Tom Burke’s Blog

We’re back from Braemar. I was unable to post yesterday as my 30 minutes of internet time expired just before I was ready to do so, and I didn’t want to purchase any more time.

Yesterday was a little disappointing – our scheduled call at St Peter Port was cancelled. The reason for cancelling was the sea-state forecast – although tendering off the ship in the morning would have been easy, the forecast sea state for later in the day suggested that tendering back on could cause problems so the captain decided it wouldn’t be safe. We called instead at Cherbourg. We found this port rather plain, especially after Honfleur, but we had a good walk round for the best part of two hours, then went back to the ship and amused ourselves on board for the afternoon. Others perhaps had a better time – there was a traditional street-market that we didn’t learn about, but those who found it said that it was very interesting – very french, in fact. But never mind. Our next cruise (Oriana, end of May 2008) is also scheduled to call at St Peter Port.

The passage to Southampton was interesting. The advertised track had us heading to the west of the Isle of Wight and entering Southampton water from the direction of the Needles. At only 84 miles, the captain announced at 6pm that an average speed of 8.4 knots would be required, and when we looked over the rail at 11pm or so, we were indeed proceeding slowly and smoothly. But we were woken at just before 4am by considerable rolling of the ship, and quite a lot of wave-slap noise. Peering out of our twin port-holes (Atlantic Deck, port-side) we saw a rough sea, with swell & waves coming from all directions seemingly. It’s hard to tell wave height, but I would say that the swell was up to 2 metres or more. Certainly the deck below us must have been having their port-holes regularly covered, and the spray from the waves hitting them was splashing up onto our port-holes. This went on for about another 40 minutes or so I would say, and indeed seemed to ge worse during which time we could hear the ship itself complaining. Then, quite suddenly, it all calmed down and we got off to sleep. We awoke a couple of hours later just before 7am to find the ship coming up Southampton Water, past Fawley refinery, so the passage had obviously taken rather longer than anticpated. And looking at the map of the ship’s actual track we saw that in fact the course taken had been out of Cherbourg to the north-east, then a 90 degree course change to north west, and a run up the east side of the Isle of Wight. I wonder if the sudden easing of the rough seas was when we entered the lee of the island? At any rate, it all looked, felt & sounded quite dramatic, and I found myself thinking about getting dressed and going up to get a better view. If it hadn’t been the last night, and therefore only having the one set of clothes handy, I might well have done so.

But the cruise is over – Braemar eventually docked at about 8am, we were off her by 9:30, in our car by 9:45 and home in Sheffield just 4 hours later. I have a load of photos (both of the ship and of the ports of call) to download & process, and of course a more considered review to write (which is where I will comment in depth on food & entertainment). But as a cruise – that is, leaving aside the ports of call, as it’s unfair to compare Honfleur with Santorini, attractive though the former is – this was the best yet. Thank you Fred. Olsen, Captain Birkeland & the crew of Braemar.

Braemar continues to impress us. The ship itself feels very light and airy, but where necessary there are dark accents in the decor. And we continue to enjoy her intimate nature. It’s so easy to find someone again that you talked to the day before – on previous cruises it’s seemed that because there are so many passengers, uou never see a person twice.

Today has been an excellent day. The trip to Bayeux was first class, and was followed by lunch beside the Vieux Bassin in Honfleur and a walk around. And the weather has been superb – shirt-sleeves weather today. Everyone was on deck for the sail-away this afternoon, there were people sunbathing, and others in the pool and jacuzzis. This is turning into a really excellent cruise.

I’m writing this on board Braemar, Fred. Olsen’s small cruise liner. We’re on a four-night mini cruise from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Southampton, via Honfleur & Guernsey. Here are some initial reactions.

Braemar is delightful. When we embarked it was hard at first to keep from chuckling; everything seemed perfectly formed but so small! Braemar is a small ship, of course, just under 20,000 tons, and she feels a lot smaller than more typical ships. However, she’s got everything you need: a restaurant, a buffet, several bars & lounges, a pool deck, a promenade. And her tiered open stern decsks are a feature that many much bigger ships don’t have.

Having now been on board for 24 hours, and enjoyed a sea day, I have to say that I’m enjoying this small ship experience very much. We went to a couple of quizzes this afternoon, and half the passengers seemed to be there. It was lots of fun – there was more participation and laughter than I remember with the often sparsely-attended similar activities on Galaxy. Another advantage of a small ship is that when you meet someone, you have a reasonable chance of running into them again.

What about the downsides of a small ship, lack of things to do, and ship’s motion? Well, so far the former hasn’t been an issue – we have enjoyed our day so far very much. Tonight is a formal dinner and a Captain’s cocktail party, so we’re looking forward to that. As regards the second point, this was something that I was expecting to be a concern. However, while I can certainly feel the ship moving, it hasn’t been too bad, even though it has been quite windy – force 6, I believe – so this has not been a voyage on a millpond. However our cabin is quite low down – deck 3 – and reasonably amidships, so movement while we’re sleeping is minimised anyway.

More some tome tomorrow, I hope, after our excursion to Bayeux, from Honfleur.

Do you like that picture? It’s of Braemar, the small Fred Olsen ship that we shall be on in just over a week’s time. The picture was taken by Bart de Boer and was originally published on his excellent cruise ship-related website “ShipParade” which I thoroughly enjoy visiting and recommend to others to do the same. I expressed my admiration for the picture and Bart very kindly allowed me to use it here. (Copyright of the image remains with Bart de Boer, of course, and it must only be used with his permission.)

This will be a different cruise for us – not a fly-cruise, not in the Med, and shorter! I hope to be able to post while we’re on the cruise. Dates are 20th September to 24th September, it’s from Newcastle to Southampton, and includes a day at sea, a call at Honfleur in northern France, and a further call at St Peter Port, Guernsey.

I recently saw some pictures of the forthcoming Cunard ship “Queen Victoria” on her sea-trials. Here’s one:

Now, there has been some history about this ship; or rather, about a ship with this name. “Queen Victoria” was first announced in 2003, when an order already placed with Fincantieri for a new Vista-class ship for Holland America Line was instead transferred to Cunard and given the name “Queen Victoria”. Both Cunard & Holland America are owned by Carnival Corporation. In 2004 Cunard’s other new ship (Queen Mary 2) went into service and based on her early experiences changes to the still-under construction Queen Victoria were requested. These were impossible to incorporate so she was reassigned again and eventually became P&O’s “Arcadia” (P&O is also owned by Carnival Corporation). A new order was placed subsequently with Fincantieri for a revised design to become Queen Victoria; this new ship will be 11 metres longer than the earlier ship, 5,000 tons larger, and will hold slightly more passengers. This website gives the details of all this merry-go-round and also includes some pictures.

Carnival Corporation have used this basic design for a number of ships, starting with their own Carnival Spirit and her three sisters, and another two almost identical ships with Costa. Then the Spirit design was tweaked a bit and four Holland America ships were built – this was when they started to be called ‘Vista’ class. In addition there is P&O’s Arcadia which I’ve mentioned, and of course the ship I’m writing about Cunard’s Queen Victoria. She’ll be the 12th ship to the same basic design. Then there are two further ships of this design ordered for Costa, and another two for Holland America – a total of 16 ships.

I’m not arguing about the merits of the design itself: I haven’t been on any Vista or Spirit ship, but I believe it’s a popular design, and although not the biggest ships around they are capable of transiting the Panama Canal. This is important for Cunard and; P&O, as both of them feature ‘World Cruises’ each year. However the marketing, both currently for Cunard and previously for P&O has tried to stress how special & unique the new ship was/is, how it reaches new levels of luxury/convenience/excellence, and fulfills the grand traditions of both lines. Yet as I have outlined above, Arcadia (previously) and Queen Victoria (shortly) are simply the latest examples of a large class of widely-spread ships, all of which are actually pretty interchangeable.Can ships which are the eleventh and twelth of a common design (even with some detailed differences) truly be the heirs to the grand traditions of their current lines? Or should we accept that the advantages in cost-efficiency of construction, ease of maintenance hrugh familiarity, and long-term flexibility of deployment, render the construction of standardised ships inevitable?

(This post seems to be getting some on-going attention, so I ought to mention that I’ve revisited the topic twice: ‘More thoughts on Queen Victoria‘ and ‘Even more thoughts on Queen Victoria‘.)

On Saturday evening we saw the recently-released (in the UK) film ‘Knocked Up’. It’s not the sort of film I normally see – we didn’t see the previous film from the same(-ish) team, The 40 Year Old Virgin – but we had read good reviews of this one and decided to give it a try. I think we were the oldest people in the auditorium!

I think the best description would be ’sweet’. There were many passages of surprising – well, ’sweetness’ – between the two main characters. Seth Rogan especially played the role of slacker & would-be geek Ben very straight, very instinctive, but with apparently a lot of ‘inner-decency’ coming through. Allyson came across perhaps a little one-dimensional, as I’m sure that a young moman with a burgeoning career in TV, especially on in front of the cameras, would in fact be rather more upset about the situation than she in fact was.

We liked several of the main characters (almost a must, especially for my wife), we could live with the gross-out humour, and it appeared to have a happy ending. Perhaps it could have lost 20 minutes – for example I’m not sure what the point of the trip to Vegas was – but that would be my main gripe, and that’s not a major one. So for us, it was an unexpectedly enjoyable film.

We recently received the documents for our forthcoming 4-night mini-cruise on Braemar. As far as presentation is concerned, Fred Olsen get top marks for these documents, arriving as they did in a neat faux-leather wallet with metal corner strengtheners. Better looking than Celebrity docs!

The cruise takes place later this month. It’s a repositioning cruise from Newcastle in north-east England (from where Braemar has been doing cruises to Norway and into the Baltic) to Dover. I think Fred Olsen’s policy of running cruises from ports outside the south of England is excellent. In addition to Newcastle they also run cruises from Leith (Edinburgh) and one of their other ships (Black Prince) spends most of its time home-ported in Liverpool and Glasgow.

However, we have some concerns about this cruise, or mainly about Braemar herself. She’s about 15 years old and is small, just under 20,000 tons. She was built (along with a sister ship) for use in the Caribbean and was called Crown Dynasty, but at various times sailed there under a Cunard name – ‘Cunard Crown Dynasty’ – and also as ‘Crown Majesty’ and even ‘Norwegian Dynasty’. I suspect that her small size & comparative lack of features meant that she wasn’t very competitive in the Caribbean market, and she was sold to Fred Olsen in 2001. She’s proved a popular ship in her new home.

But – we’re wondering just how well a small ship built for the Caribbean handles the North Sea and the English Channel. We’ve heard mixed reports, from those who said that there is a lot of movement in anything but calm seas, to those who say that it’s nothing to worry about. Fortunately we have a cabin amidships so that ought to minimise things a bit. And of course it will depend on the weather, which is very variable around the English coast – we might have flat calm for the whole period, or we might have howling gales & seas to match. Either way, we shall find out in three weeks’ time!

Here’s the Fred Olsen webpage about her.