Final Sailings of 2008

After a most successful three days of sailings over the Glasgow September Holiday Weekend, Balmoral remained tied up at Greenock with her trips from Cork in connection with QE2’s last cruise around the British Isles cancelled due to a combination of more severe weather and low bookings. Indeed the weather then intervened big-time, with further trips from North Wales and Liverpool and also Northern Ireland having to be cancelled.

 

In the meantime, Balmoral moved (unusually) to Gourock on the Wednesday for an overnight berth, thence to Glasgow on the Thursday and back to Greenock on the Friday, ready to take up her “QE2” cruises on the Sunday. This proved to be her most successful day of the whole season by far, with glorious autumnal weather and heavy passenger loadings on all three trips.

 

All that remained was for the ship to sail back to Bristol for winter lay-up. This was achieved over four days with overnight stops at Largs (Monday), Dublin Bay (Tuesday) and Penarth Roads (Wednesday) – arriving into the City Docks on the Thursday afternoon tide in the kind of warm, sunny weather that we could only dream of during the main season.

Return to Home Page