Cruising holidays are becoming increasingly popular, so much
so that somewhere in the region of 314 ships, capable of carrying 537,000
passengers were in service at the end of 2018, and the total number of
passengers carried that year was around 26 million.
When I first met my wife, she was working for P&O
Cruises, and a major perk of her job was cheap holidays on their ships, so
naturally the first holiday we took together was a cruise, on the long since
decommissioned SS Canberra, which
notably had been requisitioned as a
troopship during The Falklands War in 1982.
As impressive as Canberra was, with her capacity of 1,700 guests and a tonnage of 49,000 tons, she would now
be dwarfed by ships such as Royal Caribbean's Symphony of The Seas, which can carry up to 6,600 passengers, and
which weighs in at 228,000 tons. Canberra
was recognisable as a ship, but today most cruise ships look more like hotels
that have been plonked on a barge, and while Canberra had all the amenities that a cruise passenger might expect
in the 1990's, today's behemoths include facilities for activities previously
completely unassociated with cruising, like rock-climbing and zip-lines.
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| Recognisably a ship, SS Canberra... |
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| ...while the Symphony of The Seas is more a hotel that floated away. |
Even in the 1990s, when I took my first cruise, the perception
of the typical passenger was either the "newly wed or the nearly
dead," and that cruise holidays were for the wealthy or otherwise were a
once in a lifetime experience. More, and larger ships, offering a wider range
of amenities, has meant more competitive pricing and greater capacity. The
average age of cruise passengers is coming down, cruising has lost its
exclusivity and elitist image, and is now more egalitarian and family oriented.
After Val left her job at P&O, we stopped going on
cruise holidays, apart from a trip to the Hawaiian islands in 2009 on Golden Princess, which at 108,000 tons
and carrying 2,600 passengers remains the largest ship I have sailed on, albeit
that it is a minnow compared with Symphony
of The Seas.
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| Golden Princess moored at Hilo during our cruise to Hawaii in 2009 |
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| The atrium aboard Golden Princess |
This year, however we have taken a cruise of quite a different
nature to what, one imagines, is the norm these days; we've just returned from
a knitting themed cruise to Norway. I am not a knitter, but Val is, and in
recent years she has been following Carlos Zachrison and Arne Nerjordet, a pair
of designers and celebrity knitters, on YouTube. Apart from their YouTube
channel, Arne & Carlos, as they are more commonly known, have published a
number of books and make regular tours showcasing and demonstrating their work,
so when Val discovered that they were knitting under the Midnight Sun on a
cruise along the Norwegian coast, she was keen to take part and combine her
interests in knitting and cruising.
Despite my lack of interest in knitting, I went along for the ride, and the scenery.
The ship, the MS Finnmarken is part
of the Hurtigruten company's fleet, and at 15,600 tons and carrying just 919
passengers, struck me at first sight as little more than a superannuated car
ferry. And in some ways it was.
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| MS Finnmarken berthed at Trondheim |
The antithesis of the modern leviathans of the
seas, the Finnmarken doesn't have the
range of bars, restaurants and theatres that larger ships have. There's a
single restaurant, a small cafe, a couple of bars, and a small swimming pool,
but no theatre, no entertainment, and certainly no climbing wall! Unlike the
24/7 dining experience offered by the large ships of the Carnival and Royal
Caribbean lines, there is little opportunity to stuff yourself between meals on
the Finnmarken; this may have been
the first cruise I have been on where I came home weighing no more than when I
first embarked.
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| The Finnmarken is comfortable rather than luxurious, and the cabins are compact. |
A feature of sailing on such a small ship is that one
notices the movement a great deal more than on the larger ones. Thankfully, the
Finnmarken's itinerary meant that by
and large it hugged the coastline's calmer waters, but on the occasions when it
ventured into the open sea, the pitch and sway were enough to keep us confined
to our cabin a couple of times.
But it was nice to be part of a small company of passengers,
of which fifty were part of the knitting group - 36 active knitters and 14
non-knitting partners and spouses - which gave this trip a more intimate feel;
we met some lovely people, and the small
scale of the ship - and the fact that we were part of a group - meant that seeing
the same people frequently allowed us to develop more of a rapport with them
than might have been the case on a larger vessel.
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| Arne & Carlos and their knitting group - I'm far right, in blue. Picture from Arne & Carlos's blog. |
Arne and Carlos turned out to
be charming hosts; naturally they devoted the bulk of their time to the
knitters, but they were happy to chat with us non-knitters too. The knitting
element of the trip consisted of lectures, and mystery knitting kit that saw
all those who took part leave the ship with a cowl in various states of
completeness.
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| Val hard at work knitting. |
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| The finished product. |
Val and I decided to travel to Norway a day before the
cruise departed in order to avoid any possibility of delays on our flight from
London making us late for the sailing, and we were glad we did as Bergen, where
we stayed and from where Finnmarken
sailed, was delightful, if - like everywhere in Norway - eye wateringly
expensive. A meal in To Kokker, one of the restaurants in the Bryggen area, and
consisting of two main courses, one dessert, one beer and one tea, weighed in
at 1128NOK, which works out at about £102. A pint of beer on board Finnmarken costs a hefty 109NOK (nearly
£10). As you might imagine, I decided to limit my consumption!
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| Beautiful Bergen. |
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| Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. |
The Finnmarken is
not like your typical cruise ship in more ways than size. The last time Val and
I went on a cruise to Norway - back in 1997 on P&O's Oriana - we called at just three ports (Narvik, Trondheim, and
Bergen), the Finnmarken called at a
staggering thirty-four, most for fifteen minutes to half an hour, to load or
unload cargo, or embark and disembark the passengers who use the coastal
services that the Hurtigruten line runs almost as a commuter service. The fact
that Norway's major towns and cities, and therefore its population, are largely
to be found along its coastline means that by sea is sometimes a more logical and effective way of moving goods and
people than by road. We stayed long enough at Ålesund, Trondheim, Bodø, and Tromsø to make it worthwhile disembarking,
and at Trondheim we visited the Nidaros Cathedral, which was stunning.
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| Oriana in Romsdalsfjord on our 1997 cruise |
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| Spitsbergen, again in 1997 |
Sadly, the weather was a bit of disappointment. Far from
being The Land of The Midnight Sun, Norway - the northern bits anyway - turned
out to be the land of Midnight Drizzle and Mist, although even then the scenery
was stunning. In fairness, Bergen and the south were lovely - if a bit cool,
unseasonably so, so everyone told us. But I wouldn't have missed this trip for
the world, and highlights were the Troll Ladder Road, which had only reopened
after the winter a couple of weeks previously, and where it snowed when we
stopped to take advantage of the view, and Trollfjord, with its imposing rock
faces rising above the ship, so close that you could almost reach out and touch
them.
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Finnmarken traversing Trollfjord last week. This picture
was taken at 11pm, when it was still light, if not sunny. |
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| Crossing the Arctic Circle, travelling north... |
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| ...and here's the certificate to prove it. |
Cruising is these days a much less formal affair than it was
even thirty years ago; formal attire at dinner is still expected on some
evenings on some ships, however the Finnmarken
was a completely casual affair. On this voyage it was the passage, the scenery,
and the company that counted, not the tuxedos and the ball gowns.
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