Inside there are life size pupets symbolzing the various cultures and races that form the melting pot. Please note the very strong concrete ceiling from the days that tons of cargo were stored here, before being loaded onto the ships.

It was quite interesting but I missed the connecting story with it all, there are flyers, there are little pedestals with text, you can buy a photo book but I did not get a holistic feeling of full absorbtion when taking it all in. For 18 euros a head the price is not that bad but I did not get a kick out of it, and found even some photos wrongly labelled. At least those that I recognized and had to do with emigration of the old Ocean Liner Days.

So it was back to the shp, for cocktails and dinner, followed by the show. Which was a very “high octaine” dance show. There was a lot of modern music in there, not my interest as such, but I can give only compliments to the dance team. They were VERY VERY good.

Tonights show. with light and sound effects, including fake fireworks.

Tonight was also White Night. We had heard about it on the grape vine but the website did not give any indication if it was going or not. So Lesley did a chat on the MSC website and the answer was yes. Hence we made sure we had an all-white outfit with us, including shoes etc. When the cruise started, the announcement popped up for the first evening on the App, then disappeared again, and then re-surfaced for Rotterdam day.

We tried to find out from The concierge desk how it worked with these special nights as the first night was switched to 60’s, 70s’ and 80’s. and we did not know about that either. I overheard a lady in the ship complaining about that as otherwise she would have brought her “Abba Dress”. Also MSC seems to do formals on the longer cruises. According to the Concierge team, it is not policy to announce these nights pre cruise, because it is decided on board. So you have to take your formals with you and then hope for the best. But if you fly in, then it would help to know, for packing and staying under the suitcase weight.  The mind boggles.

The Cruise staff lining up to start the party. They kept going for a good 30 minutes and then invited everybody to join them downstairs. But with 6000 party goers downstairs already, none of us followed.

But we were prepared for White Night which was late evening in the ship with a “warming up” party in the MSC Yachtclub Sun Deck and Bar, what is normally the day sunning area.  So after dinner we went up and there was a group of the cruise staff giving a little show and then got everybody going with a sort of line dancing.   It was nothing compared to the Azamara White Night but it was still very enjoyable, and I think the best they can do on such a large ship.

They did get the party going and many of the Yacht Club guests joined in. Even some of the butlers hopped into the fray while the rest of them kept the glasses full.

Then it was time to turn in as tomorrow we have a full sea day, with lots of things to see and to try and figure out how disembarkation will work. As so far there has been nothing on the App. and nothing on the TV.

So tomorrow we are all day at sea. And we will be going at a very slow speed. Weather, mainly overcast and hazy, but with a nice temperature fo 24oC / low seventies.

2026 May 27; Zeebrugge, Belgium.

May 28, 2026 / / 1 Comment

This is a cruise of short distances and even slower travel as we hopped from Cherbourg to  Zeebrugge. We arrived at 09.00 and that meant that the ship has been travelling on a “two engine” speed which on most ships produce a speed of maximum 16 knots, often a little bit less. Understandable with the current high fuel prices and the also understandable reluctance of the cruise company’s to levy a oil-surcharge  on top of the ticket price. That was done several times in the past, first time during the oil crises of 1973 and the results were mixed.  Passengers (this was before the general term of “guests” came into use) did not like it of course and one or two company’s were even accused of increasing their profit margin by doing it. Holland America laid up two ships in that period, the Veendam and Volendam and could barely keep the other three, the new Prinsendam, Rotterdam and Statendam in service.

Not much of that so far, but saving fuel by adapting the cruise schedule is now a standard part of designing cruises. Hence with these sort of short cruises in Europe, you are stuck with all the same ports,  ports that are close enough for an overnight slow sail. Hence  we are visiting the same ports over and over again, when choosing a 5 or 7 day cruise from Southampton. They could do ports further away, having 2 days at sea, with 2 or 3 ports and then 2 days back, but those do not sell very well as guests mostly buy their cruises based on the number of ports visited.  There are not enough guests out there, who like sea days to fill at sea and thus we do we 3 ports in this cruise and one day at sea. And with 6200 guests milling around, we need the ports to have some space to walk around and see the ship itself.

This is a stock photo with other cruise ships but the current lay-out is still the same. In the big open area next to the ships is a large cruise terminal, for 2 ships, is expected to be built in the future.

And today we had that space as large numbers went ashore after the ship had docked at 09.00 hrs. Zeebrugge still does not have a cruise terminal as in the winter, and on no-cruise ship days, the dock is used for cargo and container operations. Thus there is the compulsory shuttle to the gate as you are not allowed to walk over the dock, or the shuttle to the coastal town of Blankenbergen (11 pounds a ticket) which is a nice little sea-side resort and from where you can take the train to Bruges. There was a plan to start working on a cruise terminal in August 2025, with completion in 2027, but nothing has happened yet. So today, the MSC Virtuosa and the NCL Norwegian Sky, still docked at the cargo pier. Nothing wrong (apart from havinvg to wait for the port shuttle)  as the dock is wide enough to park all the needed busses nicely in a row near the gangway, without interfering with the regular shuttle service.  We decided not to go ashore, due to the expected temperatures today.  Which in the end was a lot more pleasant than the weather guru’s had predicted. Had it been overcast and somewhat cooler, we would have taken the tram called “The Lijn” along the Belgian coast. The whole area here is completely built up with 2nd homes / apartment buildings and during summer time a hive of holiday activity as nearly all apartment buildings have bars, restaurants and small shops on the ground floor. A tram ticket costs 3,– euro for 60 minutes and that already takes you half way up the coast.  It can act as a sort of hop-on-hop off bus without the official designation.

The “Coastal Tram” running along the whole of the Belgium coast. Very worthwhile to do.

We went to inspect the Spa facilties first, with mixed feelings, as with 6200 people on board, one would expect it to be busy all the time. But when we got there it was completely empty. And that was a good thing as it is very small for the size of the ship. There are 20 treatment rooms, hairdressing for men and women, nail bars and everything else but the part with the bubble pool, steam rooms, sauna’s and relaxation area’s for those who do not buy treatments is very small. But we were there by 10 am. and it did not get busy until well after 11 am. The centre bubble bath (I call it that way as it is bigger than a Jaccuzi) was very good, but built for an average size person. Anybody in the lower 5 feet class of height, will have a challenge getting out of it as there are no steps.

The bubble pool, showers and steam rooms, open to the yachtclub clients or payable for the rest of the ship for high price.

So we enjoyed that, but Lesley found that the maintenance in the showers (one not working) and the  shower gel and shampoo would hardly come out . I had expected to have a small centrifuge (spinner) in the dressing room to dry my swimming trunks but that was not there either. For a 6000 capacity it is really far too small.

Ceiling cover today, resembling sky lights in a mansion or old shopping mall.

Then it was time for another walk through the ship, now to see what was going for entertainment while the majority was ashore. There were still a large number of guests on board and the Quizzes were in full swing. I have not been to the kids area yet (it comes with a complete basket ball court) so that is for tomorrow.  The ceiling had changed color again and resembled now some sort of blue skies with a building ceiling.

Apart from having all sorts of gaming  in the sports and youth area, there is also the official kiddies club, called Do-Re-Mi  with MSC. At noon time about 60 of them had been “marched” into a section of the Lido restaurant where they had their own buffet to enjoy lunch. I counted 8 minders on 60 kids so not a bad average. And they were needed as it took some major organizing to get them all lined up behind their own lunch plate.

The Do-Re-Mi-MSC  Club having lunch. Apologies for the quality of the photo but I was not allowed to take pictures any closer for privacy reasons.

Those guests not at lunch were mostly in the pool again. On the first day I posted the open pool, the photo below shows the 2nd pool which is under a magrodome. It is called the Tropic Pool (and Bar) and is much smaller than the outside one. But it follows the same pattern as with the large ships of Celebrity which also have this setup. Big pool outside, smaller pool inside, but next to each other. The forward wall is a “water curtain” wall on which streaming water helps with keeping the temperature down.

The Tropic Pool with Waterwall.

Then it was time for lunch in the yachtclub. We looked at the Lido restaurant which was not that busy at 12.30 but if one can get service with a smile instead of a frown from behind the counter then the choice is not so difficult. As mentioned yesterday, the menus in the Yacht Club are a sort of upscale variation of those in the regular restaurants but it come with drinks included and butlers & waiters that have time for a chat. Today most Yacht Club guests were ashore, or were on the sun on Deck 19 at our own sun deck (with bar and lunch buffet) so we had 4 waiters hovering around our table. They have now no figured out what we did in our previous lives, so they all want to talk.

The Yacht Club dining room. A nice atmosphere and service quality is comparable to Azamara and Scenic.

For us the sport is to figure out where they all come from. It seems that every one is from a different nation. It is not mentioned on their name tags, so we have to deduct it from their first name and the sort of langugages that they speak (those flags are on the name tag). Today we figured out that Nelson Fernandez, who spoke, apart from English, Portoguese and Spanish, must have come from Brazil. Fernandez can be mexican or spanish but  normally they do not speak Portpguese and a first name like Nelson you normally do not find on the Iberian Peninsula, but is not unusual in Brazil. So he was suitably impressed. Then we have a Philipina Lady who listens to the wonderful name of Safety Lin, so she has to go through life with the nickname “Safety First”.

Not missing a single oportunity to make money, the photographers were in attendance to eternalise your movie attendance with a photo (11 pounds)

By 16.00 hrs. we had to be in the Showroom (called Le Grand Theatre) for a full show of the musical Dirty Dancing. These shows are free but you have to pre book on the App  (*) This 4 pm. performance was the full musical lasting from 16.00 hrs .to 17.45 hrs. and was then repeated in the evening twice with 45 minute versions of the high lights of the show. Lesley booked upon boarding (when you booking App gets activated) and the next day it was fully booked. Only to find out that when the show started, the theatre was only 2/3 full. It seems that guests booked all they “might” want to do and then just not show up. The crew running the entry system seems to be used to that as about 5 minutes for the start, guests who had not booked where let in.  The negative part of having so many guests on board is that there is very little respect for rules. When the show started, the access doors were closed but they were constantly pried open and guests continued to walk in. Lesley enjoyed the show but I did not like the combination of the full movie running on the screen and the cast + ships band performing in front of it, performing  along with the movie.

(*) While writing todays blog I just found out that when you are in the Yacht Club you do not have to prebook the shows. There is always enough room in the cordoned off Yacht Club area and the Butler will take you down and by passes the entry scanning. We were supposed to have been told that during embarkation. When taken on board we were directed by the Butler to the Day-lounge and the official routine was (supposedly) that we would have an introduction to the Yacht Club routines by somebody. But that did not happen. We read the website from front to back but there are no Yacht Club details on it, for what you exactly get as perks and what extra service and routines you are giving. Just a more or less generic listing.  So that is the first “dent” we have found into the so far faultless service.

The Yacht Club Bar, where the bar tenders knows after one day what you like, so you have to be fast when you want to try something else.

So I managed to slip out without upsetting the audience and went for a drink in the Yacht Club Bar, which was nearly empty. The Butlers were busy, so a lot of Club guests must have been sitting on their own balconies and made good use of the Butler perk that comes with it.

The Ukrainian duo “Velvet” performing every evening, all evening, in the Yacht Club. They wear a different colored costume and hat every night.

We were back again in the Bar by 19.00 hrs. for cocktails as there is always space and there is constant music. A piano player plays for 30 minutes and then we got a duo called Velvet who plays for 45 minutes, and then it rotates again. Also there is nearly constant music in the ship, which I like as on most ships in runs in conjunction with 1st. of 2nd sitting with large gaps in between, so you have to adapt to the ship schedule, instead of the ship being their for your convinience.  I had a little chat with the Velvet duo as I needed permission to post their above photo and it turned out that they were from the Ukraine, They were stuck with constant sailing, as at the moment they could not get home anymore because they did not know if they would be able to get out on time for their next contract. So they went from ship assignment to ship assignment with short holidays in Greece, where somebody let them use a house as long as they looked after the cats. (Quite a few of them supposedly) ………………………………………and that brought the war close to home again.

In the ship the regular 6000 guests marched up and down the central aisle again and still the expensive shops were avoided to a large extent.

This is the Grand Entrance to the “Luxury Plaza” with the expensive shops. Leather Goods, Clothing and Jewellery.  These shops  might work during the American Winter season but it does not looks like it that it works with the current crowd. On the English coast having a much larger pub would have produced more revenue. (There is a English pub on board called Masters of the Sea with a large choice of craft beer and restaurant side for Pub food)

There was a final quiz going on, before several sections of the ship were given over to late night Disco.  One area with Silent Disco and two other venue’s with a live band. We did not wait to see how it would be with the crowds of 6000 on board but it must have been busy.

There is no library on board  but today we found the pocket book exchange. A few shelves near the Future Cruise desks. (That is the most quiet area on board as it does not seem to be very busy with eager bookers so far but that might change on the last day of the cruise which is a sea day)  As one can see from the scant number of books, there does not seem too many eager readers on board either.

The MSC Virtuosa book exchange.

Tomorrow we are in Rotterdam, which is only a very short distance away, so a slow speed to keep the fuel costs down. Weather for tomorrow: Highest temperatures in the late afternoon of 26oC / 79F and sunny all day. That is lower than the predicted (34oC) and that is good as we go ashore to see the Fenix emigration museum located nearby.

Another a small thing that is irritating is the day long storage of the cabin steward trolley. Even when they are not working. They leave it out, because their locker is so small and thus only store it away during the night hours. Apart from this not being “high quality service” it is also illegal, to leave storage in a ships corridor when it is not attended.. No wheelchair will fit through this hole and it is an escape route from the Yachh Club Lounge,

 

 

 

 

Day 08, 22 April 2026, Southampton, Final Verdict

April 29, 2026 / / 8 Comments

The good ship Borealis safely docked at 05.15 hrs. in the morning, to be in time to get the longshoremen on board for the luggage offloading. They almost managed that on the time that Fred Olsen had planned, so it was only with a small delay that the Self-Disembark could leave followed by the color coded tags. And we were off by 08.15 hrs.  The only hurdle was for the early disembarkers; that it was Self Disembark on the paperwork but the Cruise Director called it “Priority Disembark” so half the people who were waiting  for the announcement “Self Disembark” were, understandably confused and did not directly leave.

We were not confused but then we had our regular lable sequence. By 08.45 we were back at the Hotel to collect the car and shortly after we were on the road.

So what is the final verdict for this cruise. We sailed with this ship before and then we had the Penthouse (1 of the 4 on board). Based on that experience, the only thing that was less than before was the stewardess cabin service. For the rest the product is very consistent and for 4 Star very good.

The”glare” test that I do on every ship was high with a “97%”. Some ships make the 100% (Azamara) some go well below (Cunard).

So there are the Pro’s and Con’s of this cruise.

Pros:
1. Nice spacious ship, the space ratio is close to 40 for an HAL – R class ship (1304 pax) and with about 1040 guests on board, there was even more space to walk around and find a seat in the public spaces.
2. Very friendly crew. The “Glare” applied gave a score of 97%, with only one hotel officer, one hotel crew, one deck sailor and one engineer failing to smile and be friendly.
3. Drinks included during lunch and dinner.
4. Dining room open every day, also in port.
5. Proper Captains welcome, and farewell party with drinks and appetizers.
6. “Repeater party” with drinks, appetizers, speech by the Captain. This cruise there were 741 repeat guests on board (or 71% of the total on board) with the majority having done around 100 days. The top scorers this cruise were a couple with 1200+ days.
7. Restoration of the Pizzeria on Deck 9.

Cons:
1. Operational let down with the shuttle service “to nowhere” in the port of La Pallice, while the company website advised that there would a free shuttle to the center of the nearest town, if the distance to the town is more than a mile. So no compliance by shipboard with company cruise contract.
2. Changing formal from the 2nd seaday to the next port day, against the promise on the website which is part of the cruise contract Only mentioning “Operational Reasons” is not the way to treat the guests who pay your salary. So no compliance with company rules and no explanation.
3. The degradation of the atmosphere of the Colours and Taste restaurant where table cloths have disappeared and people walking by can now do “window shopping” as the large windows into the corridor have no curtains. It reminded me of facilities available in a certain part of Amsterdam, except here you can see “guests in their natural environment eating”.  However the Hotel Director said that more paintings and curtains were coming in next dry dock, sometime in 2027. Why that has to be done in dry dock I do not know, as it is a job well within the capabilities of the ships carpenters. But then every company has it own routines.
4. Lectures were not posted on the TV. We found several from the cruise before (only to be removed 2 days into the cruise) but none of this cruise. And this cruise it was even more important than normal as with the work going on in the show lounge, the lectures were moved to the Auditorium (movie theatre) which seats on 299 instead of the 752 of the show lounge. Somehow ships staff was not aware of the guiding principle of “Leadership is the Management of change”.
5. Free Laundry or reduced laundry price vouchers. We did not get them. When enquiring at the Front Desk it turned out that a “voucher” is not a voucher as in paper voucher but an automatically applied discount by the Laundry Master when sending down the laundry. For the penthouses, it is free laundry, for the big suites, 10%. Why do we need the confusion as this can be so easily explained beforehand.
6. No meet and greet from cabin stewardess on arrival. When we finally met her 3 days later, the excuse was that WE were not there, when she came to our cabin. Correct she came to our cabin at 19.00  hrs. and that was cocktail time. But we were in the cabin all afternoon unpacking, and that is when meet-and-greet normally takes place. Previous visit, when we had one of the 4 penthouses and the time when we were on one of the lower decks, the stewardess was also waiting for our arrival (and as a – penthouse- bonus even the chief house keeper popped up). We also found many mistakes of incomplete cabin service this cruise so not impressed. There was something missing every day.
7. 2nd formal evening moved to a port day, for no apparent reason, except “operational reasons” cited by the ship. The Fred Olsen website states that it should have been on the 2nd sea day but the ship moved it to the next port day which was a tender port with a late departure. During the HD’s table, we asked the Asst HD and he claimed that this “had always been planned this way”. Very strange because:

a. The Fred website listed differently.

b. Guest Services Desk and Dining room knew that it had been changed recently, although they were not told why.

Can somebody teach this AHD and the rest of the ships staff that honesty and transparency works better than obfuscation ?

Fred Olsen Cruises is a typical British Product (which includes Ireland in this case) and thus one sees very few non British, unless attached to a British person like me to my British wife. Would it be a good product for North Americans:, yes  but it helps if you like Great Britain, like to dress up, like cocktail time, and are aware what “bangers and mash” is.

Our next cruise is at the end of May 2026, and will be a 5 day investigation of the MSC Virtuosa. We do not like big and noisy ships but they have the “Yacht Club” cabins with its own bar and dining room, where you can retreat to when the rest of the ship becomes too much. We have never done an MSC cruise but as the ship leaves from Southampton,  why not ???

Dear Readers, hopefully you will joins us again, even if my observations are not always “politically correct”.

 

A final nice touch, as least for shippy people. Fred Olsen ships always had a bronze bow figure. If a ship left the company, then the figure was taken off and stored in the garden of the Olsen house on the Oslofjord until it was needed again. With the Borealis and Bolette it does not look good to put one on the bow, so they have one on the Aft Lido Deck. I still have to find out from which ship this one once came.

 

Day 07: 21 April 2026, Cherbourg, France.

April 26, 2026 / / 5 Comments

The Cruise Terminal which now houses the Cruise ship terminal and the Cite de La Mer, the under water museum.

Cherbourg is a famous port that became world wide known when the Ocean Liners to the new world started calling here. And company’s such as White Star Line (Including the Titanic which did call here, once), Cunard, French Line, United States Line, Hapag-Lloyd etc. made sure that Cherbourg became a household name. Until around 1969, Cherbourg was an important port of departure for French and Austrian passengers travelling to New York. Visits by ships such as the United States, the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, etc.etc. often made local and national headlines. Holland America never called here until the cruise era started. HAL ships called at the Boulogne Sur Mer anchorage before the 2nd World War and went to Le Havre after the war. It was only when HAL started cruising in Europe again in the mid 1990’s that Cherbourg became part of the cruise schedules. Sometimes as a scheduled port of call but more often as an alternative for St. Peter Port when the wind at the anchorage prohibited the ship from staying there. Cherbourg was very well ready for that event. The routine was that a ships Captain had to go and have a look at the anchorage to see if a tender service was possible, unless the Harbour Master had already closed the port. The latter was the easiest because we could then sail straight on to Cherbourg which is about 40 NM away from St. Peter Port. If the weather was on the edge of possibilities, then the idea was to arrive at sunrise. The Captain would then take a look at the swell and say yes or no. If it was no, then with the good help of the Harbourmaster and his team in Cherbourg we could be docked with gangway out by 10.00, giving the guests a still a  full day. Even when not in the port schedule, those 3 hours sailing between the ports gave the locals enough time to set up the dock, arrange for tours and for the shuttle service into down town.

A display in the building showing the departures in the Trans Atlantic days.

I remember that it was standard, at least for my  ship, to ask those who made this quick follow up possible to be invited for lunch on board, which was always appreciated. That did not always work with the people who manned the gangways and protected the terminal but a few bottles of wine, helped out here. Once Customs found out and wanted to arrest everybody but that was then solved by donating a box of Kendall Jackson Reserve to the Customs office. French customs can be very flexible if you play the game right. The company was always much less flexible as they saw it as bribery, while we on the ships saw it as appreciation. The Hotel Manager had a solution for any discrepancies that might occur in the bottle count. It was called “breakage” and there was often a spike during calls at Southern European Ports. The peculiar thing was that the ship often received gifts from the Port Agents and Tour operators out of appreciation for the business that we brought to the port. So bottles were going both ways. But those were the good old days. Now with soo many cruise ships and soo many mega liners, it has becomed so stream lined that even courtesy visits from the Agent to the “Master of the Vessel” hardly occur anymore.

The old Customs Inspection Counters in the arrivals hall.

When the Ocean Liners left, the Cherbourg Passenger Terminal ended up in the Doldrums somewhat as nobody knew exactly what to do with it. Built in late Art-Deco style it was too wonderful a building to destroy and at the same time it did not have a function anymore. So it was left as it was, with occasional use when warships would visit. Now we can be very happy about that as it is one of the few terminal buildings with a links from where emigrants left and the better heeled passengers went to and from, and is still mostly in an original state.

And guests can see that each time when they go ashore because they have to walk through the Customs Hall with the inspection counters from the 1930’s. Another reason that the terminal was left untouched was the fact that Cherbourg did not need the space. Cherbourg is the largest fully man made harbour in Europe and they could expand outwards and were not limited by rocks, moutains, cliffs or other natural features that confined the size of the port, as we see with a port like Dover. Everything there is cramped in under the White Cliffs.

Then in the 1980’s The City started to develope the “Cite de La Mer” museum focussing on under water exploration and underwater traffic of any kind. So there many kinds of deepsea submarines on display, old, current and feature designs and there is even an large French War submarine in its own dock, which providing a really fascinating  visit.

The main entrance hall, where once the trains came in. Now handed over to Underwater craft.

And that was the reason why I was so excited to visit Cherbourg because in the entrance hall of this museum, which is next to the Maritime Terminal, is a souvenir shop with a bookshop attached to it. Second French Maritime hand books can still be bought with not too many challenges, through Ebay, Bookfinder or Abebooks but for new books it is very hard, as a. French publishers are not really bothered to reach markets outside France and b. Since Brexit the cost for sending a book to the UK, has become very expensive.

I bought not too long ago a Passenger List of the Rotterdam from a voyage in 1963. That cost about 8 euro’s (which is the regular going price between 7.50 and 11 euros) but then postage and customs paperwork (*) added aother 15 euro’s to it. Buying “in bulk” does not help either because when the value goes over 139,– then there might be import duties.

(* since Brexit each individual item imported into the UK or otherwise needs it own declaration for customs. So if it is 10 books the same, it is one customs declaration but if there are  10 different books, then it means 10 pieces of paper. At least when they are new books, when they are 2nd hand or antiquarian, you can cover it with one declaration but then often the value goes up too much. As you will understand Collectors are not very happy with Brexit.)

We decided to limit our going ashore with a visit to the “Cite de la Mer”. It is about a 15 minute walk into town, very pleasant to do today, if you wore a coat, as it was sunny but there was a gale force wind blowing from the North East. The port also lays on a shuttle service to town, which ran every 15- 20 minutes, even through French lunch time. The local community had laid on a dance exhibition in the terminal, between 10 to 12 noon, where authentic Breton and Normandic dances where shown.

Several generations of local dancers and singers.

For the guests the most interesting part was most likely the whole group of small, very small, children in local costumes on display. They were sitting there and remained sitting there for a good two hours while the adults and older children were dancing, singing and playing instruments. My wife and I came back when they were just packing up around noon time and just at the moment when the little ones were all “released from custody” and it was an cascade of French excited noise rolling through the old customs hall, while they all fled together to the outside.

This is one of the latest underwater craft. The US Challenger an underwater craft for one person. The French call it the “American Dildo” ,but I do not know why.

The museum is forever expanding, so when we visit next time, will we probably buy a ticket go inside again. We did so a few years back and the deep seawater tank and the explorers submarines and other exhibits were fascinating. They have now also opened up an Virtual Reality exhibition, where with a headset on, you walk through the ocean terminal in the heyday of Trans Atlantic travel and can experience what it really was like. For the young and young at heart they have set up a display based on the French Comic heroes Asterix & Obelix which are very popular in France, Belgium, The Netherlands but also in England and Germany. But even when not going inside the museum, there is so much equipment in the entrance hall, that it takes more than half an hour to have a look at all of it. The sometimes bizarre contraptions humans use and have used to get to the bottom of the ocean. It is said that we know more about the moon than about the oceans on our planet but if you look at the gadgets needed to go to the sea floor, I am not amazed.

This is one of the latest idea. A craft floating around the world, partially submerged. But because there would be somebody on board  watching 24/7,  they would be able to catch anything unusual, instead of relying on spot checks.

The bookshop was a somewhat disappointment as somebody had decided to “focus” on current affairs and what sold best. Hence there were about 25 different books on Titanic for sale, similar with a load of Titanic children’s book, But I have already over a 100 books about Titanic (from the scholarly level across to popular, to the absurd) and that was not what I was looking for, The real history books were no longer for sale. But I still found 2 books, one a thin on 5 euros,– with photos about the ss Normandie of 1935 and one with the history of the Ocean Liners, not with photos, but with hand drawn scenes of the ships. But done by an expert so the details were all correct. Same as you can see in the paintings of Captain Card on the HAL ships. Apart from nice to look at, they are also technically correct in detail and that is what one does expect if you have a bit of insight in maritime history.

The ships telegraph on the bridge. Now used for photos during bridge tour. It is orginally a mooring telegraph from the Moore McCormack days and came via the Veendam (III) and the Rotterdam (V) to the Rotterdam (VI). The write up is behind the telegraph so those who bother can find out about the history.

This the last day of the cruise and that meant afternoon packing. Luckily we had not bought much so what came out, fitted back in. As part of the Suite package, you get two bottles of liquor included and we had decided on Adnams Copper Gin, which is a very good brand in the UK, but that luckily fitted in the hand luggage. Disembarkation starts tomorrow at 07.45 hrs. and if all goes well we will be back at the car by 08.30 /08.45 and on the road shortly after.  I had asked for a quick visit to the bridge, to see if the ships telegraph, installed by me and Capt. Van Dreumel was there, and yes it was. The Captain was quite eager to have a chat about the background of the bridge, as due to Covid there had never been a proper handover from HAL to Fred Olsen.

 Then it was time to run to the Lido Deck, as the Urbu Band was playing. This is a British Brass band that has been performing for the 8th time on board. As far as I understand they are offered a discounted cruise, when a ship does not sell out, with the request for 2 performances. Good to sit and nice to listen to. There is something different and also wholesome in having a somewhat different entity playing that is not corporately managed and “plastic”, but are just purely playing for the fun of it.

After finishing packing it was time to go for cocktails and in the Observation Lounge one of the ships singers was giving a show, with songs from Frank Sinatra and related. It was very good, and fun to see as a beaming mother was sitting in the first row.

“Frank Sinatra junior providing a very good show.

Final dinner was in the dining room, and two things stood out, A. the number of empty tables, so it must have been busy in the self service restaurant, and B. the number of birthdays today. Although the company must know exactly when a birthday is, as it is all on the manifest, for some obscure reason, the number of birthdays tend to increase towards the end of the cruise. Maybe that is the case, or maybe guests declare having an anniversary ( not on the manifest). Whatever the situation, the stewards were busy running around the dining room, trailing behind the guy with the guitar to sing happy birthday left, right and center.

After dinner was the show, but we had seen the singer from the UK from a few nights ago so we did not go as I needed my sleep for the 5 hour drive home. Driving on the M25 (ring road around London) is challenging by itself but then come the smaller roads into Norfolk with all the side roads connecting, often via blind corners. And there are a lot of “creative” drivers in the English Country side. Then there is “farmer John” on the road with his faithful tractor and that can make things even more complicated.

I have one more post to go and that is the oversight and opinion of the cruise and that will come a day after this one has been posted.

Fred Olsen is one of the few company’s who have a fully operational flower shop on board. There are two florists and apart from looking after the flowers in the ship, they are also available for Guests to buy. The shop has been on board since 2022 ‘s I assume the concept works. But I do know that they are very busy during Valentines Day.

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