A series of articles describing our experiences onboard the Ocean Village cruise ship 22-29 April 2010. The cruise was called Palaces and Pyramids and our itinerary was Heraklion, Crete > Day at Sea > Port Said, Egypt > Rhodes, Greece > Kusadasi, Turkey > Piraeus, Greece > Herklion, Crete.
Each article can be accessed by clicking / tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will return you to this index page.
A look at the Ocean Village cruise ship that we travelled on 22-29 April 2010.
Ocean Village seen in Rhodes port. Built in France and launched in 1988 as Sitmar FairMajesty, the Sitmar cruise line was bought by P&O cruises the same year and the ship was sold and sailed as Star Princess with Princess Cruises in 1989. In 1997 she sailed with P&O as MV Arcadia and when P&O's less formal brand Ocean Village was launched in 2003 she was named after the brand and was joined by Ocean Village Two on which we had sailed in 2009 up the Adriatic Sea.
Both ships were, despite being seen as a "cheap brand", very well equipped and furnished. Both had structures on the top deck for acrobatic and trapeze acts and these were also performed in the high atrium on both ships.
There was a modern coffee bar on the ground floor of the atrium, for the latte addicts. Coffee from here was not included as part of the usual food entitlement, but had to be paid for.
Reception was also to be found in the atrium.
The atrium rose to cover three decks and descending by stairs required you to walk to opposite ends of the atrium on each floor.
One of the main lounges. These featured entertainment at night.
Our cabin. Compared to cabins we had had on other ships you could have called it a stateroom. Apart from the double bed, we had a three-seater settee.
This was a handy place to read, listen to music or watch TV - something I have never done on a cruise and I'm not really sure why anyone would want to unless they have small children...
The balcony was small, but we hadn't expected to play tennis on it...
A lovely ship. 2019 addendum: Shortly after this cruise, the Ocean Village brand ceased operating. The ship transferred to P&O Cruises Australia, sailing as Pacific Pearl under which name she sailed until 2017 when she was sold to Cruise & Maritime Voyages for whom she is currently sailing as MV Columbus.
Wednesday 9 August 2017. Our second visit to Bergen in Norway and we are looking forwad to seeing it again.
Before breakfast we come out onto the Promenade Deck to watch our approach to Bergen in Norway. We are up early because we are booked on a half-day trip which will include going up on the cable car to the top of the mountain.
First though it takes us on a little tour of the city, starting at the fish market. This is just a short photo stop, though our guide, Andrea from Venezuela, walks with us to the market to point out, amongst other things, whale meat.
There is quite a number of ships in the harbour and we'll have a closer look at some of them later on.
One of the fish stalls on the market. You will also find stalls with fruit and veg on this market and even some stalls selling food both for take-aways and a few with a collection of benches and table under a canvas roof.
A closer look reveals some huge crab legs and claws - krabbe-klor on the extreme left!
They were giving free samples slices of whale meat. Not for me. I'm no vegetarian but I draw the line at eating such intelligent creatures... That is what he is slicing up on the right. On the whale watching trip in Akureyri they told us that hardly anyone other than tourists eat whale meat now and begged us not to try it.
The Bryggen is the old town of Bergen. We have visited it before but now we get a chance to see it from across the harbour. We can see the track of the cable car leading up the hillside in the distance. I'm looking forward to that!
However, back to Bergen! We were now on the other side of the harbour to where we had visited before and there are old wooden buildings on this side also! The hill on the right looks as though it could be the one that I drew from a photo on our sea days approaching Iceland!
This part of the excursion was mostly a drive around this part of the town. The part that we were waiting for came after our round-town drive - the trip up the cable car.
But if we thought we would miss having to queue for ages we were disappointed as we were in a line for around 40 minutes or so before we got into the station and realised that there was a massive queue in there as well! Eventually we got to the front of the queue and made it onto the train.
We were not in a good position to take photos of the ride up - but we will be on the way down! At the top we found Andrea and told her we would make our own way down and leave the tour at this point. This would allow us to have a wander around the Bryggen and its shops at leisure. The view of Bergen, its fjord and the sea beyond is really excellent.
We make the most of the viewing area, taking in the inland side of Bergen as well as the port. The bridge to the left carries the European Route E39 across the end of Bergen's fjord. This route stretches 830 miles (1330 km) from just south of Trondheim in Norway down to Aalborg in Denmark. The road from end to end involves taking to a ferry an incredible nine times - the most ferry sections of any single road in Europe.
The peninsular in this view is where we took our drive earlier. The fish market can be made out as the bright red stalls, bottom left, and a Costa ship - Costa Magica - is in the port on the right, near to Thomson Celebration.
We have a little wander about the hilltop, finding some goats in a hut and evidence of their freedom in plenty along the path... We also had a look in the shop and I found it wasn't only Fran and the other ladies who had to queue to visit the toilets but the queue for the Gents was only a little one. We join the short queue for the cable car down.
This time I made sure to get a spot which gave us a good view of our descent! Several times the roadway crosses the train track - the road involves a few more hairpin bends than the train requires!
The halfway point. Apart from this short section where the climbing and descending cars pass, the cable car is single track. A hairpin bend can be seen on the road to the left and the roadway again crosses the track in front of us.
We reach the short tunnel that leads into the station at the bottom of the hillside. The car slows right down as it approaches the waiting queues of people waiting for the journey upwards. We get out to the left whilst they enter on the right. Automatic barriers ensure that the correct number of passengers get through to wait next to the track for boarding so that there is minimal jostling and risk of someone falling.
Spot the vertical! The old shops of the Bryggen. Miss Franny is standing under the word Knut.
Two of the shops are having work done to their frontages, but have been hung with painted material so that they keep an approximation of their normal appearance.
Walking through archways (there's one near the middle of the previous photo) takes the visitor through to the very narrow streets of the medieval Bryggen. Most of the original houses have been burned down and rebuilt several times since medieval days, but always to the same design and appearance. As a result if you were suddenly transported back to the 1400s you would find yourself in the midst of the same buildings and street plan.
We say Goodbye to the Bryggen and head back towards the port and our ship. The Øystrand is a brand new ship, built this year (2017) for carrying live fish. Her bows are strangely bulbous. I suppose the captured fish tried to escape by charging en-masse at the hull in an attempt to break it?
A road train is doing trips, a toy troll strapped to the front of the funnel. "Mind that car!!!" it kept shouting...
CMV Cruises ship Columbus looked strangely familiar but it was not until we got home and looked it up that I realised we had actually sailed on her under a different guise. She was built in France in 1988 for the Italian cruise line Sitmar and was launched as Sitmar FairMajesty, but in the same year the Sitmar line was sold to P&O and the ship was sold to Princess Cruises sailing from 1989 to 1997 as the Star Princess.
In 1997 she joined the P&O fleet and was renamed Arcadia. From 2003 to 2010 she served as Ocean Village which was how we came to sail on her in 2010. I took the above photo on 25 April 2010 in Limassol, Cyprus. The Ocean Village brand was a P&O line catering for those who preferred a less formal cruise. When the brand ceased in 2010 she joined P&O Cruises Australia as the Pacific Pearl and was sold to Cruise and Maritime Voyages to serve as CMV Columbus just this year.
The Rosenkrantz Tower is part of Bergen's Bergenhus Fortress. It is a 16th century enlargement of the original castle keep of 1270. Behind the white building can be seen the stepped gables of Haakon's Hall, built at the start of the second half of the 13th century. It was badly damaged in World War II by the explosion of a Dutch ammunition ship, this event being described a few days ago when we were in Stavanger at the beginning of this cruise (see entry posted 15 August 2017).
Costa Magica, built in 2003 was sister ship to the less-fortunately named "Costa Fortuna" and has spent her entire life in service with the Costa Crociere cruise line. We bought some postcards and things from a tiny souvenir shop on the port. The shop owner told us it had rained so hard the previous day that hardly anyone got off from the four ships that were in port that day. We have been incredibly lucky on this cruise!
Back on the ship we take up seats in the Coffee Lounge on Deck 5 and I sketch the coastline of a part of Bergen to the north of the Bryggen Harbour. It includes rocks, water, buildings, bare earth, trees and pine trees - a challenge to make sense of in pencil!
In an attempt to answer the most common questions asked about our holidays here are the top three answered in one blog entry.
The Questions:
The Answers
All of our cruises have been described on here so the easiest answer would be to direct you at the right hand column where they are all linked. However, let's try to sort this in a more entertaining way...
The first time we did a cruise was on a tiny ship taking less than a thousand passengers. The Carousel was being operated by Sun Cruises and we joined her in 2004 in Tenerife for a cruise around the Canary Islands. The cruise was called the Atlantic Islands cruise. We enjoyed it so much we did it again the following year and I've just realised that the link heads off to a single entry and I have yet to write about that second cruise! A joy to come perhaps!
Carousel had been built in 1971 for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines as MV (Motor Vessel) Nordic Prince. She was bought by Sun Cruises in 1995 and left them just two months after our second and final cruise on her at which point Sun Cruises themselves became no more... Carousel was sold on and renamed several times and was finally scrapped in early 2015.
Note that as all the links are to tags, the actual pages will come up in reverse order as a blog will always display pages from latest down to earliest.
The Island Star seemed enormous to us after the Carousel. We were to do a number of trips on her, all of them around the western Mediterranean and got to know some of the crew quite well. Built as MV Horizon in 1990 for Celebrity Cruises, she was bought by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in 2005 and renamed Island Star operating under a sub-company name Island Cruises from 2005 to 2009.
We did four cruises on her from 2006 to 2008 and enjoyed them immensely. She teemed with bar staff and if you wanted a drink it could be ordered and served very quickly.
She was the first ship to provide Miss Franny with a fridge magnet dedicated to the ship! Oh and you may have wondered why we sometimes do the same cruise over again? Well, in just about every port you can think of there are different excursions to do as well as just getting off to wander about the port area or nearest town.
There seems to be a lot of entries for some of these - my blogging technique has changed over the years and here one incident or aspect of a day's excursion are covered in an entry rather than a full day. The cruise from 2007 is worth reading if only for the hilarious exploits of Cissie and Ada (not their real names) - two old ladies we made friends with.
Mediterranean Spirit, July 2008
Mediterranean Essence, August 2008
Ocean Village Two was the second ship owned by the short-lived Ocean Village Cruises. We'll see the original one later. This ship was built in 1989 as Crown Princess for Princess Cruises. Ocean Village operated her from 2007-2009 so this was yet another ship that left her flag more or less as soon as we had been on her! She is currently (see note 1 below) in service for P&O Cruises Australia sailing as the Pacific Jewel.
We joined her in Heraklion on Crete and sailed up the Adriatic Sea to Croatia and then into Venice before coming back down to Greece. A lovely holiday.
Our first cruise with Thomson was on the Thomson Celebration - the first of our ships still to be sailing under the same name and with the same company! We have done several cruises on this ship which was built in 1984 as MS Noordam for the Holland America Line. Thomson leased her in 2005 and still operates her. She started life with a one million dollar art collection some of which can still be seen onboard her.
We'll come back to Thomson Celebration after another dalliance with Ocean Village Cruises!
This time the ship is also called Ocean Village - the firm's first ship. Built in 1988 she was first operated by Princess Cruises and then in 2003 joined P&O as Arcadia. Ocean Village was an offshoot company of P&O, marketed as a less formal way of cruising. Ocean Village sailed from 2003 to 2010 when the company ceased to trade as such and the ship now is operated by P&O Australia as the Pacific Pearl.
And there's a fridge magnet!!! We did just the one trip on her, to visit Egypt, Greece and Turkey. Had Ocean Village cruises remained in business, I am sure we would have travelled with them again.
In August 2010 we were back on Thomson Celebration once again sailing up the Aegean, this time as far as Istanbul. There was a slight delay to the sail-away as a ship's generator had to be repaired, but we were merely entertained by all the would-be lawyers onboard and it was still a fabulous holiday.
It was also our first meeting with Tomas and Maris who have become such lovely friends and who we try to see at least once every year!
Our next cruise took us onto our second Thomson ship - Thomson Destiny. She was built in 1982 as MV Song of America for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and had spent time as Sunbird for our first cruise line Sun Cruises. She sailed with Thomson from 2005 to 2012 and is currently sailing for Louis Cruise Lines as the Celestyal Olympia.
We were back in familiar territory here on the Western Mediterranean, visiting Sicily, Italy, Corsica, the French Riviera and Spain. The first of three ships in which we met waiter, Pipit.
By now dedicated fans of Thomson Cruises, we join the Thomson Spirit in Corfu for our second cruise up the Adriatic. Once again there is a spectacular visit to Venice and Croatia but also this time Montenegro and Slovenia. We also got to see a few places after dark which is unusual for a cruise and it made for a most memorable holiday.
The Spirit is the sister ship to Celebration. They are identical in length and structure and layout. We felt immediately at home in our favourite Horizons Bar!
And so back to the Celebration again for a trip to Istanbul, Lesbos, where pink lightning entertained us, different excursions from Kusadasi, and our first visit to Mykonos.
In May 2013 we took our first cruise with David and Jeannie and our first cruise on Thomson Dream. This had been built in 1986 as MS Homeric for Home Lines and also spent some time as Costa Europa. With Costa she survived crashing into the dock at Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt which killed three crew members and injured others including passengers. Passengers had also mutinied in 2009 after engine trouble led to them missing scheduled stops in the Indian Ocean.
Even Thomson had teething troubles with her with air-con and plumbing problems and she made an appearance on BBC's Watchdog. We have been on her twice and had nothing but good times onboard.
Highlights of the Mediterranean, May 2013
In August 2013 we had two more "firsts": sailing from England and visiting Norway. This was our second trip on Thomson Spirit and our second trip where we bumped unexpectedly into John and Sue from the next town to Blackpool, Poulton-le-Fylde. We had first met them in Turkey in 2009 and now here they were again, adding to the fun in Norway, where we had two days of rain and two days of sunshine for our scheduled stops. Another familiar face is Pipit, our waiter from the Destiny and whose table we frequent every night.
We were able to have three weeks away altogether in 2013 and our final cruise for the year was changed at the last minute as it had originally included two days in Egypt at the time when things were kicking off a bit there. Instead of these two days an overnight stop was arranged for Thomson Celebration in Ashdod, Isreal to give two days in the Holy Land and a day in Rhodes was added. Our waiter from Thomson Dream the previous year, Manny, had transferred to the Celebration and we made a point of going back to his table every night.
Our next cruise saw us back on the Thomson Celebration and on a nostalgic itinerary around the Canary Islands. The highlight of this cruise (apart from our fourth meeting with Tomas and Maris) was the sight of a huge whale emerging from underneath the ship directly below us as we sat on one of the refurbished Celebration's brand new balconies. Manny was the crew member in position to greet us on first boarding and he showed us up to the cabin.
Thomson Majesty was now the only ship currently in Thomson colours that we hadn't been on. We rectified that in August 2014 when we flew out to join her in Corfu, but on a cruise around western Italy, Malta and Sicily. It was our first meeting with Paula, the Head of Destinations Services, who like John and Sue comes originally from Poulton-le-Fylde near Blackpool. I swear she now watches out for our names and sneaks onto whichever ship just to surprise us!
The Majesty was built in the late 1980s for the Birka Line for work on the Baltic but the shipyard went bankrupt and after another contractor took over prices increased causing Birka to refuse delivery. Instead she started life in 1992 with Majesty Cruise Line, Thomson leasing her from Louis Cruise Lines in 2012. Her unusual early history means that she was built with high class ice-breaking capability.
She was involved in an incident in 2010 when, operating for Louis as Louis Majesty, she was hit by three waves in the Mediterranean, each being reportedly over 26 feet (8m) which broke windows in the main saloon killing two passengers and injuring others. In 2012 five crewmen died during a routine crew lifeboat drill when a cable snapped causing the lifeboat they were in to hang vertically until the remaining cable snapped under the increased strain, plunging the boat into the sea from several decks up. The inner wires of the cable, which was not due for replacement for another two and a half years, were found to have corroded.
In February of this year (2015), we took our second trip on Thomson Dream in a new location for us as we visited Mexico, Honduras and Jamaica. A definite bonus was having the company of Thomas and Maris, who we surprised - we hadn't told them to expect us! I definitely enjoyed myself on this one! Surprising us was Paula who was now heading Destinations Services on the Dream!
Which brings us up to date with our recent cruise with David and Miss Jeannie back on the Thomson Majesty. We had been joking that Paula would be there waiting to book us onboard but of course she wasn't. She was on the next desk along...! And then halfway through the week Pipit turned up in the restaurant having flown out from home the day before!
That exhausts Miss Franny's ship topic fridge magnets but we'll see more as I attempt to think of our favourite places and views from our 20 cruises done so far. We don't currently have another one booked - we'll see where Tomas and Maris end up next year before choosing. But I'll leave you with our motto...
Note 1: where I say "still", "currently" or "now"; bear in mind this article was written in 2016...
