Hi Folk, I know, I am a bit of a wayward member here, but I do fine the cruise reports on the site a good read and food for thought as to our next sorties.

As some of you will know, my wife is disabled in as much as she relies totally on Liquid nutrition through, what is know as a Hickman line. She eats very little, therefore, outwardly it would be hard to say she was in fact disabled.

However as such we require a disabled cabin in which she can maintain an Aseptic environment. All this has to be arranged prior to embarkation, The Fred.Olsen staff are exceptionally good at looking after her every need

We have cruised 3 times now, the first was with P&O on the Arcadia, we splash out a tad with a balcony on C deck.. C1 to be precise, which was the fwd most cabin on that deck starboard side….. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves until, that is, we met up with the Braemar in Aruba. They seemed to be having such a ball and when we saw her leaving harbour to a sail-away, I just had to say ‘That’s where we should be.’

So it was Fred. Olsen for our next cruise… Last year the plumbed for the ‘Pearls Of the Black Sea’ cruise aboard the Boudicca, 28 days of sheer fun and adventure, finding places like Rhodes, Istanbul, Sevastopol, Crete and many other fantastic places.

Having been truly hooked on cruising we immediately booked up for this years outing. 17 days on board the Black Watch for the Baltic, Lapland and Saint Petersburg cruise, from which we returned just last week.

What a wonderful trip, although it started out in most traitorous weather. As usual we were met by the courier who had delivered Barbara’s Medical equipment along with her feed bags; these were placed directly into our cabin before embarkation, along with the 13 separate items of our own luggage. Are we alone in carrying such amounts of baggage?

We had the usual wait in the Dover embarkation lounge. Once on board we found our cabin on Lido deck 7. The only complaint we had was that our windows were the only one that were not reflective from the Promenade deck outside, without closed curtains all and sundry could happily see in, this was a minor problem.

The Black Watch, sister ship to the Boudicca whose internal layout was not too dissimilar, was we thought, in need of a thorough refit, in a word, she appeared to be ‘Tiered,’ having said that the crew were as usual, totally charming and courteous to the final degree. These people are a delight to know, nothing is too much and despite the occasional passenger who appear to leave their manners on the quay side they always have a smile and a greeting for you.

Our first destination was the Kiel Canal, for one who has transited all the major canals in the world the Kiel was different in as much that, at times, while passing through the middle of villages and Hamlets you appeared to pass right through the inhabitant’s gardens! In some places the local Umpah band was there to play us through, which was a nice touch, Sadly we passed through the final part of the canal in darkness.

Leaving the canal, our first port of call was Warnemunde, Germany we didn’t take any tours here although we could have made a 9 hour round trip to Berlin! We went ashore on our own, visiting the nearby town of Rostock for a meal and general nosey around, We returned to the ship by water bus which took about an hour this enabled us to see the demolition of the old ship yard and the birth of their new high Tec replacement. Rostock had been part of the Eastern Block before reunification the town was in the process of modification appearing to have more attention than other cities of its kind. Warnemunde was a very busy ferry port with vessels leaving for Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Estonia.

With regard going ashore, we find the tours, as supplied by the cruise lines, to be expensive and on occasions not very good. In most modern cities you can find the good old Red open topped buses which give excellent tours at a fraction of the cost of the cruise ones. We also find that, providing you get a licensed Taxi and you arrange a price before departing you can often get a far better service, along with a local who is only too pleased to show you the interesting parts of their city, as we did in Istanbul visiting the inner city and other places that were not on the ships itinerary… I digress.

Our next port of call was Stockholm, a delightful city built of a number of islands. Here we did take a ships tour, visiting the Royal Palace and the attractive old town, along with a visit to the Ice Bar! This was situated inside a hotel and was built in a room made out of large blocks of Ice. For our entrance fee included a large thermal cape with hood, gloves and once inside and you got used to the -5C we received a tot of Vodka in a glass made of ice. It was an unusual experience but not one that I would repeat. The trip out to sea incorporated a delightful passage through an archipelago of small islands, most of which had a building or two on , loads of small boats and yachts along with a myriad of ferries and cruise liners. The ship weaved her way to open sea in bright sunshine.

Pitea Sweden was our next stop, a small town which opened its arms to us all. It seemed that every shop had a 70% sale on. Not much to see there except to take in the local ambiance. The area is very low and flat and well forested as is all the northern Baltic. I would hazard a guess that their main employment was in lumber.

From Pitea we steamed north to Kemi, Finland, some 60 mile south of the Artic circle. Kemi has little to offer the passengers except for a tour to visit Santa Clause which we didn’t take up, especially as his wife was at the bottom of the gangway to greet us as we disembarked! The town was about 18k from the port. Its notoriety is that it in Kemi one of many winter Ice Hotel is built. It had long melted by the time we arrived, but we did meet its instigator and builder. Being so close to the Artic circle Kemi was blessed with almost 24 hour of day light, it was a novelty to sit in the observatory at 2 am still sipping cocktails. I believe it was the first time that an Olsen vessel had visited either Pieta or Kemi

We were now heading south. One interesting fact is that in those latitudes the sea was some 2-3 degrees warmer than the ambient air temperature. The weather was good with most of the passengers sunning themselves by the pool, Even I managed a dip each day.

Turku, again Finland was our next stop. This was yet another port that didn’t appear offer us a great deal. We took a trip to the centre of town where we found a grand market selling almost everything, here we spent an idle hour investigating the stalls, we then strolled off towards what we thought was the old city only to find an old church and little else. On returning to the market square we had an expencive beer and returned to the ship, only to pass an area of the river with some beautiful old three masters and Baltic trades. Too late to investigate I am sorry to say.

So now we are on the way to Saint Petersburg (SP), for some, the climax of the trip. We had booked a trip incorporating a panoramic view of all the attractions, this entailed a visit to most of the palaces and the battleship Aurora, with out entry. Luckily the weather was astounding, wall to wall blue sky and sunshine, we managed to take loads of photographs. Unlike the following day, when we had no trips arranged, the weather was abysmal, solid rain all day. Those who had booked visits to the Palaces were left out in the rain to queue to enter their various venues, some for as long as 2 hours, with the buses gone to park up, left the poor soul with nowhere to shelter. Most returned soaked to the skin.

For those who have yet to visit the Federation of Russian States you will immediately find that, without a visa you will have to take an organised tour which will probably be provided by the Russian tourist bureaux. Unlike other countries, you will not be able to just go and explore on your own unless you have a valid Visa. Depending on where you enter the country and how long you wish to stay, this can cost up to £300.

Our departure from Saint Petersburg, unlike our arrival was in daylight, through the commercial docks and one of the biggest scrap metal depots I have ever seen. Luckily our captain had anticipated a rush to SP and got away from Turku before any other cruise vessel was able to, allowing us to berth at the cruise terminal. Two other vessels, their name escapes me, had to berth in the commercial port alongside vessels loading and unloading. The passage to open sea was interesting as we passed many old and derelict soviet naval bases.

Following on from SP we arrived at the delightful port of Tallinn, the Estonia port on the south side of the Gulf of Finland. A very modern city whos claim to fame was that it hosted the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. Here we took and educating hour and a half on an open Decker around the modern city, then we headed for the old city which is closed to vehicles except emergency type. All restocking of restaurants and shops had to be done over night. The old city reminded me of a Bavarian town cobbled streets, buildings with high ornate fronts, open bars and restaurants on the parameter of the square. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit, especially as we were taken to the top of the town in a bicycle rickshaw powered by an extremely fit young blond Lady.

Sadly our time was drawing to an end with only two more stops, the next Korsor, one of the many islands that make up Denmark. A lovely little port and again visited for the first time by a cruise ship. It was a Sunday morning, by the time we were let ashore the town had hardly woken, even so we had a delightful quartet on the quay to welcome us. We had a wonder ashore to checked out the local supermarket and had a couple of coffees at one of the few dock side café. Leaving the port was a blast to say the least… The entire population of Korsor seemed to come out to say goodbye including the local band, as we left our dock the ship gave the usual 3 blast on the horn, to indicate we were going astern which was replied by a light house ashore, the Black Watch in turn replied, this to the amusement of all concerned carried on for quite a while.

Finally we headed for Oslo. A lovely city which, as we arrived was shrouded in the early morning mist, this was soon burnt up by the sun. We had moored in the Olsen’s favourite berth, directly under the Akershus Fortress, a most impressive building standing on an outcrop of rock . We had taken a ships tour of the city culminating in a visit to the Holmenkollen Ski Museum & Tower which was where the winter Olympic Games were played in 1952. The view from there was spectacular as was the length and size of the jump. The participants really had to be something special to leap off that monster. Our departure form the Beautiful city of Oslo was to accompany the setting sun, rather like the Stockholm departure but with steep Fjord type banks. We passed the Olsen family home and dipped the companies pennant which was reciprocated by the shore side party. It was then a two night passage back to Dover.

Both Barbara and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the Crew were, as expected just brilliant, our table companions were delightful and friends we made during the trip are visiting us, up here on Anglesey, in September.

So do I hear someone asking…’Where to next’ Well it’s booked and almost paid for… We are off on a 40 nights cruise from Dover, 26th September 2009, Canada and the USA to see the Fall colours and visit the ports of the Eastern Seaboard.. Those who may be interested, it’s on the Balmoral, New World Discovery cruise No BL0919.

I hope that some of you have found this report interesting.

Regards Mike