The new Baltic Princess interiors, 8 March 2018

My original intention was to give you a full interior tour of the Baltic Princess today, combining my photos from today's press tour and the previous crossing with her to Gdansk. However, as the wonderful people at Tallink Silja offered me an impromptu cruise on the ship, we will instead look only at the parts of the ship that were changed during the refit, and the full tour will have to wait for another time.

Baltic Princess

IMO 9354284
Built 2008, Aker Yards Saint Nazaire, France / Aker Yards Helsinki, Finland
Tonnage 48 915 GT
Length 212,10 m
Width 29,00 m
Draugth 6,42 m
Ice class 1A Super
2 800 passengers
2 484 berths
600 cars
1 130 lanemetres
4 Wärtsilä diesels, combined 32 000 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 24,5 knots

The Baltic Princess' new public rooms were designed by the Finnish interior architects Aprocos, working in close collaboration with the crews and based on extensive passenger feedback. (Aprocos of course also worked on the ship's original interior decor back in the day). Heikki Mattila's firm is quickly becoming one of my personal favourite ship interior designers, as their work has a strong tendency to be both stylish and functional. And there is a Nordic modernist trend running through their recent work, which as a style is right up my street.

Grande Buffet on Deck 7

The old Buffet Silja Line on Deck 7 has been transformed into a Grande Buffet, with all-new decor, re-designed servery areas and new equipment.

The chairs are the originals, but they have been reupholstered in the Grande Buffet colours. The new upholstery is also designed to be easy to clean, so that they will look good even after prolonged use.

Several partitions were removed to open up the space and make it more airy.

The jewel of the restaurant is the new dessert buffet, which is also the workstation of the dessert cook, who can then also make portions on order and special portions for people with allergies or other special dietary needs.

Midships stair lobbies

The midships stair lobbies on all decks have been given new, more vibrant carpets (the old ones were not that nice, at least in my opinion). A small but attractive change.

I really like the new carpets here. A shame they didn't change the forward stair lobbies at the same time, as the carpets there are of a particularly dismal colour in my opinion.

Fashion Street on Deck 7

The pre-existing Fashion Street shop on Deck 7 was enlarged into the space of the old Siljaland children's playroom (which moved down to deck 5, of which more below). The expansion includes the world's first Tommy Hilfiger Shop in Ship, or a shop in shop onboard a ship. According to the Tommy Hilfiger representative here, the Baltic Princess has been a big seller or TH clothing to start with, so a Shop in Ship was a logical next step.

The Tommy Hilfiger Shop in Ship of course has TH brand displays - but adapted for shipboard use, rather than the movable versions used on dry land.

Fast Lane cafeteria on Deck 6

The old Cafeteria on Deck 6 has been transformed into a new-style Fast Lane cafeteria, with "action stations" making portions on order replacing the old buffet-style system. In terms of decor the space is a fusion of elements of the Fast Lanes onboard the Silja Europa and the Megastar, using similar extensive plant decor as on the Megastar but with the rest of the decor more subdued (and more in keeping with the Fast Lane concept) as on the Silja Europa. Personally I'm really highly impressed with the decor here.

The old Cafeteria was not really today... but the new Fast Lane certainly is!

The lime green that is the Fast Lane colour is much more subdued here than, for instance, on the Silja Europa - and of course, the plants provide a nicely Fast Lane -esque palette in themselves.

Very pretty.

The new servery areas are more station-based, so that if you want a coffee, you can just get a coffee and not queue though everything. I like the use of hexagonal floor tiling here, reflecting the hexagonal carpet pattern that is the Fast Lane "thing".

Siljaland on Deck 5

The old luggage room on Deck 5 has been transformed into the new, much larger Siljaland for children. The space includes a small stage for children's shows, a cafeteria for parents, and it is located adjacent to the conference suite, which can be converted into a part of the playroom during the holiday seasons. This is of course routinely done on just about every Baltic ferry, but putting the regular playroom next to the conference room of course gives adjacency benifits missing from other ships.

A TV screen will be added to the blank space behind the stage, so it can also be used for kid's karaoke.

A small cafeteria for parents, with grown-up sized seating on the left (mostly off-frame, unfortunately).

Designers chairs in child size. In addition to PS4's and to-be-installed iWalls, kids can also play board games and draw - or just frolic around.

Cabin areas on Deck 5

The passenger cabins on Deck 5 have been redecorated, but unfortunately we did not have a chance to visit any of them. The cabin corridors have also been recarpeted in similar colours as the midships stair lobbies. Again, a major improvement with a small change.

While I do like the new carpets, I have to say the juxtaposition of a blue carpet and red cabin doors is a bit jarring. Maybe paint the cabin doors to match in the next refit? Oh yes, also notice the signage in the new Silja Line style.

Kships will return.

The Baltic Princesses that will never be

I've recently been too busy to do a proper blog update, but in order for this place not to slip into obscurity again, I dug into the archives for something slightly different from usual, which manges to be topical at the same time.

As some might know, the return of the Baltic Princess from her refit in Gdansk has been seriously delayed; she was due to be back by 22. February but the current estimated return to service is on 8. March. Rumour has it that they are having trouble lining up the new gearboxes with the existing engines and propeller axles. As always with rumours, take this with a suitable pinch of salt (though it is hard to think what else the reason would be).

Anyway, before the Baltic Princess went to the shipyard, there were persistent rumours (or perhaps persistent hopes) that she would receive a blue-and-white livery more in keeping with the Silja Line brand image during the docking. She won't.

Over the years I've made a few different variations of what she could look like if painted in a more Silja-style livery, and this is as good of a time as any to look at them.

Photo and "whiting out" by Jani Nousiainen, new livery by Kalle Id.

A very stripped-back version, reminescent of the original livery of the Silja Opera, dating from 2015. Here my reasoning, if I recall, was that the blue stripes should only be along the public room deck windows - in retrospect an odd thought, as that hasn't been the case in other Silja ships either.

Same creidts as above. Incidentally, the photo actually features the Baltic Queen, not Baltic Princess.

Inspired the liveries of Brittany Ferries' Économie sub-brand and La Méridionale, I took the previous version to a novel direction with the wavy line blue area painted on the hull. I actually quite like this one, but it's not very Silja. Then again, these have been some quite novel variations of the Silja livery in the past, such as the original paintjobs of the Silja Festival and Silja Karneval.

Again, the same credits as above apply.

Fast forward to autumn 2017, when I returned to the subject and created this most traditionally Silja-esque, and arguably most attractive version. There is the thin blue tripe on top of the hull, borrowed from the Silja Festival and Silja Karneval's original livery, different heights of the superstructure stripes as on the Silja Opera's second livery, and a blue stripe along the bridge windows (don't know why I omitted that in the previous ones, as that has been a common feature in just about every ship since 1981). The superstructure stripes are also boken up by white diagonals as on the Silja Serenade and Silja Symphony. Also notice the liddle added details adjacent to windbreakers of aft top decks, and the blue "spoiler" on the funnel.


Kships will return to normal programming next week.

Aidablu at Funchal, 20 January 2018

As it happens, I have photographed an Aidablu at Funchal before. But it was a different Aidablu from the one we are discussing today.

AIDAblu

IMO 9398888
Built 2010, Meyer Werft Papenburg, Germany
Tonnage 71 304 GT
Length 251,89 m
Width 32,20 m
Draugth 7,20 m
2 050 passengers (lower berths)
2 500 passengers (all berths)
4 MaK diesels, combined 36 000 kW
2 azipods
2 bow thrusters
2 stern thusters
Service speed 19,5 knots
Maximum speed 21,8 knots

Not much to say about this particular Aidablu. She is a member of the ubiquituous Aidadiva-class (or Sphinx-class as it's also known), members of which seem to regularly visit Helsinki all the time during the summer season. However, encountering a members of the class in Funchal in January of course created additional interest in photographing her. The photos below show the ship arriving in Funchal on the afternoon of 20 January 2018, photographed from Santa Catarina Park. As always, click on the images to see them in larger size.

Surprisingly dramatic lighting, even though it's just regular sea and sun. Notice the pilot boat to the right of the ship.

The roof of the cruise terminal intruded in the shot.

The sun decided to hide behind a cloud as the ship was turning, so we're skipping forward a bit.

Can't have a photo set from Funchal without palm trees!

She actually came in to the quay on the land side and not the actual terminal.

Next time: Pride of Rotterdam at Gdansk, methinks.

Finnclipper in the Åland Archipelago, 10 January 2018

Today we return to photos taken during last month's rather unusual trip with the Baltic Princess from Turku to the Remontowa shipyard in Gdansk. While sailing through the Turku and Åland archipelagos, we encountered Finnlines' Finnclipper en route, sailing in the other direction. Since the Finnclipper was last featured here in 2015, this is also a good time to offer an update to her history.

Finnclipper

IMO 9137997
Built 1999, Astilleros Españoles Puerta Real, Spain
Tonnage 33 958 GT
Length 188,30 m
Width 29,30 m
Draugth 6,30 m
Ice class 1A
440 passengers
452 berths
3 079 lane metres
4 Sulzer diesels, combined 23 040 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 22,1 knots

The Finnclipper was originally ordered in 1995 by Stena Line as the first ship of their four-strong Stena Seapacer -class. However, while the ship was under construction Stena struck a deal with Finnlines to sell the two two ships in the class to Finnlines on completion. The ship was delivered to Stena Line in May 1999, and immediately resold to Poseidon Schiffahrt, the German subsidiary of Finnlines and registered in Lübeck. However, she was given a Finnlines-traditional Finn-prefix name, rather than Poseidon's Trans-prefixed one, a step in the process of Poseidon losing their own identity. The Finnclipper was initially placed on Finnlines' service between Travemünde and Helsinki. In 2001 she was re-registered in Helsinki. From the beginning of 2003 she moved to the Naantali-Kapellskär -route (which was marketed as Finnlink), only to move to the Malmö-Travemünde (Nordö Link) -route in the beginning of 2005, at which time she was re-registered in Malmö. This proved a short stint, as from the beginning of 2006 she reverted to the Finnlink service.

The next change came in 2012, when in the winter she made a single trip from Helsinki to Aarhus, followed by a regular service on the Malmö-Travemünde and Travemünde-Saint Petersburg -routes (reportedly the trips to Saint Petersburg were done in part to purchase cheap marine fuel from Russia). For the 2015 summer season, the Finnclipper returned to the Finnlink service, which had in the interim been altered to include an intermediate call in Långnäs in the Åland Islands in order to secure tax-free sales onboard. In February 2016, the ship briefly returned to Malmö-Travemünde, before sailing to the Turku Ship Repair Yard in Naantali for installation of scrubbers. For the rest of 2016 she again sailed on the Naantali-Kapellskär -route, before returning to Malmö-Travemünde for the winter months of 2017 (she was also briefly chartered to Stena Line for their Trelleborg-Rostock route during this time), then in March again reverting to Naantali-Kapellskär. She remains on the service to this day, but is due to leave it in April, when she is replaced by the larger Finnswan (ex-Nordlink). I'm uncertain where the Finnclipper is heading after this.

The photos below show the Finnclipper in the Åland Archipelago near Ledskär, photographed from onboard the Baltic Princess. As per the usual, click on the images to see them in larger size. It might also be of interest comparing these photos to the previous set taken in 2015, before she had scrubbers installed.

Some neat sunlight on her side. The ship visible in the background on the left is Viking Line's Amorella, inbound to Mariehamn on her mid-day call.

I also quite like the way the sun lights up the exhausts, which almost seem to glow here.

An abrupt change in the lighting changed the colouring of the photo radically. Personally, I really like the way this one looks!

Sailing on towards Långnäs.

I have a confession to make: I actually quite like the way these ships look.

Next time, unless something odd comes up, we will return to sunny Madeira and the Aidablu.

Norwegian Spirit at Funchal, 20 January 2018

Today, we change the chilly temperatures of the Baltic Sea in January to warm Madeira in the same month.

Norwegian Spirit

IMO 9195157
Name history: Superstar Leo, Norwegian Spirit
Built 1998, Meyer Werft Papenburg, Germany
Tonnage 75 904 GT
Length 268,60 m
Width 32,20 m
Draugth 7,90 m
2 018 passengers (double occupancy)
2 475 passenger berths
4 MAN-B&W diesels, combined 58 800 kW
2 azipods
2 bow thrusters
Speed 24 knots

For a relatively recently built cruise ship, the Norwegian Spirit actually has a bit of history to her. She was completed in 1998 by Meyer Weft as the first newbuilt ship for Star Cruises as the Superstar Leo (Kværner Masa-Yards in Finland were one of the other bidders to build her), placed on short cruises from Singapore. With the arrival of the sister ship Superstar Virgo the following year, the Superstar Leo was cascaded to Hong Kong.

Additional newbuilds were planned for Star Cruises, but after the company acquired Norwegian Cruise Line 2000, the newbuilds entered service in the NCL fleet. This fate also expected the Superstar Leo: the delayed delivery of the Pride of America in 2004 left NCL one ship short, and the Superstar Leo was transferred to NCL as the Norwegian Spirit to cover for the lack of tonnage. She was never to return to the Star Cruises fleet, staying with NCL even after Star Cruises sold first 50% of the company and subsequently reducing their share to only a small minority shareholding. Indeed, the Norwegian Spirit remains with NCL today, now their smallest ship.

The photos below show the Norwegian Spirit departing from Funchal in the afternoon of 20 January 2018, photographed from the children's playground in Santa Catarina Park. As per the usual, click on the images to see them in larger size.

Not one of the greatest places for photography as far as direction of light is concerned, but... not bad either.

Palm trees look very night, writing this from Finland currently covered in thick blanket of snow.

Finally the ship turned so that I could actually photograph the lit side.

Okay, maybe one close-up of the ship too.

Funchal being as it is, the ship dropped off pilot after a few hundred meters; you can see the pilot cutter alongside here.

Next time we probably return to chilly Finland and the Finnclipper.