Tom Burke’s Blog

Well, this was possibly our favourite cruise. What we especially enjoyed was that it was so sociable. And the ship also, although small, was very intimate and fun.

Review: I posted a review of the cruise here.
Pictures: I posted various pictures: first, Braemar herself; Bayeux; and then Honfleur. No pictures of Cherbourg; sorry!

Braemar is being stretched early next summer, and its capacity will increase from about 750 to just under 1000. I hope that doesn’t spoil the atmosphere on her. After that she do fly-cruises in the Mediterranean. This is unusual: Fred Olsen have not done Mediterranean fly-cruises before, but next year they will have two ships doing them – Balmoral (ex-Norwegian Crown) in the first half of the summer, and then Braemar will take over for the second half.

We are already fully booked for cruises next year (it’s going to be a P&O year for us, with cruises booked on Oriana & Ventura) but perhaps we will go back on Braemar in 2009. We would especially like to do either a Norwegian fjords cruise or a Baltic cities cruise, and Fred Olsen do both of these, and from north-east England, and generally use Braemar for them. So we will look forward to the 2009 brochure when it appears.

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.