We've travelled on Fred Olsen ships before, and on one or two of the larger ships (Royal Carribean and Ocean Village), but for a summer holiday for my husband and I, our 11 year old son, and my 80 year old parents, we chose a week on the Black Watch sailing around Iberia. Although the Fred Olsen ships are not aimed at families with children we had taken our son once before, and he quite enjoyed it. My parents have very low mobility, so a smaller ship was a must this time, and the Black Watch was ideal.
Embarkation was very easy. We arrived to the cruise terminal in Southampton at our allotted time (about 1pm), leaving our car with valet parking and our cases with staff. We queued for around 20 minutes or so to check in and then waited in the lounge until boarding. The waiting area was clean and spacious and it wasn't long before our number was called.
Our cabin was an outside three berth on main deck. There was plenty of space, and loads of storage. One of our suitcases was too large to store under the bed, and the cabin stewardess took this away for us, and returned it on the last day. My parents had an inside two berth on the deck below. This was smaller, but they were happy with the size and space available. Our cabin was ideally located for us - being right by the stairs leading up to the pool above. It did suffer from some vibration and noise when the ship was manoeuvring into dock, but otherwise we had no noise problems.
Our cabin was an outside three berth on main deck. There was plenty of space, and loads of storage. Our cabin was ideally located for us - being right by the stairs leading up to the pool above. It did suffer from some vibration and noise when the ship was manoeuvring into dock, but otherwise we had no noise problems.