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Advantages of Fred Olson cruises


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I have cruised with P&O previously and heard a lot of sniffy comments and witnessed snobbish attitudes towards Fred's cruises. I am very open to try different cruise lines. What would people say are advantages/disadvantages when comparing Fred to P&O?

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I have cruised with P&O previously and heard a lot of sniffy comments and witnessed snobbish attitudes towards Fred's cruises. I am very open to try different cruise lines. What would people say are advantages/disadvantages when comparing Fred to P&O?

 

I would say the itineraries are what would make us choose Fred, compared to P&O's mundane itineraries, which seem to be getting worse as the ships get bigger - but we have got a very good deal on Oceana for 24 nights in Oct 2018 sailing back to the UK and with a lot of port days. Fred's ships are older, but the staff are better IMO.

 

You will find loads of threads on both here and the P&O boards, so I suggest you do a seach.

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As said previously the Fred. Olsen ships are older and smaller but this has its advantages on the more adventurous itineraries. The biggest advantage of P&O is the choice of evening entertainment. Fred. Olsen sail from many ports in the UK whereas P&O are tied to Southampton. I have found that the staff on Fred. Olsen are more cheerful and friendly.

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We have also done both. We have never had to use a tender on our Fred cruise due to smaller ships.

 

I like the larger choice of bars etc on P and O. Fred has better daytime entertainment on sea days. We were on a P and O Iceland cruise and they had talks about Egypt!

 

I think the food on Fred is slightly better, but on P and O you can get something to eat for more hours in the day.

 

I agree with the previous poster who says the staff are better on Fred.

 

The average age of the passengers tend to be a bit younger on P and O.

 

At the end of the day it would be the itinerary that would sway me to book.

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We sail on multiple lines and the the thing that swings the booking is the itinery.

 

I like the fact that Fred does something different by way of ports and that we can travel from Scotland or the North of England rather that the long journey to Southampton.

 

 

To be frank if the only thing on offer from Fred was from the South we would never travel with them again as, apart from the friendly staff, they are inferior in most other aspects to P&O in my opinion and charge a lot more for old ships and small cabins.

 

 

But they do offer something different and that is the USP. P&O ports are getting boring whereas there is always somewhere new to see on Fred.

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To be honest I never hear anything except negative views on P&O.

You get what you pay for, Fred Olsen have friendlier staff, a more personal experience due to ship size, and extras seem to be a lot cheaper than other cruises lines. The drinks package only costs £15pppn, gratuities are completely optional and even then recommended at £4pppn which is nothing for the service.

You may get a cheaper rate with P&O but you're much more likely to remember a Fred Olsen cruise for the better experience overall in my opinion.

 

 

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To be honest I never hear anything except negative views on P&O.

You get what you pay for, Fred Olsen have friendlier staff, a more personal experience due to ship size, and extras seem to be a lot cheaper than other cruises lines. The drinks package only costs £15pppn, gratuities are completely optional and even then recommended at £4pppn which is nothing for the service.

You may get a cheaper rate with P&O but you're much more likely to remember a Fred Olsen cruise for the better experience overall in my opinion.

 

On P and O you are allowed to take drinks on board for consumption in your cabin. If you take your own wine to have with your meal, then there is corkage. Like Fred the price of onboard drinks are reasonably priced.

 

Gratuities are also optional on P and O, but are recommended at £5 PCN which I believe increased this year.

 

Have you done a P and O cruise recently?

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Must admit there is a great deal we do not like about P&O, not the best of experiences in our opinion. One big advantage though is the chance to have freedom dining - we find the set sittings a big problem on Fred, though if we book early we seem to be able to get a table for two which helps to some extent. We do not mind other people, but the same ones everyday is a bit much.

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Must admit there is a great deal we do not like about P&O, not the best of experiences in our opinion. One big advantage though is the chance to have freedom dining - we find the set sittings a big problem on Fred, though if we book early we seem to be able to get a table for two which helps to some extent. We do not mind other people, but the same ones everyday is a bit much.

 

I would agree, it is fine if you get nice people who will chat away (majority of the time) and really unpleasant if you get the odd horror. We prefer freedom dining for this reason, change of company.

 

I also like the alternative dining venues, glass house, proper theatre etc but all that doesn,t count for much if you have visited the ports 5 times previously.

 

Would,t do if we all liked the same things.

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I have sailed both with P&O and Fred Olsen and have had wonderful cruises on both. Our first cruise was on Braemar and our second on the old Adonia - now Sea Princess, sister to Oceana - we loved both but there are obvious differences. On FO we think the staff are exceptional, the food we have had has been good. We tend to like smaller ships rather than giants so the smaller FO ships have much to recommend them. We have always enjoyed set dining and are still in touch with people on our first Fred cruise back in 2003. We like the smaller ships on P&O compared to the giants and our favourites are Adonia, Aurora and Oceana but we have had good cruises on Azura too. We haven't been on Britannia, too large for us.

 

On P&O we like the fact that there are select dining venues which we can choose to pay to go to for a change - love The Epicurean on Azura. We like the fact that if we are back late from a morning excursion and have missed lunch we don't have to wait until tea time to get some food. We like the fact that most of their ships, apart from Adonia, have a proper theatre rather than just a show lounge. We find that the prices on Fred compared to P&O are more expensive. The cabins on Fred are, by the nature of the ships, much smaller. We are due to go back on Braemar later this year and have a Balcony Suite - the same cabin amazingly that we had back in 2003. At the time I thought it was wonderful - first cruise. Now since cruising on P&O I have become used to larger cabins and I would say the Balcony Suite on Braemar is about the same size as an ordinary balcony cabin on say Oceana.

 

We have booked Fred again mainly for the itinerary. Fred does offer a good choice of itineraries, many due to the fact that the smaller ships can get into ports that the larger ones cannot. We like the fact that there are formal nights and certainly on P&O P&O the vast majority of passengers dress appropriately, over 90% of men will wear dinner jackets, maybe higher than that. I'm assuming it will still be the same on Braemar on a formal evening, I hope so. We last cruise with Fred on Black Watch back in 2012 so it will be very interesting to see what we feel about Fred Olsen after the majority of our cruises have been with P&O. We have enjoyed both cruise lines and expect to enjoy our forthcoming cruise on Braemar.

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We have cruised with 6 different lines including P&O and Fred, although we've only been on Black Watch of Fred's ships. Like others we were tempted by the itinerary so we had a fantastic time.........despite the ship. To be honest it's by far the worst ship we've ever cruised on. The cabins are too small; for example we paid a lot of money for a balcony cabin on a 70 day cruise and found the balcony was just an over-hang over the Promenade deck so we had no privacy whatsoever and the views were partially obstructed by a lifeboat to one side and 'raft' to the other. The beds were fixed singles and because the cabin was so narrow the beds couldn't sit side by side. There was no fridge and no seating area. We had two separate outbreaks of Noro and a very nasty epidemic of bronchitis for which myself and lot of other people were prescribed nebulisers. Never had anything like it before in my life.

 

The food was fine and we particularly enjoyed the breakfast and lunch buffets in the MDR but we found the dining system far too inflexible. The entertainment was generally poor other than the crew shows, and apart from that we found the crew no better than P&O. Fred Olsen has a supremely loyal clientele who will not have a bad word spoken against the company and who can imagine nothing worse that cruising with P&O. They were happy to make their feelings known to us!

 

We would never been tempted to go on Black Watch again but there are FO cruises from our part of the world so maybe when we're 10 years older we'd need to consider it.

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A big advantage for us is the distance to travel to get to the departure port, with P&O we have to travel all the way down from Durham to Southampton but with Fred it will take us about 45 minutes to Newcastle, massive advantage for us and others I would imagine.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We have cruised with both lines plus many others. We were always great fans of Fred but after three cruises away from them the one thing we never realised was significant was the restricted meal times. We found our last three cruises with open dining and near 24 hour food availability was much more relaxing.

As for Dancing if you are a fan of Ballroom etc then as Tring says Fred is good, if your not a fan then sometimes you end up with a Lounge to yourself. We are Dances but do like a mix. The Thomson Discovery has a good mix, the Dream less so.

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  • 3 weeks later...

As for Dancing if you are a fan of Ballroom etc then as Tring says Fred is good, if your not a fan then sometimes you end up with a Lounge to yourself. We are Dances but do like a mix. The Thomson Discovery has a good mix, the Dream less so.

 

Not so sure I understand the comment about ending up with a lounge to yourself if not ballroom dancers. The lido (or Coral on Braemar) is where the disco type dancing is, unless they are doing other things, and there are always plenty of people there. What I object to is when the Neptune finishes (which is earlier than the Lido or Coral), the dance hosts go up to the Lido and can make a good night into a ballroom dance venue and have sometimes tried to edge us off the dancefloor!! We have found over the last year it is easier to talk to the DJ or musicians and request something more suitable for us and others who want something more modern and that has got more on the dancefloor and discouraged the dance hosts from taking over. As I understand it the dance hosts should be prepared to do disco style dancing as well - but some are not of that opinion.

 

Overall, the amount of time given to Ballroom dancing on Fred's ships tends to be more than the amount of time allowed for more modern stuff, which IMO is wrong as people of all ages will dance to modern stuff, but the ballroom just caters for relatively few. I have no wish to stop the provision of ballroom style dancing, but just think there should be an equal balance regards that. There was an excellent band in the Coral last winter, so that is a good omen from our point of view.

Edited by tring
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It's a fact that Fred caters for Ballroom Dancers, but we have been on quite a few Fred cruises where we have gone in the alternative lounge at night expecting to dance modern or jive or Latin and found that the group almost resent the Ballroom Dancers and play music that it's impossible to dance Ballroom or modern. Try Dancing to Albatross So what happened was the Dancers left and the non Ballroom Dancers were left to an almost empty venue. Never happens on the Balmoral but Breamar we have found it has happened on three cruises. So much so we will not cruise on the Breamar now.

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It's a fact that Fred caters for Ballroom Dancers, but we have been on quite a few Fred cruises where we have gone in the alternative lounge at night expecting to dance modern or jive or Latin and found that the group almost resent the Ballroom Dancers and play music that it's impossible to dance Ballroom or modern. Try Dancing to Albatross�� So what happened was the Dancers left and the non Ballroom Dancers were left to an almost empty venue. Never happens on the Balmoral but Breamar we have found it has happened on three cruises. So much so we will not cruise on the Breamar now.

 

Never seen the Coral empty and Braemar is the ship we have been on most over the last 2.5 years - the dancefloor has been going on until fairly late. The increase in passengers on AI may well have something to do with that though :) There may be times when music more suitable for listening was played and it was well appreciated by the passengers there as it is nice to sit at times and some good music has been played. Not everyone wants to go into the shows.

 

A couple of years back on Braemar, we came across a blond singer with a group who clearly did not want anyone to dance while she was singing, (any style I mean), and actually said through her mike at the end of the song that she had tried to discourage us from joining the dancefloor by using her eyes!! I think we have exchanged comments on this board about that particular singer at the time - it was a bad band from both our points of view that year. The young band on Braemar last winter (and for the Mystery cruise in May 2016) were very good indeed and where lovely people as well. We became quite friendly with them and they were quite happy to take requests from people if they were allowed to do so by Fred. The problem at times was that Fred had made a decision that certain nights would be designated for certain styles of music, which left them having to do what they had been told. I think Fred's entertainment staff can be particularly stupid at times and not prepared to let the passengers decide what they want and entertainers to play what is going down well at the time. If there is an empty dancefloor, we often get things going by getting up ourselves and requesting the sort of stuff that tends to get people up - often The Stones is a good starter, or some other older disco tune. Once people get up the evening gets going. Jive is fine for all dance styles and some modern music can be used for Latin, which is fine as long as the dancers do not decide to take the whole floor and edge others off. I think the Neptune does Latin as well as other ballroom though, if not I think it is very bad. Considering other things happen in The Coral, the ballroom dancing is allocated lots of time in the Neptune.

 

We are still going off Fred (and his old boats) for other reasons, though we have booked Liverpool to Mauritius for Oct/Nov as we have been able to get a good deal and are staying on in Mauritius for a while before coming back with a few days in Abu Dhabi. Only paid half of Fred's price for the return tickets as well. We have a few land hols planned as well, including Myanmar with a week of that on, "The Road to Madalay" (i.e. a river cruise on the Irrawaddy).

 

I know you were looking at other cruise lines, so hope you are enjoying whatever holidays you have had recently,

 

Barbara

Edited by tring
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Hi Barbara, your right about the listening to music. I get into trouble sometimes when I am grumbling that I can't dance to this, I am told maybe people just want to listen We moved to Thomson for the Caribbean in January on the Discovery and really enjoyed it. Although it's a million miles away from Fred. No formality, a few passengers of dubious mentality.

Just back off the Dream which we also enjoyed but missed the Ballroom and to a certain extent any type of dancing.

We are trying Celebrity in October so will be interested to see how they compare.

Looking at an Alaska Cruise next May.

Still love the Balmoral tho.

We are looking for a decent itinerary for the Britannia, but nothing has come up.

It's a hard life trying to pick a perfect cruise, maybe that's another topic ?

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  • 1 month later...
Must admit there is a great deal we do not like about P&O, not the best of experiences in our opinion. One big advantage though is the chance to have freedom dining - we find the set sittings a big problem on Fred, though if we book early we seem to be able to get a table for two which helps to some extent. We do not mind other people, but the same ones everyday is a bit much.

 

I am with you about freedom dining our last trip was with Cruise and Maritime on a table of 6 one couple left after the first night and the husband of the other couple was a know it all. This month we are on a 5 day trip to Norway in Balmoral our first trip with Fred Olsen but since we are on second sitting so hopefully we will get a table for 2 that we asked for. The big plus for us is we live a twenty minute drive from the port of Tyne

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We have our first Fred Olsen Cruise in March next year from Malaga to Southampton on Boudicca. Which is great for us as we live 40 mins from the cruise terminal in Malaga. We love cruising, we enjoy the Freestyle of NCL, we enjoy the set dining on Royal Caribbean, Thomson is just so easy and friendly. Celebrity is just stunning . P and O were just amazing when we took out 8 year old Grandson on a cruise last year. So I'm sure whatever Fred has to offer we will enjoy it. It's about researching what the product is designed to offer and enjoying it.

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  • 1 month later...
One advantage of Fred Olsen I haven't seen mentioned is the kettle and tea & coffee in the cabin:)

 

I think that most of the cruise lines going out of the U.K. now provide this. Certainly RCI and Celebrity add a kettle etc when they are sailing out of Southampton. P&O have always do this and I think even MCS are adding it in now.

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We have recently come back from our cruise on Braemar and, as I said in an earlier posting on this thread, she was our first cruise ship but most of our cruising since has been with P&O. We had the same cabin as we had in 2003 which is classed as a Balcony Suite. We have had, with one exception, suites or mini suites on P&O which are of course much larger as P&O ships are larger, in some cases, much larger than Braemar. The balcony suite was slightly larger than I remember but the bathroom was so small, something I'd forgotten.

 

At the end of the cruise, round the British Isles, my main thought was that I would consider Fred Olsen for a very short cruise, if it was an itinerary we particularly wanted. I suppose the main things that I found disappointing when compared to P&O has to do with dining. I knew, of course that there is no constant availability of food. We were in the Thistle Restaurant (the larger of the two main restaurants) on a table of 8 second sitting, which is what we asked for and what we had previously. I opted for the Thistle really because our first cruise on Braemar was before she was 'stretched' and that was the only restaurant, apart from the Palms buffet. I was amazed to see that the restaurant on most evenings was only half full, lots of empty tables. Because of the itinerary, Southampton to Southampton round the British Isles was bound to attract older passengers who presumably wanted to eat early. I did hear that first sitting was oversubscribed and maybe those passengers who couldn't get first sitting went to The Palms in the evening. The only times our restaurant was full was when there were several passengers late back from a trip, too late for first sitting which is at 6.15 - far too early for me.

 

The other thing I didn't like was that for breakfast and lunch in the two main restaurants there is a mixture of buffet and menu. So you can either choose from the menu or use the buffet or a combination of both. This meant that was a great deal of hustle and bustle with people up and down all the time. On the second day we tried The Thistle for lunch. We were sat on a table of 10 and only I and one other lady decided to choose from the menu. So it meant all the time people were up and down going and getting their next course, getting in the way of the waiters who were trying to serve the other woman and myself.

 

After that we decided to try the Grampain restaurant, much smaller with lovely views. As it was smaller most of the tables were either for two or four with a few for six or eight and there was less movement. After that we went there for breakfast and lunch most days. We did try the Palms buffet for breakfast the first morning and again because it is a relatively small space there seemed to be people constantly moving. I would have liked to have seen one of the restaurants, maybe the Grampian because it's the smaller of the two, serving menu only but I'm sure that wouldn't be popular with many passengers.

 

I sampled the Room Service sandwiches one day when I was late back from a trip, too late for lunch in either of the restaurants or the buffet. I did miss being able to pop up to the buffet to get something to eat, not that one would ever starve on a cruise ship! The weather on our trip wasn't conducive to outside dining which is the only 'select' option on Braemar - an outside space from the Palms buffet so I don't think this was even on offer.

 

We went to several of the evening entertainments in the Neptune Lounge - a show lounge, there's no theatre on such a small ship, which were fine, but obviously there were times when it was difficult to see. The trips were fine, the only hiccough was when there had to be tenders used for the stop at Oban. The weather wasn't good and some people had a very rocky time. One woman injured her foot when she was caught between the tender and the ship and had to go to hospital for X-rays. I met her at breakfast the next day and she had a wheelchair and crutches and had to keep the weight off her foot for three days - not what you want on a cruise.

 

The crew on the Braemar were lovely and couldn't do enough to help. Our cabin stewardess was great as were our two waiters in the evening. We had the all inclusive drinks package given as part of our booking. Whether we would have chosen to pay for it I'm not sure. It was good in that it means my husband and I were able to have different wines at dinner, he would often choose red and I would have rose. We found the house wines on offer were fine. The only time I had something I didn't like was when I had a glass of Cava - it was awful and I didn't drink it. The waiters were very good at keeping glasses topped up and we never had to ask for another drink. We are not great spirit drinkers and didn't sample any of the spirits. We bought a bottle of Pimms to have in our cabin - on P&O we usually take a bottle with us but of course you can't do that on Fred Olsen.

 

The embarkation and disembarkation were very well organised and efficient. So looking back there were definitely things I missed on Fred Olsen compared to P&O. We are going on a long cruise with P&O next year and I wouldn't consider doing a long trip with FO. I think that P&O offer more value for money but then FO still has its devoted followers.

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We have done a few cruises with Fred and P&O. We found that the food in the MDR with Fred slightly better than P&O but with P&O you can eat all round the clock except between 03.00 and 06.00.

 

In general I found the staff on Fred to be a bit more helpful, but on Britannia this year they were excellent.

 

We also like the fact that with P&O we are not the last ones in the bar.

 

Fred do have some more unusual itineraries and can get to places the large ships can't. I think they both have their pros and cons.

 

 

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