Happy New Year From The North Sea !

It`s 2016 and how quickly the Christmas & New Year holidays have passed by. Back at my desk at Cruise.co. I was going to blog about my cruise on Ventura to Bruges and Amsterdam, well I am going to but not in quite the way I expected to !

Travelling to Southampton on Tuesday the first different thing about this cruise was P&O`s new check in system, staggered to make it easier, quicker and more efficient – not, but that’s another story. Finally on board around 5.30, far too late for lunch, we settled into our cabins to begin the cruise and so far so good.

We arrived into Zeebrugge on time the next morning and, after a leisurely breakfast, set off into the lovely city of Bruges, one of my favourite places. It felt just like a proper Christmas, cold, dry and busy as we shopped for chocolate of course, then headed back to the ship for dinner and an earlyish night as next day was Amsterdam.

I did the same cruise on Oceana two years ago and the best part was without doubt New Year`s Eve in Amsterdam where we toasted the New Year from our balconies to the fabulous firework display, in fact this was the main reason we decided to go again. You can imagine how we began to feel as, during dinner on 3oth December, the Captain announced that we might not be going to Amsterdam at all! the weather forecast was not good with force 9 gales and rough seas, he would make a decision in the early hours of the morning as to whether we would get there or not.

To be honest it was no surprise to look out of the window the next morning and see nothing but the North Sea, we were obviously not going to Amsterdam. At 10am the announcement came during breakfast which confirmed what we all knew already, but I think a lot of people will be asking questions about the reasons for the Captains decision.

Ventura is a large ship. 18 decks high, and has to travel through 9 miles of locks and canals from Ijmuiden to get to Amsterdam, with only 5 metres to spare on each side. Her height and propulsion system means that she is susceptible to winds that may well blow her into the canal side, obviously he cannot take that risk and I think everyone would agree. The Captain also explained that Queen Victoria, who is the same length as Ventura,  but not as tall and with different engines, could and had made it to Amsterdam!

So we headed very slowly back to Southampton with this as our New Year`s day view and not a firework in sight. So my question is should a ship the size of Ventura really be doing this sort of cruise in winter when the weather is bound to be bad, and how much of a chance did she actually have of getting to Amsterdam in the first place? Another comment I heard –  was there no plan B , even if it meant going back to Bruges? Obviously not.

All I can say is Happy New Year – but  this was my view !