Fabulous Fred Olsen River Cruise – Day 1

On Monday 5th August I went on Fred Olsen Brabant, their one River Cruise Ship, she started the season for River last year.  It was a bit stressful to start off with as we had heard strike action to be held at Heathrow and as we were flying from here it was a bit worrying.  My colleague Trudy and myself from Cruise.co.uk and other agents.  A few of the group were staying at Thistle Hotel Heathrow on Sunday evening 4th Aug.

My husband Adam drove me down from Coventry, approx 1 hour 45 mins and on route & almost arriving at Thistle Hotel, I heard that our flight had been cancelled at 0705 in the morning, later flights were travelling so very disappointed to see ours cancelled.

We contacted our representative from Fred Olsen and were advised to proceed as normal and will be updated when he could.

We had all arranged to meet up in the Bar so we could get to know each other but were still unsure of what was happening, then we checked the BA website and the flight was back on – yeah! We were all so pleased.

The next morning we were up early and off to Terminal 5 on the Pods – one-way cost £5 – this is such a great idea of you’re travelling early and staying here the night before.

The flight was OK but had no food onboard as was on then was off so just snacks & water – not the best flight I’ve been on, to be honest, but it got us there.  We were transferred to Koblenz which took around 1 hour 15 mins to join the ship.  The ship left at 1 pm to sail to Speyer arriving in the morning.  We were just pleased to get there and be on the ship.

The Fred Olsen ‘Brabant’ was a lovely ship and we were to spend 3 nights onboard visiting Speyer, Strasbourg & finishing in Basel then home.  We all had our own cabins which were very spacious and comfortable, with a good size bathroom and storage space.

We had outside cabins with Juliette balcony, these cabins are on deck 2 & 3 – I was on 3 in cabin 321.

We had the afternoon free to have lunch then explore the ship and settle on the top deck in the lovely weather to enjoy the sail on the Rhine and get to know the group.

It was a lovely afternoon and did get a bit warm so I went for a cool off in the small pool.

We met at 6.30pm for safety drill and cocktails then off to dinner at 7pm.

I will do more blogs about the ship & the days so come back for more next time!