Shades of Grey

Travelling to the continent via Calais is a journey but going from Hull is a mini holiday in itself.

There are two routes served by P&O North Sea Ferries out of Kingston, Zeebrugge in Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The former is good for heading south into France, whilst the latter is great for Amsterdam (or Efteling theme park) and onwards to Germany.

The two newest ships are the ones serving the Rotterdam route and they are very smart indeed. The Zeebrugge ones used to be on the Rotterdam route and our ship used to be known as the Norsun, now renamed Pride of Bruges.

We were on a works social club cheap trip which entitled us to a two bed inside cabin (i.e. no window). It also excluded food so as soon as we got on board we scurried round to the Pursers Office to buy our meal tickets and see if there were any upgrades available. Being a Saturday night the ship wasn’t too full (Friday night is the busiest, I gather) we were offered a full range of cabins, from £10 extra to £50 extra for a Club Cabin with mini-bar. We plumped for the latter, it being a treat for the pair of us.

The Club cabins are a decent size with a double bed, a sofa that can be used as a bed and a fold down bed above the sofa, so they sleep four. They also have a reasonably sized shower/toilet (for a ferry) and a telly above the bed. To add a touch of luxury, towel robes are provided along with reasonable sized bath towels & hand towels. There was a good assortment of lotions and potions as well as a kettle for teas & coffees.

The min-bar, however, was a bit of a disappointment. Gone were the bottles of beer, thirds of wine and miniatures of whisky that used to sustains us on previous crossings. The fridge was entirely teetotal, although it did have sachets of milk in a saucer.

All the cabins have forced air ventilation and you can choose warm or cool air. Even the warm was a bit nippy for Karen, so here she is in bed, fully clothed, watching X Factor.

On our return, although there was a Club cabin available, we opted just for a £20 upgrade to a 4 berth outside cabin and regretted it. Not much room, tiny shower, paper bath mat, small towels, minimal bathroom stuff in foil packages rather than plastic pots. Passable, but not a place to linger. One small mercy though- no PA speaker in the cabin so the myriad of announcements in the evening and the morning were not too loud through the door from the corridor outside.

More on Brugge itself in further postings. In the meantime, here is a little teaser video of something slightly unexpected in a shop window. (A photo wouldn’t do it justice, as you will see).