Tradewind Voyages

[Alan2504]

Anyone booked a cruise on the Golden Horizon yet?

[tring]

On 4/29/2021 at 3:05 PM, Alan2504 said:

Anyone booked a cruise on the Golden Horizon yet?

 

We are now and very much looking forward to it.

[Charleston Lady]

I have recently become aware of this lovely ship and am interested. It sounds like a wonderful adventure. Will be following. Hope those onboard will share their experiences.

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12 minutes ago, Charleston Lady said:

I have recently become aware of this lovely ship and am interested. It sounds like a wonderful adventure. Will be following. Hope those onboard will share their experiences.

 

The cruises we were booked on were cancelled and have been replaced purely with cruises from Dover, which is difficult to get to, due to having to negotiate London, particularly in the school holidays.  Hence the people I know of on here who were booked, have now received refunds. So you will have to look elsewhere for reviews/comments.

[PurleyKing]

We're just back from a mini-voyage (4 nights) along the south coast of England on Golden Horizon (we have been on the Star Clipper ships a number of times). And we had a very good time...accompanied by a couple of our friends who had only done river cruising before. This cruise had only been advertised a couple of weeks ago, so it was no surprise that there were probably only about 70 passengers on a ship with a 270 capacity (though that's if all cabins are filled to the max). I think that many of the passengers were travel agents. Given the then-current corona virus restrictions, they would have been in any event limited to 50% capacity, I believe. The hotel staff and the other staff who interact with passengers all wore masks the whole time; passengers were asked to wear masks when walking around inside the ship, but not when sitting in any venue nor when on deck.

 

The trip didn't start well - understatement! We cast off from the cruise terminal jetty in Dover Harbour on time at 6 pm (last Thursday) and were shepherded to a backwater part of the harbour by a huge tug. An announcement said that there was a problem with the paperwork and we would be staying in harbour overnight. Still there the next morning, a search for the ship on Google revealed that we were under arrest! It transpires that Star Clippers has won its legal claim against the Croatian shipyard that built the ship, and is owed 13m Euros; they had served a writ against the shipyard as the payment of the money was long overdue....so the ship was arrested, with us on it. A police van was placed on the dockside to keep an eye on us. It then became obvious why the big tug had been connected to Golden Horizon by a big cable - it was to stop our captain making a break for the open sea! On Friday morning, we were considering the unwelcome possibility of spending another three nights without going anywhere but, by late morning we heard that 6 or 7 million Euro had been paid over to Star Clippers through the courts and we were free to go - we sailed at 2pm. That afternoon had some useful wind from astern, so we didn't use the engines. The rest of the cruise was in beautiful summer weather but with hardly a breeze, so the engines were then used a lot.

 

The ship looks splendid....a bigger better version of Royal Clipper. Everything, of course, looks like Star Clippers, given that Star Clippers designed it....down to the blue carpets with the rope design. The standard cabin is usefully bigger than on the other ships....the double bed is set away from the hull wall, for instance, so you can get in from either side. The double-deck dining room, the piano bar, the lecture theatre and the (splendid) library are all more spacious and there is a large reception area that doesn't exist on the other ships.

 

The officers included a few we have seen before; the captain was Mariusz Szalek, a lean Polish chap who we know from old. And the hotel manager was Steve Adamson who had that role on a Bali to Singapore cruise we did three years ago, if I remember correctly. There didn't seem to be the direct equivalent of a cruise director....we could have benefitted from such a person to keep us informed about what was going on with the delay to the departure and with the inevitable changes to the programme that this caused.

 

There is a vast amount of usable deck space compared to the other ships. I counted over 160 sturdy teak sun loungers set out on the sun deck, with plenty of spacing. What we were short of given the beautiful weather was shade....they will definitely need to rig a few more awnings. There is a lot of room up by the bridge to watch sail-aways from, but we weren't allowed down on the foredeck, so no 'hanging out' in the nets. Their sail-away music has been specially composed (they tell us) and was very appropriate....but not a patch on Vangelis!

 

The food was generally very good....it would certainly equate to the other ships. Because of covid restrictions, all meals were a la carte served at your table. Even the afternoon tea snacks (a smaller affair than on the other ships) were served to you (in the Piano Bar), though you could go to the display and tell the member of staff what bits you wanted. Meals could be taken at tables outside in the equivalent of the Tropical Bar - we only tried this one lunchtime and didn't bother again as the menu was limited compared to the main dining room.

 

Again, given the covid restrictions, we were only allowed off the ship as part of an organised excursion (this is a restriction imposed by the ports in England at the time); our enforced change of dates following our arrest meant that only one excursion went ahead so, apart from a photo safari, we stayed on board. There were two good guest lecturers on board - the ship had been scheduled to be going all round Scotland last week until the Scottish government banned cruise ships from docking at Scottish ports but the one lecturer had prepared a whisky-tasting talk for that voyage and held it anyway - very enjoyable. The pianist on board was excellent, as was the musical duo in the outside bar of an evening.

 

I fancy that those of us who prefer the smaller Star Clippers ships because of the more interesting sailing and/or the intimacy will still tend to stick with the smaller ships unless a particularly attractive itinerary is being undertaken by Royal Clipper or Golden Horizon. Those who prefer Royal Clipper to the two smaller ships should definitely give Golden Horizon a go. Our accompanying friends just want to know where to sign up for the next cruise - they loved it!.

 

And we had a free bar the whole trip because of the arrest.

 

I'll be happy to try to answer any questions.

[sb44]

Thank you so much for the detail. We read about the arrest and now understand more! Quite an experience! We are looking at the Caribbean season and have a few questions. What did you think of the food in comparison to other lines? Have you ever sailed the Windstar sailing ships? If so, any comparisons would be appreciated.  We saw a review that the shower/tubs could be dangerous because of slick flooring.  What did you think? As for no shade, is there the ability to sit anywhere on deck and be shaded? Was your cabin one of the balcony cabins or did you see one? I'm curious about how they open and are they French balconies or one that holds chairs. Any other thought about cabin locations?  Many thanks in advance. 

[PurleyKing]

Hello SB44. I have not been on Windstar ships. Whilst I have done many Star Clippers cruises, my only other cruising holidays have been on Regent.

I mentioned that the Golden Horizon food was on a par with Star Clippers. I found the food good on the whole though it falls below the standard you would get on a top-of-the-range cruise line like Regent, both for choice and quality; set your expectations accordingly.

We did not find the shower floor slippery; we were not in a cabin that had a bath tub. We did comment that there is an awkward step up into the bathroom that might prove tricky for someone with a knee or hip issue.

We did not have a balcony, but could see that the balcony cabins had a table and two chairs on the balcony. As for cabin location on this style of ship, the usual rules apply about keeping near the middle of the ship to minimise movement caused by the sea (everything was so calm when we were on board that you didn't really know you were afloat when in your cabin) and the lower deck cabins at the stern are more likely to pick up noise from the engine.