Popular recent opinion is that a large ship is one over 135,000 tonnes. Looking back 100 years, 35,000 was pretty large, and go back another 100 to find anything over 1,000 considered enormous. Today 225,000 is not impossible and there are more than 50 passenger ships over 135,000 sailing the seas right now, with dozens on order over the next few year.
Back down to Earth however we are about to catch the largest we’ve ever sailed on, and considered to be medium-sized, she’s (just) under 100,000 - a mere tiddler perhaps, but stand close on the dock-side and look up a dozen decks and you might change your mind!
Joint largest in the fleet of Holland America, and one of three virtually identical ships - they refer to sister-ships as belonging to the same class in this context - Nieuw Statendam is the middle sister in the class by age, just three years old now. We saw her parked in Torbay in 2020 with several other family members, so it’s nice to think she weathered the worst of covid in the tender embrace of Blighty’s protection and now we’re preparing to join one of our two favourite cruise lines almost exactly two years since the last time.
Nieuw Statendam from Brixham pier, Torbay - 03 Nov 2020
Our itinerary sets off from Port Everglades, the huge centre of most US cruising in Fort Lauderdale, Florida so we have to get there first. This is fraught with issues surrounding the UK’s high infection rate, and the ever increasing situation in the US. We’ve considered travelling early but apparently that’s not possible, for a reason we find difficult to comprehend, so we’re now crossing everything in the hope we make it. At least ATOL means we’re protected if any part of the plan fails us, excepting if we catch Covid of course!
This millennia we’ve cruised the Caribbean seven times, either as a destination, or part of the route between Florida and Peru, California or Brazil. Some islands we’ve returned to numerous times, others less so, but there are always new things to do and old haunts to revisit. Nowhere this time is new, although five jointly hold the longest gap of 14 years since 2008 with John and Sheila.
What we do have again is the benefit of it being a back-to-back concatenation of two distinct cruises, so we get to spend a day in Fort Lauderdale whilst the ship is “turned around” meaning the majority of guests are changed over. It’s quite common for cruise lines to operate an alternating ABAB etc itinerary especially in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean thus creating both 7 and 14 day (or 10 and 20 day) options to market to different customers - clever eh?
Our journey really starts a day earlier with a trip to Leeds for PCR testing, hoping that we’re not going to be one of those aleged false-positives. Somewhat disconcerting was the test centre, in a deserted takeaway opposite the University, we walked past it first time. Waiting for the results, expected at 23:00 is horrid, and to placate our minds we do a lateral flow as soon we get home too.
Just after 23:00 we get the happy news we’re not positive, the paperwork we now have allows us to complete the forms needed by US Homeland Security, Virgin and Holland America - all online submissions. I screw up the Virgin submission by naming the tests the wrong way round, but sort that out eventually.
Finally we are able to begin our journey, with a rather-too-early start, but we need to get to MAN for 08:00, and it’s worth the effort. Traffic across the Woodhead is tedious, hampered by two sets of roadworks and rush-hour, and we make the journey in 90 minutes rather than the usual 50.
MAN is like a ghost-town and we whistle through security, although my new gimbal causes a minor stir, it is soon re-scanned and we’re on our way to 1903, probably the nicest lounge, for a few Danish pastries and a glass of something fizzy, perhaps a bit naughty pre 10:00 but very nice.
I make a few work calls, Hubby sends a few dozen emails, all is quite normal, and soon we’re onboard our Virgin A330
Sadly the bar is closed - not as in its a dry flight, just that we can’t sit up there, Covid I suppose. We won’t suffer, trolley service is still available and with only 60% occupancy service levels are excellent. Our lovely steward Sue only has seven passengers to attend to on our isle so we are suitably pampered, she ensures champagne continues to flow, until it’s time to switch to something else.
One of the USPs of Virgin is the way we get to enjoy meals “á deux” - properly facing each other, a “mile high” dining room so to speak, since we’re really seven miles up. We both opt for duck then pork, and even agree on cheese to finish.
The entertainment isn’t desperately exciting, possibly ‘difficult customer” scenario and of course it’s all subjective, not a complaint of course, merely an observation.
We ignore the blatant adverts for Virgin Cruises - defo not our thing. After lunch we make time to enjoy Judy Dench in Blithe Spirit, a play we’ve seen many times, and we really enjoy this adaptation, accompanied by never ending G&Ts.
A slightly messy incident with a burger and salad meant a change of socks was supplied by the cabin staff!
Soon we’re landing in Atlanta, Georgia, and although we have three hours before our connection, the customary American immigration welcome is most definitely back, and we spend most of this time in the queue. By good luck, a call was made for Manchester flights to jump to the front, and whilst it was almost certainly not meant for us, coming from Manchester, we took advantage of this, otherwise we would have missed the flight.
The “short hop” to Fort Lauderdale is still a two+ hour flight, over 600 miles is the equivalent of Inverness to Southampton, but soon we’re landing again and queuing for baggage, no more immigration.
The hotel’s courtesy bus takes ages to appear, but with a lovely warm breeze it’s no hardship to wait a while, and only a few minutes drive away. We drop our bags then go for a short walk in the neighbourhood before retiring early - we’ll early US time, it’s actually 2am for our bodies.
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