I saw three ships come sailing in

Yesterday and today see two very different cruise ships anchored in the Sound, and an Antarctic visitor.

Yesterday, we had the 987 passenger Saga Spirit of Adventure and today we have the 2394 passenger Norwegian Cruise Lines’ Norwegian Pearl.

These two ships illustrate some of the differences in the cruise market these days.  There are very small cruise ships – such as Noble Caledonia’s Island Sky, with up to 118 passengers and the largest, at present, Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas with a maximum of 7600 passengers. 

The two ships displace 4200 and 250,000 tons respectively, and surprisingly, on a very crude measure, the size difference between tons/passenger is quite small – from 36 per passenger for Island Sky and 33 for Icon of the Seas.  

Yesterday’s visitor, Spirit of Adventure is described as a ‘boutique’ ship and today’s, Norwegian Pearl as a ‘mid-sized’ (!) one.  Well, I suppose she is, but as you can see out on the Sound today – 93530 tons is hardly mid-sized, just smaller than the largest.

Needless to say, the cost of cruises on boutique and mid-range cruise ships is radically different – looking briefly at the costs/day over three average cruises, Saga is from £373/day and NCL £63.  Both claim to be ‘all inclusive’, but I’m sure you need to read the small print carefully to see exactly what ‘all inclusive’ means.  

Cruise ship visits here are obviously good for the City’s economy and, at present, there are seven more planned for this year, with the next being the German owned Amera next Friday.  

Another arrival yesterday was HMS Protector.  She is the RN’s ice patrol ship and spends most of her life (over 330 days pa) deployed – usually to Antarctica.

Her role is to undertake hydrographic surveys of the area to improve the safety of navigation.  This is an important job as there have been several incidents of ships running aground and striking uncharted rocks in Antarctica in recent years. 

Protector also assists the British Antarctic Survey and supports UK and foreign research stations.  It is likely that she is here for safety training (firefighting, damage control and the like) with Flag Officer Sea Training before deploying down South again, so we may well see her coming and going for a few days.