We had a really good 16 night cruise on Fred Olsen’s Bolette, sailing from Liverpool to Gibraltar, the French Riviera, and southern Spain, seven ports of call all of which we enjoyed in excellent weather – daytime rain just onec, in Malaga where it really poured down. Bolette is relatively small by modern standards but very spacious and very well maintained. Whilst their cruise fares may be viewed as relatively high for ex UK sailings it is easy to see how their costs mount up compared to other lines with very high staffing levels in the Hotel department, a range of guest speakers and a variety of entertainment available around the ship.
Service in the main restaurant and bars was excellent, never a need to wait to have your order taken whilst in the buffet tables are pre set with mats, cutlery and glasses and allocated as you arrive at the entrance and here again drinks were served promptly. Much of the food in the buffet is served to you putting the chefs very much in the public eye.
A recent innovation has been the inclusion of tips and selected drinks at lunch and dinner in the fare. We were not sure how this would work out but the ‘included’ wines proved to be of very good quality (soft drinks and beers are available too) meaning we had no need to explore the wine list other than when purchasing daytime or pre dinner drinks which are all reasonably priced. The service was so good we did give additional tips to our waiters and a couple of the drinks stewards who looked after us so well. All of the staff were so fiendly whilst the Captain showed a great sense of humour at his Welcome Onboard and Farewell Receptions and on the final night even took us on an unplanned diversion to Douglas Bay (IoM) to pick up the Liverpool Pilot due to adverse sea conditions closer to Liverpool.
We had three Formal nights – impeccably observed by the vast majority of passengers – and a couple of nice ‘formal’ features were the availability of Cava on the breakfast buffet and live music in the restaurant with the String Trio on these mornings and evenings.
In many ways a cruise with Fred Olsen is similar to how cruising with P&O used to be before the many cost saving measures were introduced over a period of a number of years with excellent service and very good meals.
A word of praise too for the Ships Photographers who took all the traditional cruising shots, embarkation, gangway, sailaway, table and individual in the restaurant and even one when we were on a tour, all of these opportunities now so sadly missing on P&O and Cunard who must lose a lot of sales by not offering them.
Our itinerary included two ports new to us, Port Vendres and Villefranche, both of which were tender ports where a very good system of booking a specified tender group/time in the days beforehand worked so well. At Toulon Bolette is small enough to berth in the city rather than as the Captain put it ‘in the container berths where larger ships have to go’, whilst in Cartagena sister ship Borealis was also in port with ship visits availalble!
In addition to providing Port Talks they also had guest speakers featuring some of the ports as well as three speakers who gve a series of talks on sea days. Unfortunately we felt the main Theatre shows (Neptune Lounge) were not of the high standards experienced on Cunard, P&O and Princess although there were a couple of very good Guest Artists whilst a big plus on entertainment was the variety of cabaret avaialble in five or six locations around the ship, always something to listen to at lunchtime or in the evenings.
Really the only other negative is the terminal facilities at Liverpool which are totally inadequate even for a ship of this size (approx 1200 passengers) both for check in/embarkation and for disembrkation. It is encouraging to note improvements are planned but just how many years away these are we will have to wait and see, but all in all we are very pleased with what Fred Olsen offers and having already booked with them for 2027 we have now also booked for 2028. And all of these arranged through the very helpful staff at Bolsover Cruise Club.
