Tom Burke’s Blog

Cruises before 2007

We went on our first cruise in 2005.

Well, actually not quite true…. Val had cruised on the old Oriana in 1969 – 12 nights or so from Southampton to the Med, calling at Lisbon, Palma, Naples, and Athens. She was only 14 and went with her grandmother, with whom she shared a cabin. She remembers it fondly, but also remembers thinking how much more she might have enjoyed it if she’d been a bit older, and as a result she’d always fancied cruising again. She had mentioned this a few times during our years together, and in the early winter of 2004 I decided to look into it. And so I started the process of finding out about cruise lines, ships, and types of cruises. At that time I knew about P&O and Fred Olsen, and probably not a lot more – I’m not sure I knew even the names of the major US-based lines. For some reason I got hold of some information about MSC Cruises, and they started to sound attractive.

So here are some brief reports of the cruises we’ve done up to now, arranged by year:

2005 – the first cruise on MSC Sinfonia, and also Norwegian Jewel

2006 – Celebrity Galaxy

2007 – Celebrity Galaxy again, and Fred. Olsen’s Braemar

2008 – a P&O year: Oriana and Ventura.