Look what Braemar got from Santa!

A new coat. And a go-faster stripe.

We thought our transfer had pulled up at the wrong ship when we arrived in Barbados on 7th Jan. The new colour scheme is so new that a sizeable chunk of the port side wasn't complete at this point and in this photo you can just see that the bow still needs a bit of work. It was all completed in Jamaica on 20/21/22 Jan.

There's been a couple of other changes since we were last on board, but they won't be new to some of you. The new canopy over The Grill (Deck 6 outside the Palms Cafe) means that the aft decks are pretty useless now for sailaway music as you can't see deck 5, where the band used to be, from the upper decks. Sailaway parties are now held up on deck 8.

The outdoor bar on deck 6 has gone and is now the servery for The Grill.

Deck 5 aft, outside the Coral Club, now has the same faux cane furniture as the Marquee bar and seemed to get much more use throughout the voyage than it did in the past.

Inside the ship, the computer room has gone and is now just a couple of PCs in the library. (I guess because most people now use their own devices on the wi-fi, which was upgraded during our last few days aboard.) The card room next door has been moved down to the old gym beside the beauty salon on deck 3. These two rooms have been knocked together and opened out into the Braemar Room to create the new coffee/chocolate shop.

There's been a general shuffling of the shops and the sundries shop is now down here as well instead of up on deck 7 (which is now cabins)

I've seen a lot of changes to this ship over the years, most of them for the better, thankfully.

Regards, Colin.

I like black hulls - it looks good. Thanks for the photos.

We were on board late 2014 and late 2015. The indoor things and canopy over the Grill were done in 2014, but still looked good this winter. We called the back of deck 5 'smokers paradise' as half of it is a smoking area. With the AI packages there were a lot of people using that bar, even late at night. The Grill was hardly patronised at all when we were on board. They were cutting out the bars under the handrails at the back of the ship and replacing them with glass panes late 2015. Seemed a shame as they then got dirty and restricted the view from the ship when sitting down, whereas there was previously a clear view.

The large amount of space used for the faux cane chairs on pool deck seemed a shame to us as they then put the sun beds so close together it was difficult to climb onto them. Also the chairs and settees there were often occupied by people who were allowed to stretch out, using two chairs each or a whole settee and letting their bare legs stain the cushions with sun tan cream etc. We were surprised that was not discouraged.

We do like Braemar though as it is a very happy ship and all the staff seem to be happy and work extremely hard even in the worst of sea conditions etc. We have booked the Mystery Cruise in May and 31 nights from Southampton late this year, when the ship goes off for it's winter season away from the UK.

Barbara

I totally agree with the comments about the cane furniture on the top sun deck. Whilst it is very nice furniture, many people sprawl over using the sofas as day beds and limiting the seating space. When I was on Braemar in October it was impossible to find a seat most times because of the sprawlers. This was very apparent when lunch was being served there, almost impossible to find a seat in the shade. Yes, the sunbeds are too close together now and impossible to use unless you are very athletic. There are probably too many sunbeds anyway so it may be better to take some away. Whilst I am sure the ship's personnel don't want to tell people off about laying on the sofas I think a few signs requesting that people don't use them as day beds might help. I found these two things spoiled my outside time whilst on the ship and many people were grumbling about this too. Whilst I usually pick a ship because of the itinery I would now think twice about Braemar. I also think that the sailaways do not seem to work so well on deck 8, can't put my finger on why, but there were definitely less people getting up to dance.

They did that paint job on the cruise around the Canaries just before christmas. I was surprised the dark colour covered the white in one coat.