Goodbye, Farewell, Amen

In the last month there have been announcements, albeit expected ones, of the loss of two of the UK's favourite ships - Saga Sapphire and Oriana. I suppose it is my age, but over my cruising career I have slowly lost all my personal favourites - Cunard's Caronia and QE2 and P&O Cruises' Artemis and now Oriana. 

Artemis at Santorini

The big difference however is that, whereas Sapphire is being replaced by the brand new 58,000grt Spirit of Discovery carrying 999 passengers, Oriana's replacement is Iona at 180,000grt and over 5000 passengers.

Of course ships have a sell-by date but I do so wish more of the new-builds were not leviathans carrying over 4000 passengers, or should I say guests, since these huge vessels are more akin to floating hotels than cruise ships. Which brings me to my second point - their size limits the ports which they can visit, so very often they end up sailing the equivalent of bus routes like giant ferries, or they have to tender passengers ashore - not much fun when 4000-5000 people are involved. Although I love cruising and sea days I also want to explore the world and these sorts of numbers flood smaller, more interesting places. 

I also accept lines need to attract a new younger clientele but it feels as if it is at the expense of us older and loyal customers and let's face it; we are the generation with the time and money to cruise far more than younger people. 

Oriana at Trieste

To me, Oriana is the perfect cruise ship. She has lots of public rooms so many activities can run concurrently; loads of beautiful teak-floored open deck space (heaven under bare feet, while the modern composites can burn feet in hot climates), a separate cinema, open forward observation decks to watch the scenery when entering port or cruising the Suez or Panama Canals and those beautiful tiered stern decks. Not so big that you can't nip back to your cabin easily if you forget something but big enough to find quiet corners if that is your wish. 

Well done to lines such as Viking, Regent and Saga for still building new ships of this size, but if you don't like or want to fly, the choices are becoming sadly limited. Cruise & Maritime Voyages are busy expanding their fleet and if they can only get their act together re. organisation and better food, I can see them gaining many of P&O's older, most loyal passengers. Meanwhile P&O seem intent on becoming more and more like Royal Caribbean. In my view, a risky strategy, since, although not to my cruising taste, RCI do what they do extremely well, particularly in entertainment and family activities. 

I count myself lucky to have starting cruising when I did so have experienced many of the older cruise ships - Discovery, Vistafjord, Funchal etc. and perhaps that is the problem. Those starting their cruising now won't know any different and so won't compare the new megaships to those I knew and loved. After all, Canberra fans hated Oriana when she first launched too!