Cruise ship catches fire

The Fred Olsen cruise ship Black Watch has caught fire while on the way to Madeira.

The ship spent 24 hours at sea from the Azores on its way to Funchal with only one engine and in almost darkness and affected communications.

With 696 passengers and 365 crew on board, the fire was soon controlled, and only damaging electric cables.

Captain Henrik Mattsson had kept all guests (mainly British) fully informed and all arrived safely in Funchal port in good spirits. A charter flight was laid on to take all passengers back to the UK, and have been told they will be fully compensated for their holiday.

Cruise Ship Passenger Update

I have been out in Santa Cruz today and met the 3 lads who saved Susan Brown after she tried to swim to the Marco Polo cruise ship.

The story is all over the press now and the Daily Mail have my photos. 

I cant believe this......

I don't know whether to laugh or just bang my head against a brick wall with this one...

A tourist from the cruise ship Marco Polo, 65 years old, British female so I understand, missed the cruise ship as it left Funchal yesterday evening. So this woman then gets a taxi to Santa Cruz, and as the cruise ship is passing by there she then jumps into the sea to start swimming for the ship...(I am trying not to laugh)

Fishermen spotted the woman about 500 meters from shore and went to investigate to see if they were really seeing what they thought they were, which was correct, a woman with handbag trying to swim for the ship, they rescued the woman and raised the alarm for the emergency services. She was taken to hospital suffering Fatigue and Hypothermia.

Just a small update on this story.

The lady who has been named as Susan Brown, had been in the water for nearly 4 hours when fisherman saw her and rescued her.  The Cruise Ship was on its way to Lisbon its next stop after Madeira before returning to Bristol in the UK after a 32 day round trip of the West Indies.

Cruise ships leaving.

Thank you to Martyn who sent me this photo of the 3 cruise ships leaving Funchal on Friday 10th April.
Photo taken from Caniço de Baixo.
Costa Luminosa, Costa Favolosa and Seabourn Quest all left one after the other.

MSC Armonia

I was invited by Samantha Cox for a tour and lunch on board the MSC Armonia today.

The cruise liner was built in 2001 for the now defunct Festival Cruises as MS European Vision. In 2004 the liner became part of MSC cruise liners.

The ship has just under gone a 2 year refurbishment, and the first of 4 cruise liners in the MSC group for the Renaissance Programme, making the ship larger, and many new features.

The cruise liner was cut in half and a new 32 meter section was added, a short video below shows this.

New features include 94 new balcony cabins, childrens areas including the spray park and lego room. New restaurants, bars, the Aurea spa and massage along with lots more.

The ship is very family friendly with 5 different aged kids clubs from 6 months to 17 years, giving the parents plenty of time to relax and enjoy their time on board to.

A few photos from our tour and lunch on the ship below and I have many more on my FLICKR page.