Braemar 8 June theme nights?

Hi we are booked on M1416 to Norway on 8 June but no tickets yet or information on theme nights. Does anyone know what the theme nights will be and how many formal nights? Thanks.

Hi

I am on Boudicca in July, I went on twitter and asked the same question to Fred, was told NO theme nights as they are trying other things, I for one am disappointed .

They said on our 12 night cruise that there is to be 3 formal nights.

Hope you have a great cruise x

Hi Amberline how's things....what no Theme Nights, oh my goodness. We love them as I know you do.

Only time we get to dress up as cowboys/girls and Rock and Rollers.

Hope there are some on our 7 July cruise to Greenland.....

Really hoping we have theme nights on my cruise in August - it's my fiancé's first cruise, and I've already bought him a Hawaiian shirt in anticipation for tropical night!

Hi Amberline how's things....what no Theme Nights, oh my goodness. We love them as I know you do.

Only time we get to dress up as cowboys/girls and Rock and Rollers.

Hope there are some on our 7 July cruise to Greenland.....

Hi 1160451, I ok thanks, i have had a bad year but things are slowly getting there . Looking forward to Boudicca in 8 weeks time.

The reply I got from Fred on Twitter said 'they are reducing the amount of theme nights to allow them to improve upon other areas of there product on board. there will be 3 formal nights'.

Disappointed cause I have a new rock and roll outfit I have only worn once lol.

Hope you have a good cruise, let me know if you get any info with your tickets.

Hi Amberline how's things....what no Theme Nights, oh my goodness. We love them as I know you do.

Only time we get to dress up as cowboys/girls and Rock and Rollers.

Hope there are some on our 7 July cruise to Greenland.....

Hee Hee I have attached a pic of me in the outfit lol

That outfit looks really good. Perhaps we should just wear our outfits and declare our own theme night........:-)

Just had a mail back from Fred and they say the same. No Theme Nights. What next no Dolphin Racing.

This was today's response to someone's query on Facebook about the rumour that theme nights are being discontinued.

>>>>It is correct that we have discontinued our theme nights. This will allow us to direct our budget elsewhere and improve upon other areas of the Fred. Olsen product and general on board experience.

Occasions such as Burns Night, Valentines Day, Easter and Christmas etc will however continue to be celebrated on board and in a grander manner than present.

Where theme nights do occur, a selection of props will be provided on board for our guests to choose from.

We are sorry for the inconvenience and hope to welcome you on board in the near future.<<<<

I, for one, am disappointed; not all of us are on ships for such occasions as Burns Night etc. I'd be interested to know what they mean by directing their budget elsewhere. Oh well, no further use for my tropical outfit then!

Hi that answer was in response to my question.

Like you I am a bit puzzled.

What does it cost to out on a theme night.

It costs the people who join in, we have three sets of clothes we wear, cowboy and Indian lady, rock and roll Outfits and tropical shirts etc.

Seems pretty poor to me and whilst it won't stop us cruising with Fred it irks us.

The four of us have decided to sod Fred and have a theme night of our own...:-)

I suppose the savings for FOCL would be the decoration on theme nights. I can't think what else. Personally this doesn't worry me. Of late I have been taking long cruises on the Fred. Olsen ships and the participation by passengers on these trips has fallen over the years. I am glad that they are maintaining the Christmas, New Year and Burns Night for these are all very enjoyable.

I'm with Fred I think it's time to try something new. We were with Fred over Christmas and New Year and the rock and roll night was very poorly participated in. You could count on both hands who had made an effort to dress up and the British night may have only 10% of people in Union jack gear or red white and blue.

I am cruising in July so I will find out what else they are going to do.

Fair enough if they try something else, but my bet it's just more cost cutting.

Your right not many people participate but we enjoyed them.

From my view of the library, whenever I walk past it, not many people use that, so are they going to dump that.

We cruise with Fred because they had that little difference, we thought, well they may just becoming one of the crowd.

But that's life, we will survive without a Theme Night but we always looked forward to them.

I suppose the savings for FOCL would be the decoration on theme nights. I can't think what else. Personally this doesn't worry me. Of late I have been taking long cruises on the Fred. Olsen ships and the participation by passengers on these trips has fallen over the years. I am glad that they are maintaining the Christmas, New Year and Burns Night for these are all very enjoyable.

I agree that on "long cruises" participation may fall off. But we always cruise two weeks and we find we like the different types of nights.

When you mix "two week" cruisers, like us, with world or sector cruises I have always found a difference in the ship.

World cruisers appear to treat the ship like a home, quite right being on for four months, but the two weekers want to holiday every night.

Hi got our tickets and there are indeed no theme night. Shame.

I do understand how disappointing this is for those who made the effort to participate, some looked like they would have needed an entire additional suitcase just for their theme night clothing and their effort was appreciated.

For us though, this is not something we will miss.

It will indeed be interesting to see if Fred does fill the gap with something or just pockets the cost saving, meager as I suspect it is ...

We will be very happy without theme nights, which we have always found very irritating when you just want to go to dinner and have a pleasant evening.

The only one we have enjoyed is 60's night and not because of dressing up, in fact some people's idea of 60's dress is way off the mark and not at all like the things that were worn in the 6o's. We did enjoy the dancefloor though, as it was the only night that the disco really got going. We are not young, (both born in 1950 - yes 64 and Ringo has a lot to answer for), but get the impression at times that if you are not interested in ballroom dancing you should not be on a cruise. We cruise for the ports and just want to relax or enjoy ourselves in the evenings.

Fred and other companies need to realise that they need to offer something a bit more modern if they want to keep their passenger numbers up, as the people who did ballroom dancing in their youth will not be cruising forever. Although I do realise some younger people have taken up ballroom dancing as a hobby.

I do not mean to put down people who like theme nights or ballroom dancing and I in no way mean to criticise those people. I quite agree that sort of thing has it's place, but it would be nice if all passengers could have the sort of entertainments that suit them. In other words I am suggesting a bit of each, rather than all of one type of entertainment, whatever that is.

Hi Tring, fair enough.

But what is Fred going to replace them with.

Like you we were both born 1951 or thereabouts and found ballroom and Latin 5 years ago. We love it, we love rock and roll and love 60's.

So if Fred dumps theme nights, where are we / you going to dance or just listen to 60's music.

We love both types of dancing formal and general "jigging".

So I ask Fred again, dump theme nights but replace with what.

Nobody forces anybody to join in the theme nights so I don't understand what the issue is.

It's in our opinion a cost cutting exercise, so just say so Fred.

We cruise with P and O or Fred at the moment. Things like this will swing us more to P and O.

Happy cruising ......:-)

The irritation with theme nights is actually other cruise passengers who seem to like to tell us what we 'should' have worn. There are enough rules on a cruise ship without being expected to dress in some very strang clothes from our point of view, but as I said each to their own and those who wish to dress up are no problem whatsoever to us. I would personally just prefer to wear the clothes I have and like and feel good wearing. We are quite happy with formal dress when required.

Regarding rock and roll, I must admit some lessons on that would be appreciated by us, but apart from people who go to dance lessons, rock and roll is purely for people of a certain age as it does involve specific dance steps. I think also there is much better disco style music than the standard Beatles stuff that is from a more modern age, but any is better then none in our opinion.

Must admit the issue of cost seems a bit strange as they still have staff working no matter what is happening on any one night.

We will also be on the Greenland cruise, so may well meet up with you then. We have not been on Fred cruise with so many sea days so just hope it is OK for us. We prefer the cruiselines that have speakers rather than a lot of organised activities, but we generally find P&O are worse for that and often we cannot find anywhere to sit on a P&O ship without someone coming along to start up an organised activity. We have found Fred better from that point of view and have always been able to spend an evening in an observation lounge just have a couple of drinks and listening to music.

Hi Tring.......that is one thing that concerns us, or rather me, the number of sea days.

Your right about other passengers, our friend a few years ago on the Boudica had a cowboy hat with an arrow thro his head for the C&W night and somebody told him in all seriousness that the arrow was a medieval arrow and not an Indians arrow.

Also apart from Norway last year we have always followed the sun.

We cruise with friends but the Norway cruise last year and this one we are on our own.

I think we may skip breakfast or try Room Service on sea days.

We do play canasta so we do spend much of the afternoon watching the scenerary and playing plus taking advantage of the AI sparkling wine.

If we don't see any icebergs then there will be trouble, I promised Colleen them, so we didn't have to fly to Alaska.

Sure we will have a chat as the Boudica isn't that big. We will be dancing most nights, not Strictly standard but we enjoy ourselves.

Take it easy.

From what I gather we should see icebergs, we have relatives in St.Johns, Newfoundland and they see icebergs at times - some were visible in early May this year and I have a framed photo of one that strayed into the harbour one year. The problem seems to be that sometimes ships do not make one or more of the Greenland ports because of ice conditions, so fingers crossed. We are taking our binoculars - good for viewing many things, including icebergs.

We went to Spitzbergen with Fred a few years back and we had a number of whale sightings, (not that you see much of them or for long), from the ship. So hopefully that is a possibility if sea conditions are calm.

See you in July

Hi Tring.......that is one thing that concerns us, or rather me, the number of sea days.

Your right about other passengers, our friend a few years ago on the Boudica had a cowboy hat with an arrow thro his head for the C&W night and somebody told him in all seriousness that the arrow was a medieval arrow and not an Indians arrow.

Also apart from Norway last year we have always followed the sun.

We cruise with friends but the Norway cruise last year and this one we are on our own.

I think we may skip breakfast or try Room Service on sea days.

We do play canasta so we do spend much of the afternoon watching the scenerary and playing plus taking advantage of the AI sparkling wine.

If we don't see any icebergs then there will be trouble, I promised Colleen them, so we didn't have to fly to Alaska.

Sure we will have a chat as the Boudica isn't that big. We will be dancing most nights, not Strictly standard but we enjoy ourselves.

Take it easy.

1160451 I see in your post that you speak of AI sparkling wine. Have you sailed Fred Olsen where sparkling wine has been on the AI. My partner and I have bought the AI drinks package for our Boudicca Cruise to Greenland and sparkling wine isn't listed in the package. Just house wine. Do they have a 'house' sparking wine and just don't specifically mention it so people won't ask. Sounds cynical but I have experienced similar tactics by other companies.

Hi last year on Balmoral we had the AI, and we drunk sparkling wine all week.

Maybe they have removed it, will see when we board in three weeks.

Just had a look at the list of AI, from what I can remember it is the same as last year, so presumably there is a house Sparkling. Unless me and Mrs M drank it all last year...:-)

Just had a look at the list of AI, from what I can remember it is the same as last year, so presumably there is a house Sparkling. Unless me and Mrs M drank it all last year...:-)

Just found out that they do have a sparkling wine on Boudicca's AI. It's a Hock but Germany is 'spitting' out some lovely wines lately.