Notatsea

Two weeks ago, the bar list said:

House Wines (175ml glass)

Roc d'Opale White (Pays d'Oc)

Roc d'Opale Red (Pays d'Oc)

Roc d'Opale Rose (Pays d'Oc)

Cava

.......................... so it's looking good!

Thank you for your correction. I can see where you misunderstood, but I wouldn't like other posters to think that I had deliberately made something up.

Let's avoid the ad hominem comments and stick to the subject. I find it very interesting, and other posters views too. It seems that a few people (like me) are unclear of exactly what they are signing up to with Fred on an anchor fare, so this clarification is useful. It also might let Fred know where their penny-pinching is unworthy of them!

Cruising Nomads, it is very wrong of you to accuse me of lying when you said "The comment you highlight regarding a review on this site of giving late bookers the opposite dining to which they have requested to extract more money from the passengers was actually a comment made by yourself."

This comment was not made by myself and when you have bothered to read the following review from Chasnunn you may wish to correct your mistake .... publicly.

"Black Watch Cruise Review by chasnunn: Last minute Anchor Fares good value BUT..... Sail Date: October 2013

Destination: Europe - Eastern Mediterranean

Embarkation: Dover

Published 24/11/13"

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=244356

Poor etiquette to follow up my own post, but I've just found the following from a Black Watch review on this site:

"Talking to other last minute Anchor Fare passengers it was obvious that Fred Olsen now have a deliberate policy of giving late bookers the opposite dinner sitting to the one they request and then try and extract a £2 per passenger per night levy to change. A cheap, unpleasant way of raising revenue and doing little for passenger relations. Because the ship was only 2/3rds full the dining room on both sittings had plenty of room."

I'm with those who think that once Gold membership has been earned, one should receive the benefits. It would be petty of Fred to withdraw one of the privileges because a cheaper fare has been booked - especially when it isn't costing the company anything.

I'm still unsure of all the differences between standard and anchor fares. I have always thought that the anchor fare (or last-minute, or whatever the cruise line calls it) was simply "book near the departure date and we'll bung you in whatever cabins we still have unsold". These later bookings were also subject to several financial constraints such as 100% deposit, 100% cancellation fee,

Now Fred is imposing all sorts of penny-pinching additional charges for those booking anchor fares - £5 per person per day for the shuttle bus, £2 per person per night to change dinner sitting. Fred is also giving full-fare payers priority for booking shore excursions, priority embarkation and debarkation. Are there any more examples? To my mind, this is raising the fare by the back door ...... and a little dishonest, something I wouldn't have expected from Fred Olsen. But they've obviously changed. I wonder if they know how irritating such sneaky behaviour is to customers? It would be better to charge a higher anchor fare which covered all these "nominal charge" items

I know there rightly are additional benefits for the more expensive grades of cabin (such as canapes, laundry vouchers, bathrobes, etc) which is only to be expected. The higher the cabin grade, the greater the "service". But I do think it's wrong to differentiate between a cabin booked on the standard fare, and exactly the same cabin booked on an anchor fare.

Opinions?

It's possible that WFT's suggestion about Ponta Delgada that the "Black Watch had an overnight stop there (not sure why, maybe Fred was trying it out for future reference)" might explain why my recent cruise visited two islands on consecutive days. Fred might be considering the two options to see which is the most popular: one port for two days, or two ports for a day apiece. I suppose much will depend on the port costs compared to the sailing costs.

Although two different ports might look more impressive when advertising the itinerary, my vote would be for the overnight in Ponta Delgada. It was a more interesting place than the first island we visited, Terceira and the port of Praia da Vitoria. On this island Fred was able to come up with only ONE tour - a most unusual occurance because in most ports of call they are happy to offer a greater selection of places to visit. I did think that the single tour might have summed up the number of places they considered worth visiting on the island. This tour was to the old capital of Angra do Heroismo, interesting enough but for me not a "must-see", even though a world heritage site. To judge by the comments at the sail-away party, it seems many others felt the same way, especially those who actually took the tour!

It will be interesting to see what ports Fred's 2017 cruises include.

AzoresW, you are obviously having difficulty in understanding my post. I did not say I had a bad experience. I did not say that all the Azores are bad. I did not say that I was disappointed in what I saw. What I did write in my opening post was "I think that calling in twice at the Azores was a little like visiting the Cape Verde Islands - they must be visited, just because they are there. They certainly aren't places to which I would want to return."

Admittedly I was luke-warm about the place because to me I found it on a par with Wales, somewhere equally beautiful, interesting, historic - and a lot nearer! The Azores does not stand out as a world-class, must-see destination, merely a pleasant diversion as part of a longer cruise. Please don't take that as negative comment, I realise that you are rightly very proud of the land of your birth, but I'm afraid that does not make it a world-beating location.

I wrote as a UK-based cruiser, and intended my comments for other cruisers who were not native to the Azores (or any other port of call), so that they could be more informed when comparing itineraries to choose future trips. And I'm sure that others reading this thread are by now quite fed-up with our little spat, so shall we just leave it that you and I differ in our opinions of where to go for our next holiday?

AzoresW, I can see that most of your previous posts are made in defence of your belief that the Azores are the best and most beautiful place in the world. I can also see from those threads that many other members of this forum disagree with you. I am one of them. It seems that our common position is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the islands, it's just that they are not quite so exciting or beautiful as we had expected ...... and it's posts like yours that have caused some of the disappointment.

You have oversold the Azores, so that when cruisers actually arrive in the islands, they are disappointed with the reality. Do you work for the Tourist Board? Or have some other financial interest in the area? Whatever your reasons for limiting your posts to the single subject of the Azores, you are being rather patronising, not to say insulting, in your replies! Do you really think that if I liked "beaches, high temperatures and a lot of sun" (as you put it) I would have booked a cruise that floated round the Atlantic Ocean for a fortnight?

In case you've forgotten, here are some of the this forum's comments about the Azores from previous cruisers. The replies are all from threads in which you have posted your defence of the Azores. It seems your misguided attempts to make the islands seem better than they are, are actually having a negative effect on many people's opinion.

"I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the Azores, they just wernt as pretty as I thought. "

"We also went on the scenic island tour at £26 each and were so disgusted that we complained bitterly to Destinations. They cancelled the following days tour in Ponta Delgada and refunded that trip but got nothing for the Horta trip. Perhaps they didn't want to risk anyone voicing their opinions again! I know that 5 or 6 couples complained."

"Don't get what you mean? That is my opinion, I didn't say that they were horrible I just didn't enjoy them as much as done of the other ports "

"I realise the Azores are a lot larger than this one island. Have to say that having done a trip round the island I didn't see anything which would make me want to return."

"We too weren't too fussed on Azores, they were ok but not wow."

"Would I visit the Azores again? NO."

As you can see, nobody is being rude or nasty about the ports of call ...... just a little unenthusiastic. Please don't take people to task for having an opinion different from your own.

AzoresW, you seem to be reading a lot more into my post than my comment that I do not want to return to the Azores implied.

Indeed, the Azores are beautiful, like Wales and New Zealand I think, but that doesn't mean that they warrant a second visit when in competition with all the hundreds of other beautiful, interesting, important places elsewhere on the planet. My first visit was quite enough to satisfy any interest I had in the history of sea exploration and, with hindsight, I now know the anticipation of the visit was more exciting than the reality. As part of this cruise the islands fitted in well (although visiting just one of them would have been sufficient), since their distance from the UK gave us more sea-days, something I enjoy in preference to doing a Mediterranean-style itinerary with a new port every day. However, some cruisers prefer a new port of call with breakfast every morning, so they would not have enjoyed this itinerary as much as I did - 13 days altogether with 8 sea days and five ports of call, one of them only a half-day.

Mark and Coravel, you are both quite right. Unfortunately I had not fully understood the consequences of booking an anchor fare - I had just assumed that on the first afternoon of the cruise, I would visit the maitre d' and request a change to the arrangements. I had always done this on previous cruises with Cunard and P&O, and it never occurred to me that anybody in the shore office would be unthinking enough to put a child on such a late dinner sitting. But they did, and the thought did cross my mind that perhaps it was deliberate so that they could gouge a little more cash from the customer. Not a pleasant thought, and a disappointment to see Fred acting in this way.

The same £10 a bag offer was made on the Black Watch this week.

Washed and folded, but not ironed.

Especially useful if you don't have much that needs ironing anyway!

Been home a couple of days, and thought I'd give a quick report on how I'd found things on the Black Watch. We sailed from Liverpool and called at two ports in the Azores, Madeira, Lisbon and somewhere near Oporto.

Well ...... it was okay. Nothing to rave over (other than the staff), but no major niggles either (other than Fred putting a child on the late 8.30pm dinner and then wanting over £100 to change to the early sitting).

What made the cruise for us was the staff - Garden Restaurant (buffet), bars, the two Children's Club ladies, stewardesses - all were marvellous with passengers of any age. Apart from the one lady on reception who seemed to be very curt and rude with everybody, Fred should be grateful that the crew are so wonderful.

The ports of call were fine - Lisbon and Funchal are always interesting, but I think that calling in twice at the Azores was a little like visiting the Cape Verde Islands - they must be visited, just because they are there. They certainly aren't places to which I would want to return, but they did result in quite a lot of very good sea days getting there and back. I've seen that FredOlsen charge £5 to some passengers (I think the ones booking the cheaper fares) for the shuttle bus in one of the ports of call, but the location of the ship in Lisbon was amazing - right in the middle of the city!

The food was good and of good quality - always something interesting to eat, and we found the Indonesian, Indian, Chinese and World buffets to be highlights. The evening entertainment was a bit hit and miss - the miss being the Black Watch Show Company (very dated and not terribly good). There were individual shows from a female comedienne (excellent), male Frank-Sinatra-type singer (good) and a magician (good if magic is your thing). The show band, the Rosario trio in the Observatory Bar and the pianist in the Braemar Lounge were all beyond excellent. The best night ever was when the saxophonist from the band joined the pianist in the Braemar lounge for some unscheduled jazz - they'd never played together before and it was fantastic. The next night was even better because they'd had a practice!

There were three formal nights and one British night in the 13-night cruise. On the first formal night the majority of people made the effort to dress up, although you could only really tell with the men: black tie -v- something else. The ladies wore such a mixture that you couldn't really tell with many of them whether they were dressed up or not. The second formal evening, black tie numbers had fallen off, but then the level of "smart casual" had reduced too! By the third formal evening, many had given up totally. This casualness suited me fine, because although I wouldn't want to let down my fellow cruisers if they were wishing to parade their finery, I did enjoy things much better when they were low-key.

It was very surprising to see the number of 80+ year-olds (and apparently even older) and I wonder how the cruise line is doing in attracting younger passengers. Since they have made some of next years' cruises 18+ only, I think they might shortly be running out of potential cruisers. I can quite understand that they don't want children on board, after all they don't cater for them in the way that P&O do, but nearly all the <20 children on board on this cruise were there with grandparents, and presumably these grandparents would cruise at other times of the year without their grandchildren - we certainly do!

I hope I'm not sounding too down on Fred, but the ship is a bit tired and worn, and they do seem to be trying to screw the last penny from passengers. But that apart, we had a fine time. We hadn't been expecting much (having been on the Black Watch about ten years ago) but were not disappointed either. It was good value, very interesting fellow passengers and absolutely lovely staff.