Feel Like Trying Something A Little Different? – Star Clippers.

I felt compelled to write this week following a very interesting conversation with a very good, regular client of mine. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll refer to him as Scott (not his real name!). Now Scott is a regular booker with me and cruise.co.uk and has in fact booked well over 20 cruises with us so far, thanks Scott, we appreciate your business.

Invariably these are usually with P&O Cruises and are therefore on large vessels carrying thousands of passengers, nothing wrong with that. It’s just Scott’s last cruise which he has just returned from was something very different – a transatlantic cruise on the Star Clippers, Royal Clipper from Lisbon to Barbados.

Never heard of Star Clippers? Well, let me give you a brief insight including some images kindly shared by Scott. The Star Clippers fleet is made up of three strikingly tall sailing ships equipped with four or five masts offering a cruise experience like no other, feeling more like your own private yacht than a cruise ship.

The Royal Clipper is a mere 439 feet long and carries just 227 guests, with 106 crew and a gross tonnage of 4425. The ship also has 5 masts and 42 sails!

Compare this to the 1082 feet long P&O Britannia that carries 3647 passengers and has a gross tonnage of 143,000 and you’ll get some idea of the difference!

Check out the images shared by Scott himself.

Being on such a small vessel and sailing across the Atlantic in winter I asked Scott how the passengers coped with the sea conditions and he advised very well. I suppose if you’re prone to seasickness this is probably not the ship for you and the guests onboard were therefore aware of potential ‘rocky’ conditions.

Scott did let me know of one amusing aspect of his journey. Due to the size of the ship and some of the sea conditions, there were periods during the voyage that the ship had a permanent ‘list’. This meant his cabin was effectively on a ‘slant’ making the water in the shower run to the opposite end to the drain making for an interesting experience on the odd occasion! (May I just point out this did in no way affect Scotts personal hygiene in any way!).

He also mentioned that at one point during his voyage he was tapped on the shoulder by a chap who recognised him from his one and only other Star Clippers voyage from some 5 years ago!

I really just wanted to point out that there is still a whole variety of cruising options out there to be experienced beyond the big behemoth/floating resorts we hear so much about these days.

If you have time, take a look at Star Clippers and let me know what you think.

Many thanks.

Bye for now.