Northern Boy

Just be aware that parking at the hotel is insecure and open to the general public 24 hours a day. The choice and risk is yours.

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Premier Inn will let you park for just a donation for charity but car park is not secure, just an open car park for the hotel and shopping park. Cruise terminal is secure and you are close to terminal but is £9:50 a day.

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Parking at Liverpool is next to the cruise terminal. If booked through Fred it is £9.50 per day or book through your travel agent if that is what you are using.

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Interesting question.

 

Not sure about onboard spend - I spoke with FO yesterday after posting here - no CC fees since 1st January 2018 - confirmed on their website.

 

http://www.fredolsencruises.com/help/booking-a-cruise/credit-card-surcharge

 

You have flagged up a point most of us would not have recognised beforehand.

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The port of Dover website says she is docking at 7am and sailing at 5pm. She will not have relocated as she will have departed from Dover on the previous cruise. Get there in good time you may get on earlier.

It's true. It was reported first on Cruise Capital and then the Fred Olsen Cruise Group on FB. It returned to port with a medical emergency. Cannot remember which site it was on but it showed the route taken by Balmoral which clearly indicated that it returned to North Shields.

Yes you are quite right Balmoral did return to port. I went onto the Cruise Capital site and saw this information.

However this was on the cruise following mine which left for Stockholm on the 30th so that's why I didn't know anything about it.

A case of a little misinformation.

I got the information off the Fred Olsen twitter site, she hadn't gone far out, and probably the passenger would have been off loaded quietly, maybe even ship to ship, I don't know the details, but it certainly wouldn't have affected your schedule as there is always built in some leeway. Were you on Balmoral going to Norway fjords for seven days?

Yes we were on the Fjord cruise. I don't do Facebook or Twitter so I can't check what has been said about the offload or the original post.

All I can say is that we left at 4:30pm went upstream to turn around so was about 5:30pm when we got out to sea. I was on 1st sitting at 6;15pm and didn't see us going back into port so maybe the passenger got off with the pilot perhaps.

We shall see if anyone else can enlighten us further.

I came off Balmoral onon the 23rd July and yes, there had been a small outbreak of norovirus. I have to say that they were extra careful with all the usual steps, and had added new ones, but its still there. The ship was far too hot in all the public rooms, and the last night, I started feeling a bit groggy, by the time I got off the ship I knew I was in for something, which developed into proper flu, in bed for at least three days, couldn't get my head off the pillow, feeling cold in hot weather, and couldn't brush my hair because it hurt. Not really what you want after a holiday, I now need another! When Balmoral left later on the 23rd, she sailed and then turned around and came back into port to off load an ill passenger. Passenger illness not known.

I came off on the 30th and to my knowledge there was no norovirus.

I sailed on the 23rd and you are saying that the ship turned round to offload a passenger. We weren't told about this via any announcements on board neither did we notice that the ship had come back into port. I am sure we would have noticed this as it would have put our sailing schedule well behind. If you had got off the ship on the 23rd how did you know that the ship had returned later that day?

I am sure I would have noticed if the ship had turned round.

Are we both talking about the same cruise.

Where did you get this from?

I just came off her on Saturday and didn't see or hear of any problems. Had a great cruise,the usual too much food too much drink and the compulsory increase in weight.

Why not bring a short extension lead or buy one over here. I have taken one before. This should overcome your problem.

If you book parking through Fred it's £9.50 per day.

Balmoral is in port from 07:30 until 16:30 and can be found here,

http://aurlandhavn.no/cruise-2/ship-arrivals-2015/

You may find that the train ride with Fred has a guide that tells you of the history and everything interesting about the area on the way up and down. You wouldn't get that going on your own. Just a thought. We did a trip with our train ride and our guide was very knowledgeable and he was American who married a Norwegian.

Enjoy your cruise.

We did the trip to Voss which included the Flam railway which we enjoyed very much. The scenery is stunning.

It is possible to do the train trip independently but that depends on how many ships are in port.

You can go onto the Norway port websites and find that out and also on the Flam railway website to see what is available but you can't book it yourself from here.

If you are good at searching to web you can easily find out this information.

I think it depends on whether you just want to just do the train ride or if you want to see more of Norway that you need to book a trip or not.

Hi Fleetcat

Just post here, it covers all cruise lines. We would all love to hear about your cruise good or bad.

We had the cruise director at our table a fortnight ago on Black Watch. Ours was a table for 6 in the Orchid room. We wondered who was coming with the extra setting.

There was enough room round the table but the table itself was a bit crowded with the extra wine glasses for both white and red which Anthony had selected.

I take it you are not a representative of the 'normal' passengers on the Fred Olsen ships as you don't seem very friendly. If you read other cruise boards, often threads digress & people are usually quite happy to help out even when they do digress.

 

 

Apologies from me if we interrupted your thread.

Hi all

I am a normal Fred Olsen passenger and I am friendly and am always willing to help anyone.

I know people digress on threads but that is usually after the OP has been answered.

This thread has got to page 2 and has only had one reply to the OP.

I wish to apologize to everybody especially Blossom52 and would say to her did I not reply to your thread about the Flam railway? I also wonder what made to put your original question on this thread.

I was trying not to get the thread bogged down in pages of comments of things that were not related to the theme of the OP. I was hoping to get Fred Olsen to reply to the thread with an answer and if it was full of other unrelated posts he won't bother reading them all.

As I have only have one reply and none of you have given an response to my OP I am closing this thread. I will not be replying to anymore posts on this thread in case it gets into a mud slinging match and in any case I am going on my Fred cruise this Sunday.

I expect there will be a few more comments after this so feel free to take about anything you like.

Once again apologizes to everyone and happy cruising, especially on Fred cruises.

Blossom52 and others.

Would you please respect the theme of this original thread. If you read other threads you will find answers to your questions or start a new thread of your own.

This started out as a thread to try to get Fred Olsen to sail Balmoral out of northern ports and is ending up asking about British nights and if you can take booze on board.

If some of you are upset about this reply then I am sorry but try not to butt in on posts that are nothing to do with what you are asking.

Southampton is not too bad from Yorkshire, it's all down hill. It's coming back that's the problem...:-)

Maybe if you are from South Yorkshire but it would be better for you to go to Liverpool or Newcastle.

The main aim of this thread is to try to get Balmoral to sail out of some northern ports.

We sailed out of Southampton at Christmas, no choice of another Uk port on Boudicca. It is either a 6 hour drive and it was the middle of winter which I didn't fancy or a 5 hour train journey direct, a bit less if we went via London but would then have to get a taxi or tube across the city or a long trip on the bus probably getting up at some unearthly hour to pick up the bus 10 miles out of town. We chose the direct train in the end and just got there before the flooding and winds slowed traffic down.

It is a lot easier for us to go to Newcastle or Liverpool. Does everything have to go out of Southampton. Anyone north of Yorkshire would prefer to sail out of a northern port. Would people down south like it if they had to have a 5,6,7 hour journey if all the sailings were up north?

So let's have your input for or against.

Thanks Fred for taking the time for answering my posts and bringing back the British night and answering other peoples posts.

Now my new request is are you ever going to bring Balmoral up north to start cruises out of Newcastle or Liverpool.

It's a long trek for us northerners having to go to all the way down to Southampton every time to experience Balmoral. I expect southerners have the same opinion about coming up here and probably don't come up to sail on Boudicca and Black Watch.

So I am appealing to all you cruise critic members to voice your opinion to this post if you feel the same way and see if we can get Fred to change there schedules at least for one season sometime. Maybe Fred will come on to tell us if they will or why they won't do it.

My partner and I are cruising Boudicca in three weeks to Greenland and there is a themed night. Its a British Theme. This is the first time we have cruised were a themed night is included. Do the majority of people dress up? We aren't all that into dressing up but if the majority of people do then we wouldn't want to let the side down, so to say!!

Hi

If you don't want to join in that's ok.

We were on the Christmas cruise on Boudicca and I reckon only 10% joined in. You could just wear combinations of red white and blue in your evening wear but some people like us wore union jacket gear. We just went in a union jack polo shirt and trousers.

So don't worry there are plenty of other people that will not be joining in .

Enjoy your cruise.

Thank you. I tried this but the Boudicca is not listed... I can find the ship on Marine Watch but not the itinerary... Any other suggestions? TIA.

 

 

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You need to go to www.fredolsencruises.com click on OUR SHIPS and then ship locator. In the top right of the home page you should see cruise brochures, click on that to get to the correct brochure.

Hi folks, I have been trying online to find the current cruise, with ports of call, for the Boudicca, which left Avonmouth/Bristol yesterday. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks.

 

 

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Boudicca is on it's way towards Iceland and then onto Norway.

Go to Fred Olsens website and find the ship locator and you can find exactly where she is at the moment.

To find the itinerary click on cruise brochures at the top right of the home page find the summer cruises brochure and navigate through it and you will find the cruise which shows where it is going.

With all the talk on another thread on these posts, I have just received my eticket for my cruise on the 13th July on the Black Watch and it has a British night included. It's only a 7 night cruise so no room for any more.

Lets hope Fred is keeping the British night alive.

Rule Britannia!

Comments from other cruisers on upcoming cruises regarding if there are anymore theme nights or just the British night or if there weren't any would be appreciated.

Just got our excursions book from Fred O.

The Flam trip is £75 which is Railway and a stop at a hotel..

I just got my shore brochure today and my DIY train only price is £48.

I'm with Fred I think it's time to try something new. We were with Fred over Christmas and New Year and the rock and roll night was very poorly participated in. You could count on both hands who had made an effort to dress up and the British night may have only 10% of people in Union jack gear or red white and blue.

I am cruising in July so I will find out what else they are going to do.