Tom Burke’s Blog

Aurora off Ryde

We had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in Portsmouth this last weekend, a visit which exceeded our expectations. We spent almost all of Saturday in the Historic Dockyard, visiting HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, Mary Rose, the Mary Rose museum, doing a harbour tour – and there was still lots there we didn’t get around to. And on Sunday morning just before the drive home we walked along the old defences from Southsea into Portsmouth, past the Round Tower, the Square Tower and all the way to the Point. This was one of the best historical trails I’ve ever done – of course the setting helps greatly, with the Solent on one side, old Portsmouth on the other and history under our feet.

But on the Friday afternoon we went over to Ryde on the hovercraft (weren’t they going to be the ‘next big thing’, about 40 years ago? Having now been on one, it’s obviously a case of brute force over gravity.) We walked gently up and down Ryde sea front all the way to the Dell cafe (Dell teahouse?) and back, and then decided to wait for Aurora and Black Watch to come past us. In the event Black Watch was delayed (both were scheduled to depart at 5pm), but Aurora slipped gently past us at about 6:20. She looked very beautiful and sophisicated, and we both felt very envious of all those on board her, on their 16-night cruise to the Adriatic and back. I took lots of pictures, and that’s one of them above. (For this with the technical interest, the camera was a Nikon D80, quite possibly in P mode, and the lens was a 55-200 VR, at 200mm. The location was the end of Ryde Pier, in front of the railway station.)

Black Watch was about 30 minutes late, by which time I’d put the camera away – another time perhaps. I’d like to cruise in her one day – I know someone who, despite having cruised in many ships both large and small, old and new, still regards Black Watch as her favourite.

I received a letter from Celebrity a week or so about our planned September / October 2009 cruise in the eastern Mediterranean on Solstice. I’ve been officially informed that for operational reasons the scheduled call at Rhodes has been cancelled; instead, the cruise will feature an extended stay at Kusadasi (the port before) until midnight followed by a day at sea (replacing the call at Rhodes) before resuming the published schedule at Athens the day after. This change was known about and has been commented-on quite widely in various cruise forums. Interest heightened when someone posted the following reply they received from Celebrity Cruises after writing to them:

“Rhodes, Greece was recently removed because the ship would have been calling on a Monday. Unfortunately on Mondays in Rhodes, there are no museums or tour operators that are open. Therefore Celebrity made the decision to cut the port of call and extend the stay in Kusadasi until 11:59 PM and leave the rest of the day at sea.“

I’m really not sure about this: one wonders why Celebrity scheduled the call on a Monday at all, if there are problems with that day of the week. To me it looks more like a fuel usage decision:  from Kusadasi to Athens via Rhodes is quite a long way round, whereas I suspect that the ‘day at sea’ will actually be spent going very slowly (and economically) in a straight line from Kusadasi to Athens. It’s certainly disappointing: I enjoyed Rhodes on our last visit (on Galaxy) and had been looking forward to returning.

But not to worry! In the meantime, let’s enjoy another picture of Solstice, with a link to more of the same:

Solstice emerging

Celebrity Solstice being undocked

The picture above is of Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Cruise’s latest & biggest ship. It’s just been floated out of the construction hall (the building beyond her bow) at Meyer Werft in Pappenberg, for finishing-off. She’ll be ready in about three months or a bit less: she goes into service on 23 November, in the Caribbean. She’ll be in Europe doing Celebrity’s 10 and 11-night Eastern Mediterranean cruises in 2009, and we’re booked on her for late September that year. Please click on the image to see a larger version on Meyer Werft’s website.

I think she’s very pretty and very big: 315 metres long, 122,000 GRT, 2800 passengers – lots of superlatives. But we enjoy Celebrity so I’m sure we’ll enjoy our cruise on her. She’s the lead ship in a class of at least three: Celebrity Equinox is already under construction ( to enter service in 2010), and Celebrity Eclipse will follow in 2011. I think there are options for another two ships as well, though with the current economic climate, who knows if they’ll be built.

I think these ships will put Celebrity back into the limelight. It’s hard to remember now that, when they were delivered, Horizon (1990) and Zenith (1992), and Century (1995) were close to ’state of the art’. Galaxy and Mercury were slight developments of Century but by the time they were delivered other lines had announced more ambitious plans, and delivered on them soon afterwards: Grand Princess, for example, for a time the largest passenger ship in the world, entered service in 1998, just a year after Mercury which was merely medium-sized in comparison. Celebrity’s Millennium class, the first of which came into service in 2000, was actually quite conservative: a typical Panamax ship with a high proportion of balcony cabins. Quite like the Spirit/Vista ships, in fact, and by 2005 there were almost a dozen-and-a-half cruise ships of similar size and style in service with various lines. Meanwhile, Celebrity owners Royal Caribbean were pressing ahead with first the Voyager class and then the Freedom class, all of them very large and feature-littered, while Carnival debuted their Destiny class and its developments. Celebrity had to wait its turn for more investment.

Now Celebrity is back in the ‘big ship’ game, which (despite some personal misgivings about large ships) is where a major line has to be these days. But the good news is that the Solstice class looks as if it won’t be as crowded as some ships, they’re very good looking, and they have all the features and facilities that today’s cruise passengers of major lines have come to expect – and then some. Time will tell how successful they will be, but at the moment it looks as if a cruise on Solstice of her future sisters will be a memorable and high-quality experience.

It’s been a while since I posted anything to the blog – apologies to any regular readers.

A couple of things have happened in the last month or so: first, we’ve made our final payment for our cruise on Ventura. It’s still 7 weeks before embarkatio date, but it feels as if it’s finally beginning to get near: we booked this cruise in mid-May 2007, over 16 months before the cruise. Secondly, we’ve received our excursions booklet for the cruise, and have booked excursions for most of the ports of call.

Actually, we’re getting a bit nervous about Ventura. There have been a number – make that a large number – of criticisms about her. In the spring they were mainly from the P&O regulars and seemed to consist of variations on the theme “It’s not like Oriana!”. But now that summer is here, I’m hearing complains from non-regulars, possibly new cruisers attracted to cruising as a result of the considerable Ventura hype there was last year and this spring. These complaints seem to be about poor on-board systems, especially those connected with Freedom dining, and above all the general degree of crowding: long queues and waiting times (especially in the buffet), and difficulty in getting sun loungers. We’re busy telling ourselves that we’ll be OK: a) our cruise is out of the main holiday season; b) we’re definitely booked on ‘Club Dining’ (i.e. traditional dining), and c) being on C deck we have a cabin with a double-depth balcony. So if need be we’ll just hole up there, emerging only to go on our excursions and to scuttle down to our assigned table at dinner-time.

It’s certainly the case that the ship is generally full, even over-full. I’ve read accounts from people who were asked by P&O to move to less-good accommodation, and offered compensation to do so. In one case the passengers were asked to swap a C deck balcony cabin for an E deck ‘obstructed view’ non-balcony cabin, and were offered a 75% refund. It was turned down.I wonder how desperate P&O are getting….