Fred. Olsen Baltic Sea Cruise Reviews

This would have been an awkward cruise anyway - with reduced passenger numbers due to covid precautions and with half of the original destinations - most of those on the strength of which we'd originally booked this holiday - cancelled, plus an unfortunate breakdown and delay at Belfast further complicating schedules. What turned awkwardness into, at times, full-throated disaster was the ship's ...

This was our first Fred Olsen cruise and we were looking forward to being on what was the third cruise on the new to Fred Olsen ship Borealis, previously Holland America Rotterdam, age around 25 years. Originally scheduled to visit Scotland , itinerary was changed to the Scilly Isles and Portsmouth setting off from Liverpool. Embarkation was from the Liverpool ACC centre where Covid testing ...

The new embarkation system due to COVID worked well (as described on the Liverpool Cruise terminal Website) and we moved on to the ship in about an hour. Perhaps too quickly as I timed our wait after the covid test was performed until we were sent to the shuttle coaches and it was exactly 20 minutes, rather than the 30 minutes normally advised by the NHS to get an accurate result for the lateral ...

I chose this cruise because it went from the port of Southampton, I could get a cabin for single use and it went to the countries I wanted to see, which were all wonderful and very clean. Some difficulty getting off the ship if you could not walk too far, quite a walk to get out of the docks and onto coaches if you have booked trips. The drinks package I purchased worked out at £19 per day ...

Been with Fred before and loved the friendliness of the staff, the food, the service and the Balmoral is not too massive and plenty of room to sit and relax. The excursions were very disappointing. This is not a cruise for wheel chair users. Malmo had many cobbled streets which make it very hard for the pusher and very uncomfortable for the sitter. It was a bank holiday so 90% of the shops were ...

I consider the price we paid for the itinerary, distance travelled, entertainment, drinks package and cabin comfort (superior interior) was far too much. The A/C in the cabin was rubbish we had the setting off the scale and still found it stuffy and through the night it seemed to go off altogether, maybe to save money- so very poor sleep quality. Obviously we reported this and it was supposedly ...

Staff – some good some bad, certainly not at the level across the board of the more expensive cruise lines but a lot of the staff where great. Drinks – the drinks package includes so little variety I ended up always paying the top up to have different drinks however it wasn’t very pricey to top up to nicer drinks. Swimming pools and recreation activities - They have very little and much of ...

The reason for choosing this cruise were many One the embarkation and disembarkation port was only half hour from home so we did not have any extra travel to join the ship.TwoThe ship Balmoral, we have sailed on this ship in the past and have had a wonderful time . The food,entertainment and ports of call had always been good. The size off the ship was also to our liking, friendly yet spacious ...

A bit of a mixed bag. We had been on Balmoral before and it was not as good this time. Superficially the cabin appeared spotless but there was a large accumulation of dirt under the beds and it obviously had not been cleaned for a long time. The water in the bathroom was seldom more than lukewarm and ran very slowly. The shaver points were hanging off the wall. The toilet paper was thin and ...

We selected the cruise because the itinerary met our requirements, and the cruise did meet our expectations in this respect, although a storm kept us out of the scheduled first port of call. Cabin very good, as were the staff on board. Food in general good, although very bland, probably to cater for the majority of guests on board. It did feel that this was an Old Folks Home on holiday, ...