Leither

I’ve often wondered about doing a Northern Lights cruise but I think that has effectively removed the temptation, thank you. Regards.

We sailed with Fred Olsen to the Azores, Canaries & Madeira last year. First stop on Terceira was cancelled because of storms & we spent less time on São Miguel than I wanted but did manage to see most of what we wanted to see. We'd been there in the mid-70s for several weeks so knew what we wanted to see. We hired a car & driver through https://www.brumasecenarios.com/en/ and our driver was first class. I told them we wanted to see - - Lagoa das Furnas; - Parque Terra Nostra; - Caldeiras das Furnas; - Miradouro Pico do Ferro; - Miradouro Santa Iria; - Vista do Rei; - Lagoa das Sete Cidades. We managed to see all of them and more, although it was very misty for our first stop at the viewpoint overlooking Sete Cidades. Weather improved as we moved east. A wonderful day, highly recommended. Regards.

Yes, but you won’t be able to access it until you disembark. It will be taken off you when boarding and stored somewhere.

I’m surprised; I don’t recall ever seeing slot machines on a FO ship, and we were on Bolette last year.

We’ve been on quite a few FO cruises and never seen a casino as such but I think I recall seeing a rather lonely roulette wheel. Can’t recall if that was on Bolette or not. Regards.

In my experience, tenders tend to go on throughout the day.

Funnily enough, I hadn't thought about claiming for a missed port until I read your post. We do have cruise cover as an add-on & I checked, supposedly can claim £150. Last year our FO cruise couldn't call at Praia de Vitoria because of storms so I've submitted a claim this morning.

We’ve done lots of independent trips - including those in Iceland above - and never had any problems.

I replied to a similar question on the Roll Calls board -

I don't remember that but I do remember his always amusing 12 noon announcements. And that he left the cruise early to return for the birth of one of his children. He was also the captain on our first cruise, to Norway.

And interesting to see that the captain, Jozo Glavic, is going with her. He was the captain who took us through the Corinth Canal on Braemar a few years ago.

The details are here - https://www.fredolsencruises.com/faqs/on-board/what-is-your-procedure-for-tipping-on-board We normally just go along with this but give the stewardess and the two waiters a little bit extra, ie maybe £5 or £10 each. Fred Olsen provide envelopes for this. Regards.

São Miguel and Terceira are the names of the islands, the other two names are the principal towns respectively.

We did the cruise last year to the Azores, Canaries & Madeira. Unfortunately the first stop, Terceira, was cancelled due to storms. On São Miguel we'd booked a private tour through https://www.brumasecenarios.com/en/ in Ponta Delgada. It was 50 years since we'd been to the island and knew exactly what we wanted to see/do and what we didn't. Our guide/driver Gabriel was really first class and delivered everything we wanted. Highly recommended. Regards.

We did the Cruise through the Corinth Canal on Braemar in 2019 and it was excellent. But this year we cruised on Bolette to the Canaries, Azores etc and were very happy with the ship. So much so, we booked to go to Norway on her sister ship next year. Regards.

Some years ago we sailed from Newcastle. We stayed at the Premier Inn the night before boarding and left the care in their car park for the duration. We did check with them beforehand but there was no charge. I think we may have made a donation to their chosen charity.

Thanks, didn’t realise you were talking about shell fish.

What’s a filter feeder?

We went to Norway a few years ago with FO. At that time they had a special deal for specific currencies of which Norwegian Krone was one whereby they bought back any surplus currency at the same rate you bought it at. suggest you search to see if that’s still the case.

We did a FO cruise in 2019, stopping at various ports. In each place we booked tours in advance with this company - https://www.wildwestfjords.com/shore_excursions/ They were excellent, no problems at all. I'd advise contacting them and telling them of your concerns. Cheers.

Interesting thread. We’ve done about six cruises with FO, only company we’ve gone with so haven’t compared competitor prices. I do get a 5% discount thanks to my old employer which helps. Only interested in no-fly cruises. We’ve recently done the Adriatic cruise on Bolette (initially called the Balkan cruise, name changed presumably for marketing reasons!). We enjoyed Bolette, first time we’ve had a so-called suite with balcony. Theatre was much better size than on the smaller ships. There were about 850 px on board cf capacity, I think, of 1,300. Same captain as the one we had on the Corinth Canal cruise, excellent guy (as mentioned above). Shore visits were slightly disappointing as some of them were little more than a half-day. Food was up to the usual standard, some days better than others. We did have a huge benefit in a £200pp on board spend. Covid was a problem which I didn’t see mentioned above. Ship would only admit to 100 cases, but we suspect more. My wife was pinged, which meant she had to test daily before leaving the cabin. But this has put us off booking any cruises in the near future - the risk of being confined to your cabin for a prolonged period is just too great. Our final port was to have been Tangiers but they refused to let us dock because of the Covid situation on board. Regards.