P&O ships in the Panama Canal

It’s world cruise time again, and P&O have got various ships in various far-flung places. Aurora, for instance, is doing a ‘grand voyage’ round Asia, and at the moment of writing is in the Indian Ocean, somewhere between Dubai and Mumbai. Arcadia on the other hand is doing a westbound circumnavigation, and yesterday she transited the Panama Canal. P&O very deliberately arranged Oriana’s partial transit – part-way through and then back – for the same day, so she could do the first part alongside Arcadia. And that’s what the first image shows: Oriana and Arcadia side-by-side in Gatun locks, near the Atlantic Ocean end of the canal. (It’s a little know fact that the canal actually runs in the opposite direction from what you’d expect: when sailing westbound from the Atlantic to the Pacific, thanks to the geography of Panama the passage through the canal is actually in a slightly eastwards direction. The actual compass heading is SSE, I think.) The picture above comes from the Panama Canal webcams at the Gatun Locks, although they’re second-hand: someone who posts on the ‘Cruise Talk’ travelserver site captured a whole sequence, including webcam shots from onboard the ships, and posted them. Here’s the link to them.

James Cusick, Executive Purser of Arcadia, is doing a blog of Arcadia’s world cruise. Follow the link to a lengthy entries about this ‘dual transit’, together with some more pictures including some from the decks of Arcadia.

At some point Oriana must have turned round and Arcadia proceeded alone, and the second image show her on her own going through the Miraflores locks at the Pacific Ocean end of the canal.

Oceana will also be doing a Panama Canal transit on the 29th, as part of her winter schedule of Caribbean cruises.

An extraordinary image

This is an extraordinary image. First, it’s very unusual indeed for the whole of the British Isles to be covered in snow – normally snow falls just on part of the country. But here we are, for the second week, with snow blanketing the whole country. The second reason it’s extraordinary is that it’s also very unusual for the snow to be followed, as it has been this week, with day after day of sunshine, and it’s those clear skies that have created the picture opposite. I think it’s stunningly beautiful, and very much an image that’s only been possible in recent decades, of course.

I took advantage of the snow myself over the weekend (before the last snowfall) and took some pictures. The one on the left is just one of them. Here’s a link to the rest of the set.

A new Adonia for P&O

The big news for UK-based cruisers this week was the announcement that the Princess ship ‘Royal Princess’ will move to P&O in May 2011.

This ship has an interesting history. UK cruisers have some experience of her, of course: she sailed as Minerva II for Swan Hellenic from 2003 to 2007. Originally she was an ‘R’ ship – ‘R8′, in fact – and as R8 she sailed (along with her 7 siblings) for Renaissance Cruises, which was quite an up-market operation. All of the R ships were small, at just over 30,000 grt, and a passenger capacity of around 700, and Renaissance used them to provide a premium cruise experience. However they went broke very shortly after 9/11 and the R ships were laid up for a time. For a while individual ships were leased to various operators – this was the basis on which Swan Hellenic operated Minerva II. During this time Oceania Cruises was formed by former executives of Renaissance Cruises, and between 2002 and 2005 they chartered first one, then a second and ultimately a third of the R ships. In 2006, thanks to new finance following a takeover by a venture capital outfit, Oceania were able to buy their three ships. During this time they built up a committed and loyal customer base, and became a well-regarded operator within the industry.

Other major cruise lines then took a fresh look at the R ships. Princess, who had leased two of them in the 2002 to 2004 period, purchased those two. In 2007 Minerva II was redeployed from Swan Hellenic to Princess (both lines were owned by Carnival) and given the name ‘Royal Princess’. (Unfortunately, Swan Hellenic, the operator of Minerva II, was left with no ships and had to suspend operations.) Royal Caribbean were even more ambitious: they purchased Pullmantur, a Spanish-market cruise line who had acquired the last two of the R ships, then took these ships away from Pullmantur, and set up a completely new line, Azamara, to operate them. So these days there’s a lot of interest in these ships because Oceania especially, and perhaps Princess as well, have been able to use them to run quite expensive up-market cruises. Presumably the expectation is that P&O will be able to do the same.

When she goes to P&O, Royal Princess will be renamed ‘Adonia’ and will operate as the second adults-only ship in the P&O fleet (Arcadia being the first). There was a previous Adonia, of course: also a former Princess ship, Sea Princess, she sailed as Adonia between 2003 and 2005 before returning to Princess when Arcadia was launched. Also interesting is the fact that this is the second ship called ‘Royal Princess’ to leave Princess for P&O in recent years. The previous Royal Princess was launched under that name by Princess Diana in 1984, and sailed as such for Princess until 2005. At that date she was transferred to P&O and renamed Artemis (Artemis was the greek name for the goddess whose roman name was Diana – geddit?).

It will be interesting to see how P&O use their new ship. Carol Marlow, P&O MD, says this in her blog:

“Her smaller size will offer a more familiar and relaxed feeling and enable you to get to know your fellow cruisers and crew more easily. More importantly though, she will be able to travel to some of the most intriguing “off the beaten track” destinations, so you’ll still be able to visit ports that the bigger ships can’t access.” We should get some more information about Adonia’s likely itineraries in the spring.

Here’s a link to the P&O website with the details, and here’s another one to the website of the current incarnation of Swan Hellenic. which has recently been relaunched as an independent operator. Lord Sterling is its chairman; he, as I’m sure all my readers will know, was the last chairman of P&O/Princess Cruises before the merger with Carnival Corporation, and in fact opposed that merger. Now he’s back in the cruise business.

A new camera

I posted some while ago that I was becoming very tempted to buy a new digital camera (a Canon EOS of some variety or other) and I that I knew I had to fight this urge. Well, I weakened….

Just over a week ago Val & I visited our local photo shop, Harrisons Cameras in Sheffield. It’s a local family company, staffed by people who know photography. It’s generally not the cheapest shop, but it offers advantages in other ways. We went in there about 10:45 and Jonathan Harrison, one of the partners, proceeded to spend about 45 minutes with us, on a Saturday morning, demonstrating the featurs of the EOS 500D camera; and at the end of that effort he’d made sales of two cameras with standard zoom lenses (one for each of us) plus a single extra long zoom lens (since we’ve got compatible cameras we can share ancillary equipment). I don’t think Val has used hers yet, but I’ve been over the fields near home a few times and have taken a new ‘Two Trees’ picture: you can see my Two Trees portfolio here.

This was a purely selfish purchase – iI didn’t really need this camera at all, and I will probably spend quite a bit of money duplicating the lenses I’ve already got with the Nikon outfit. But the Canon feels right in my hand in a way that the Nikons never really did, so I’m happy. And I’m keeping the Leica, so I shall continue to use that on occasion.

Azura prices – going down?

I’m not the only person to think that P&O have got the prices for Azura (coming into service in April 2010) wrong – they’re way, way too high. (I blogged about this before.) Looking at the current (2010/Mar 2011) P&O brochure, prices for Azura seem to be around £150 per person per night (pppn), whereas Ventura, a virtually identical ship, is coming in at about £125pppn. That £25 pppn extra amounts to £350 per person over 14 nights, £700 for two, which is a significant amount of money, especially as the actual cruise experience will be very similar on the two ships.

Of course P&O often seem to charge high prices. Next year, however, they will be under some pressure. Celebrity’s Eclipse (the third of the Solstice class) will be based in Southampton, doing a mix of cruises pretty similar to the standard P&O fare: 14 night cruises to the Baltic & western Med, 16 nights to the central Med, and 11 nights to the Canaries; and prices on Eclipse, at least at the beginning of the season, aren’t far above £100 pppn for a balcony cabin. Up at P&O price level there will two Cunard ships, Queens Victoria & Elizabeth, and I’ve heard a lot of people say that if they’re going to spend that much money they’d rather do it with Cunard than P&O.

It’s beginning to look as if this pressure is telling. I received a sales leaflet through the post today from Ideal Cruising, through whom we’ve booked several times already. This leaflet is all about Azura in 2010, and it shows some significant reductions. Balcony cabin prices are quoted as £1899 for 14 nights in the spring as against £2499 in the brochure; 16 nights in the central Med in the high season is £2269 as against a brochure price of £2899. So perhaps Azura’s inaugural season isn’t selling as well as P&O would have liked.

More pictures from the Solstice cruise

I’ve added some more pictures, from Athens, Naples/Capri, Kusadasi, and some more of the ship itself. They’re at the same URL as before.

These pictures were slides to begin with, and were scanned differently (larger) than the other films. The scans needed a bit of post-processing, hence the delay in getting them up.

Pictures from the Solstice cruise

I’ve had my photos back, and I’ve posted some of them on-line.

In general I’m pleasd with them. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in the blog I took the Leica on the cruise, and this is a camera with little automation (that’s part of its attraction). Although it does possess basic metering, the user has to understand the results the meter is presenting, and I think I was a little off on some occasions – some under-exposure. However, against that I have to say that I am thrilled with the detail that the Leica lenses have recorded on the film – that’s the reason for user a Leica.

I’ve posted some scans on Picasaweb: here’s a link. Try comparing the Santorini 2007 pictures (taken with a Nikon DSLR) with the Santorini 2009 pictures (taken with the Leica).

Photography on the Solstice cruise

A couple of weeks or so ago I posted here about (among other things) my indecision over which camera system to take on the cruise. In the end I did indeed take just the Leica and my three lenses, plus of course a selection of films. These included several rolls of Ektar 100 print film, a couple of rolls of a Fuji 800 print film (for inside Hagia Sophia) and a few older rolls of Kodak 100 slide film. I shot seven rolls altogether, and they’re currently with Harrisons Cameras in Sheffield for processing. I’m also getting low-res scans done, so next weekend I should have some results to show.

However my pre-cruise GAS attack (hint: GAS means ‘Gear Acquisition Syndrome’) came on with redoubled vigour while we were away; I kept seeing all these people with seriously good (and expensive) DSLR systems. Given an absolutely free choice, I have a strong feeling that an EOS 5DMkII + 24-105 f4 L lens would be mine – I saw several people shooting with just this combination. Tasty. (And heavy, too, I’ve no doubt.) Since returning I’ve been scouring the retailers’ websites researching prices. Message to self: “You do not need a new camera. You do not need a new camera. You do not need…” Will it work? We’ll see.

What made it worse was that Val, somewhat to my surprise, ditched her compact digicam and took a small EOS film SLR with her – an EOS 300N (I think) plus its 28-90 kit lens. She said she preferred using this to the digicam. Once or twice I got to play with it, and I have to say I found the EOS very familiar in my hands: everything was exactly where I expected it to be, and it just felt right. Oh dear….

I’ve been doing some reading…

A couple of months ago I happened to read a report in a daily newspaper announcing the 2009 Booker prize ‘long list’ – 13 books which were under active consideration for the shortlist, from which the eventual winner would be chosen. I’ve generally ignored Booker prize candidate novels in the past. I did try a couple one year – “Flaubert’s Parrot” which was shortlisted, and Hotel du Lac which was the winner, and I couldn’t get into either of them. I couldn’t even read “Midnight’s Children”. Given all this, I’d decided that literary fiction was obviously not for me, I’d be best sticking to my scifi and thrillers. But over the years I’ve found myself getting more & more impatient with poorly-written books; the quality of Neal Stephenson’s books, or Iain (M) Banks’, for example, is so much better than the average book in these genres. Anyway, when i read the report my eye was caught by a comment to the effect that not only were the books well-written, they were also ‘jolly good reads’, so I decided to investigate and bought four of the eventual shortlist: “Wolf Hall”, “The Children’s Book”, “Little Stranger”, and “The Glass Room”. So far I’ve read the first three. It’s been an interesting experience.

“Wolf Hall” was the first I read. At first I had trouble with its present-tense narrative, but I soon became accustomed to this. It could be described as a historical novel – it’s set in the court of King Henry VIII, from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell – and I found the story gripping. Part of this was because english history teaching normally presents Cromwell as a thoroughly Bad Person, but this book portrays him as a man of extraordinary abilities and charm – which is likely, given that although he was a commoner he rose to be Lord Chancellor, among other high offices. There’s also a frisson because you know how the various characters’ stories will end: Ann Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Thomas More, all these and more are major characters. And of course there’s Cromwell himself; we know that he’ll meet his end on the block, although this novel ends some years before then, with him almost at his apogee. I also found another aspect of my reaction to it interesting: the writing is so rich, so full-bodied (so to speak) that I couldn’t read more than five or six pages at a time, I had to stop (even if only for a few minutes) and digest what I’d just read. This was a great introduction to the exercise.

Next I read “Little Stranger”. This was altogether harder going. It’s very well written, technically, but the problem I found was that I simply didn’t like any of the characters. The book (set just after the second world war) includes characters from the upper class (or at least the gentry), middle-class professionals, who are generally unsure of their place, and various lower/working class characters. On one level it’s the story of a disastrous relationship, doomed because the two people in it have absolutely no common ground, and furthermore either cannot see this, or (more likely) are too constrained by social pressures to be honest with each other. On another level it’s a sort-of ghost story, but (correctly, I think) this is never explained or made explicit. (Althoug there may be a passage near the end thaty it might be worth readin again.) As I say the book is well-written technically, in that the author writes these unpleasant and unsympathetic characters, and their relationship, perfectly, but I didn’t warm to any of it. In the end I was reading it to see just how awfully it would end for them all. Answer: about as awfully as it possibly could. There is one other ‘character’ in the book, a crumbling stately home, and I suppose it was in reading the description and evocation of this that I came closest to warming to the book.

I’ve just finished “The Children’s Book” (I took it on the Solstice cruise, to read on sea days). This was another dense and complex book to read, with a cast of thousands – well, several dozen. Again it’s historical, set between 1895 and 1919, with the bulk of the narrative set in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It describes the events in the lives of children (and later adolescents & young adults) from several different families, all involved in the Arts and Crafts and other progressive movements of the late 19th century, as they grow up and mature. I certainly cared about these characters: they are finely and sympathetically-drawn, and the developing story of their growth, their involvement with each other (in various ways), is well written. Perhaps the female characters are better-written than the majority of the males. For example, there are several seduction scenes, each one involving the same man but different women, and in each case the woman’s position – her reason for allowing herself to be seduced at a time when the sex act could have serious or even fatal consequences, her reactions to the event and her decisions after the event, are all well written and I could empathise with them; but I gained no real feel for the man’s motivation in his pursuit of so many women (other than the obvious one). I could also find fault with the way that some characters appear, are well-drawn, and then seem to disappear (for example, one called Arthur Dobbin). There are horrors present: there are obviously episodes of serious sexual abuse going on in one of the households but (perhaps wisely) the author does not make us voyeurs, and almost at the end of the book there is a brutal chapter in which the the western front is evoked in all its dreadfulness, and several of the major characters are killed. I think this serves to remind us just how awful the great war was; characters that we have come to know and love are simply wiped out, not really with heroism but as a result of blind duty at best, and of chance, accident and error in most cases.

As for The Glass Room, I’ve only just started it so a report will have to come later.

I’ve certainly enjoyed the exercise. I shall look out for more books of this quality and, it should be said, size: both Wolf Hall and The Children’s Book are longer than 600 pages.

Disembarkation

Well, we left Solstice at about 9 o’clock on Friday morning. We were one of the last to leave – I overheard one of the team managing the disembarkation saying a few minutes earlier “we’ve got about 85% of the passengers off at the moment”. So it really is a quick operation on turnround day. Incidentally Solstice was already docked when we peeked over the balcony at about 5:30.

After disembarking, the day proceeded like a charm until we hit Heathrow, which we did at 3:30 or so. After that it turned into a slow slog, and we didn’t get home until 10:30, very tired indeed. Since then we seem to have been doing an awful lot of washing & ironing.

So what did I think of it altogether? We’ve come away thinking that it was probably our best cruise. Solstice is a beautiful, high-quality ship, the food and the company were both excellent, and the itinerary was to die for. We were also blessed with excellent weather – warm sunshine (75-85 degrees/23-28 degrees or so) which was hot enough to make you feel it but not so hot it was uncomfortable.

I think the effort that both journeys took has rather put us off fly-cruises for the time being. If we do one again we’ll look for ways to fly from an airport nearer home – there must be a way of flying to the Mediterranean from Manchester or East Midlands with a reasonable amount of luggage. However it’s not something we need to address in the near future – next year will be a P&O year, with two cruises (one long, the other short) from Southampton. Then we’ll see if Eclipse (or a sister ship) will be based in Southampton for 2011.