Noble Caledonian..Cant find too much out about them

Hi we are considering a cruise in 2018 on one of the ships with the above company. Serenissima..

Now we would like to have done Hebridean Sky, but that was booked up in the grade we wanted...so we are now looking at the above ship...which does not seem to have had such a good write up in Berlitz..amazing cruise..but an amazing price!!!

We would be looking at suite level...

Has anyone been with NC or on the above ship recently..I cannot find a lot about either anywhere.hopefully someone has

Hello English Lady -

I can help you here. There is hardly anything on Cruise Critic relating to Noble Caledonia, mainly because it is a very niche market and also because CC is principally for North Americans. There is however quite a lot over on the TripAdvisor cruise forums, including one thread specifically about the Serenissima -

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i10703-k5712188-Noble_Caledonia_MS_Serenissima-Cruises.html

I cannot urge you enough not to use this old ship. I was aboard exactly a year ago. The itineraries are great but the ship is terrible.

BTW I have just learned that Noble Caledonia's ship Caledonian Sky has just run aground on a reef in New Guinea and they are evacuating all passengers. This company is seriously disaster prone.

What a shame - I was on the ship in November doing a cruise of New Guinea. It was leased to a company other than Noble Caledonia. Probably the same captain and crew though. I love the ship and have done other cruises aboard as a leased ship which happens frequently. Couldn't find any other info about the accident by searching the net.

Thank you for posting back although I have been a little lax in replying. I found the trip comments..OH and I read them ,and decided that although some reviews you can take with a pinch of salt, so many people were basically saying the same thing, that it was a ship best not boarded.

I think if it had been sensible pricing we may have thought about it..but it was soo expensive.

So then we considered a cruise down the Mississippi, discounted that and we are now considering a barging cruise in Burgundy. Same company that that Rick Stein went on, but a different boat/barge...and a cheaper price!!!!

Louise - the only info about the Cal Sky is a fairly active Facebook page here -

It does seem as if the ship has moved off the reef and is now being held by the authorities at Gam Island, part of Raja Ampat. I assume all the passengers are on board the ship because there isn't any hope of putting them up locally. I went there myself on the Cal Sky in 2014.

Thank you, Fletcher, for the information. People were pretty brutal about the accident for sure.

Hello again Fletcher.

I trust you will not take this the wrong way when I say you pop up like the bad penny.

You warned me off that SilverSea Colombo to Dar trip so I decided to find an alternative. I googled around for a couple of hours and I came across this https://www.noble-caledonia.co.uk/tour/1243/christmas-&-new-year-in-the-indian-ocean/?search_url_id=3

I thought I'd roam around CC and learn about Nobel and the Serenissima. Like the OP I struggled to learn more about NC and here I find you pointing us both to the TripAdvisor thread. Yuk. If it is not a boat that needs ropes to get you to the dining room table it is another one that has sewage in the shower and wardrobes with only three hangers. I thought the square meterage of 7 to 25 Square metres looked odd. Do you sleep standing up in the seven?

What we are looking for is a Christmas cruise in the warmth. We have done pretty well all the Caribbean alternatives. Oz and NZ are too far away for us. So that pretty well only leaves Asia and other bits of the Far East. Have you any suggestions that do not involve disaster prone ships? All ideas welcome.

Tony

London.

Tony - I didn't warn you off that Silver Discoverer trip. I simply said how the ship handled in bad weather according to my personal experience. January is the wet season in the Indian Ocean yet when we went on the Island Sky from the Seychelles to Zanzibar it never rained once.

Good heavens, if I worried about the weather I wouldn't have taken many cruises. I do though advise everyone to avoid the Serenissima. The four executive suites are OK, better than OK, but the ship overall is just terrible and the zodiac operation not fit for purpose.

As far as Christmas cruises in the warmth are concerned, Noble Caledonia usually take the Caledonian Sky up from Auckland to Rabaul in PNG. I have done this trip twice on two different ships - the Cal Sky and the Orion - and both trips were outstanding. You get to go to Norfolk Island, Vanuatu, Isle of Pines (best beaches in the world) and the Solomons. Utterly beautiful.

I'd say the South Pacific is the perfect place for expedition cruising on small ships. I have done the Far East and don't think it's a great place for a cruise as most of the interesting sites are way inland - Pagan and Angkor for instance. And Far East hotels are simply too good to miss. Amansara for instance near Angkor. I did a cruise from Bali to Kuching and it didn't work for me at all. The Far East might actually be better on a bigger ship, such as the Seabourn fleet. The quality on these ships far, far outstrips anything you get on an expedition ship. Those Seabourn-sized ships are also great for the Caribbean. River trips in Asia, like the Irrawaddy and the Mekong, are also worth looking at.

As for myself, my next cruise is on a Regent ship from Montreal to Iceland. Then I'm touring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (but not by ship!) and then I'm probably opting for the Seabourn Quest as a Christmas/New Year trip from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires via Antarctica and South Georgia.

Let us all know how what you decide . . . it's difficult weighing everything up.

Thanks Fletcher.

Lots to think about.

Do you have any views about Indonesia and the Philippines by boat?

"River trips in Asia, like the Irrawaddy". Indeed. We did that with AMA at Christmas and it was great.

Tony

I feel like I keep hi-jacking this post. I loved cruising in the Philippine islands two years ago by small ship. The people were so welcoming and on the different islands they traveled for miles to greet us. Indonesia was years ago but it was great to start in Brunei visit Sulawesi, Komodo and Bali plus other small islands. One of my favorite places ever is Torajaland on Sulawesi.

Fletcher, I have also previously done the New Guinea trip on the Orion but I think a little different itinerary. I can sympathize with the problem the Caledonian Sky has had as we had a problem in the Raja Ampat area also. Not near as bad as it involved getting stranded on an island with no zodiacs to return to the ship. The tide went out way quicker than expected and they had to take them out of range so we had to walk quite a distance out to them over the reef and in the water.

February I will be going from Rabaul to Palau on the Caledonian Sky. Second time for that trip also - I love to snorkel and Raja Ampat is my favorite.

T&C Fulham - have you thought about the east coast of Africa? One of the places on my wish list to visit Madagascar and the Seychelles.

Louise

Tony - Can't really advise about the Philippines as I've only ever been to one beach resort there - the amazing Amanpulo.

I know Indonesia quite well as we did lots of ground-based trips in the 1980s and 1990s before we discovered cruising. First thing to say is that this is one part of the world where I wouldn't risk the weather in Dec-Mar. I know from experience that it can rain for days on end.

I think as a cruise it has lots of opportunities. If you can find a cruise that visits the Banda Islands I'd think seriously about that - Banda is one of the great places I've been to. Halmahera and Ternate are others. These are the original, authentic spice islands. West Papua is extraordinary though the government is expanding the cities such as Jayapura massively by enforced migration.

Sulawesi has the famous Torajaland houses but these are a rewarding if backbreaking overnight trip from the port. Personally I think Komodo is a tacky circus these days but the neighbouring island of Rinca also has dragons and is much less touristy.

I think there are moves to open up Kalimantan for limited tourism - I saw a river trip advertised recently. Not been there myself, nor have I been to Sumatra.

Right across the archipelago there are great beaches and often spectacular snorkelling.

That's it for now!

Louise,

I feel like I keep hi-jacking this post. I loved cruising in the Philippine islands two years ago by small ship.

No you are not. Which line were you on for that cruise?

The East Coast of Africa. Do you know any companies covering it?

Tony

Fletcher

First thing to say is that this is one part of the world where I wouldn't risk the weather in Dec-Mar. I know from experience that it can rain for days on end.

Before I married my wife she was in the travel business. About the only freebie I got with her included Penang where it rained all the time. The sea was full of snakes and the bar prices (I was hardly earning anything in those days) were scarey. I seem to remember we found that bottled Guinness was affordable in enough quantity to ease the pain.

Those sort of places need picking with care. I did some research yesterday on Malaysia and it seems the weather is, at Christmas anyway, dry on the left and wet on the right! (Pseudo geographical terminology).

Tony

Hi, Tony - for the Philippines I was with a company who leases the Caledonian Sky frequently.

I did a bit of searching for East Africa and the only small ship I came up with for the Christmas season was the Serenissima with Noble Caledonia. Silversea has a very large ship cruising the area at that time.

Louise

If you do the Indian Ocean I'd say the most important place to visit would be Aldabra.

Too bad Komodo has become so overrun with tourists. It was 12 years ago on the Clipper Odyssey that I was there and also Torajaland.

Hi, Tony - for the Philippines I was with a company who leases the Caledonian Sky frequently.

Yes. That is doing New Zealand this coming Christmas and it's too far away for my wife's travel comfort.

I did a bit of searching for East Africa and the only small ship I came up with for the Christmas season was the Serenissima with Noble Caledonia. Silversea has a very large ship cruising the area at that time.

Well we know about the Serenissima and the Silversea is doing quite a lot along the coast of South Africa and those are ports we have already seen on two land trips.

Tony

If you do the Indian Ocean I'd say the most important place to visit would be Aldabra.

Which brings us back to that Colombo to Dar voyage on the Discoverer - and the thought of ropes in the MDR.

Tony

Here is a news article that appeared today

Source: https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/17187-noble-caledonia-faces-huge-fine-over-reef-incident.html

Noble Caledonia Faces Huge Fine Over Reef Incident

On March 4, the Caledonian Sky made contact with a coral reef in Indonesia, requiring a tugboat to tow the ship off and leaving significant damage to the reef.

The ship was understood to have run aground during low-tide while on a bird-watching theme cruise.

Now, the Indonesia government is clamping down and has levied an Rp6 trillion fine, the equivalent of $450 million. The Indonesian environmental ministry said the ship destroyed some 13,270 square meters of the coral reef.

A local news report said that the cruise line has passed on payment responsibility to its insurance firm, SPICA, which is negotiating with the government.

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