Fred Olsen Borealis vs P&O Aurora for Norway

[CruiseMark]

Hello,

 

I’m considering a Norway Northern Lights cruise in December. Both Fred Olsen Borealis and P&O Aurora get good reviews and the itineraries are somewhat similar. 
 

I realize that this is a Fred Olsen forum and may lead to some biased responses, but does anyone have thoughts on the two ships? Any differences I should be aware of between either the ships or the cruise lines?  I’ve cruised extensively but never with either of these two lines. 
 

Thanks.

 

Mark

[1160451]

Hi.
We have cruised with both lines.

We have cruised with FO to the Northern Lights 4 years ago.

We are booked again with them next year to the Northern Lights.

Not done Northern Lights with P&O.

I would be happy to cruise with P&O to the Northern Lights.

So the only difference I would say between the two lines is the spread of Passengers.

Fred Olsen has the “feel” of a Country House with Passengers more to the 60 plus age group.

P&O we have found to have a wider age range.

Depending with whom you have cruised with before may influence your choice.

If you are used to the large ship cruise lines you may find P&O more to your taste. But if you want a more smaller ship feel FO may be the one.

We have found food and service very much the same between the two lines.

Whichever Line you choose it will be a fantastic cruise. The Northern Lights are an experience never to be forgotten.

 

 

 

[tring]

6 hours ago, CruiseMark said:

Hello,

 

I’m considering a Norway Northern Lights cruise in December. Both Fred Olsen Borealis and P&O Aurora get good reviews and the itineraries are somewhat similar. 
 

I realize that this is a Fred Olsen forum and may lead to some biased responses, but does anyone have thoughts on the two ships? Any differences I should be aware of between either the ships or the cruise lines?  I’ve cruised extensively but never with either of these two lines. 
 

Thanks.

 

Mark

 

The main thing that would make a difference to us is the itineraries.  Fred often go to less visited ports which can be more interesting, but if you have not been to any Norwegian ports before it will not make a difference.  I would also look at the length of the cruise, since spending a bit longer there may give you a bit more chance of seeing the lights, which can never be guaranteed and if you go to Alta with one line and not the other, you may have a greater chance of seeing the lights there as it is sheltered from some of the rain/cloud cover as behind mountains from the prevailing wind direction, yet Tromso, which is as far north as some itineraries go, can remain more cloudy, so lights not visible if they do show.  All chance though.  One other point is that if not visiting a port that day in Norway, Fred normally goes up the inside passage, so there will be scenic cruising and also you will be better protected from rough seas, whilst P&O sail out to sea between all the ports.

 

I agree with the previous answer in that P&O, on average, have a greater mix of ages, especially for Med cruises on their bigger ships, but for Aurora and Arcadia, which are smaller, child free ships we have not really found a big difference in clientelle, especially post covid.

 

As far as I know Fred still only has a choice of 6.15pm or 8.30pm sittings in the main dining room, when you will be allocated a table for the whole cruise, though you can choose table size (subject to availability).   On Aurora there is a third choice of freedom dining (subject to availability).  I have often found Fred to have better speakers with a knowledge of the area, if you enjoy talks on the cruise.  Both lines have self service restaurants that you can use at a time of your choice and a couple of pay for, speciality restaurants.

 

Enjoy whatever you choose.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by tring

[tring]

On 3/29/2023 at 12:21 PM, CruiseMark said:

Hello,

 

I’m considering a Norway Northern Lights cruise in December. Both Fred Olsen Borealis and P&O Aurora get good reviews and the itineraries are somewhat similar. 
 

I realize that this is a Fred Olsen forum and may lead to some biased responses, but does anyone have thoughts on the two ships? Any differences I should be aware of between either the ships or the cruise lines?  I’ve cruised extensively but never with either of these two lines. 
 

Thanks.

 

Mark

 

I was just looking at the Borealis itineraries for next December as she is sailing out of our local port, Liverpool.  I see she is not going to Norway next winter, but Balmoral seems to be doing all Fred's Norway cruises for winter this year.  If so be aware Balmoral is not an ex HAL ship, but is a smaller, older ship, though what has been said will still be applicable to that cruise.  Or you may be looking at December the following winter 24/25, when both Borealis and Aurora are scheduled to do those itineraries.

 

One other thing to be aware of is that the seas can get quite rough up there in the winter, so be careful  choosing your cabin location.  There have been reports of a force 12 up there a week or two ago, though will not necessarily be that bad, all chance.

 

Barbara

 

 

[sleepingcat]

just in case you are not aware, there is also the Norwegian Company Hurtigruten.  Its not a cruise as such, as their ships service the ports up the Norway coast.  but it is a good way to see the Northern Lights, and they guarantee you a further trip for free if you dont see the lights. My bro and Sis in Law went with them in November and had a wonderful trip including 2 nights of Northern Lights.

[twotravellersLondon]

 

On 3/29/2023 at 12:21 PM, CruiseMark said:

I’m considering a Norway Northern Lights cruise in December. Both Fred Olsen Borealis and P&O Aurora get good reviews and the itineraries are somewhat similar. 

 

3 hours ago, sleepingcat said:

just in case you are not aware, there is also the Norwegian Company Hurtigruten.  Its not a cruise as such, as their ships service the ports up the Norway coast.  but it is a good way to see the Northern Lights, and they guarantee you a further trip for free if you dont see the lights. My bro and Sis in Law went with them in November and had a wonderful trip including 2 nights of Northern Lights.

 

 

It's good to compare what's on offer and in addition to Hurtigruten, SAGA are also offering cruise as far North as the North Cape.

 

We've done the Hurtigruten trip in winter and it was excellent. Local museums opened for us, very reasonably priced excursions were put on, the food was some of the freshest, healthiest and tastiest afloat... in our experience. We visited many places that cruise boats never touch... it was possible to go ashore night and day... at stops... even just for a bit of snowballing on the quay in the Arctic night  And for an "interesting itinerary" it's unbeatable. Just don't hope for a roomy cabin or cruise-style entertainment! We saw the Northern Lights in Ålesund Harbour from the deck! They covered the entire sky!

 

However, we've just come back from a SAGA cruise where we saw the Northern Lights on five consecutive nights... and, unlike FOCLs these days, we  travelled as far as Honningsvåg, visited the North Cape, and sailed around the Cape itself! The cruise was all inclusive with door-to-door transfers, Wi-Fi, speciality restaurants, gratuities and excursions included. It also included premium drinks in the restaurants and bars.

 

The same cruise as we did a couple of weeks ago or so is available for next year from the company that we used at £3,000 less than FOCL's current price for a similar but less exciting itinerary based on a similar cabin. Interesting, we had three (included) dinners in the speciality restaurants with folks that we'd originally made friends with on FOCLs in the days that we all trusted "Fred" to show us a good time at value for money. Like us, these émigrés were enjoying better food, better entertainment, better accommodation and a far better itinerary than FOCLs are putting on now... and we were all saving a small fortune by not booking with FOCLs.

 

By the way... the ship we sailed in was smaller than anything that FOCLs can now offer but had a real theatre and large areas of public space over several decks. From day one... the staff in the restaurants, bars etc knew us by name but no-one presumed that we would choose the same "drink" each time. The staff were excellent, nothing was too much trouble. The ship was virtually full, there was bubbles and fruit in our room on arrival, the toiletries were in large bottles and what was left was complementary. All shuttle busses were free to all passengers to use and, unlike FOCLs, we didn't have to go through the painful security check every time that we returned to the ship... will FOCLs go to any length to prevent a passenger who's already paid the fare from taking a bottle of booze on board! Just such a pain.

 

After between 25 and 30 cruises with "Fred" & FOCLs as well as cruises with the likes of P&O, Princess & Cunard, we shopped around... and find that, in our opinion, on a like for like basis... FOCLs is now just so much more expensive for a less good offering... so we've found that it really helps to compare the market. 

 

 

These are some pics that we took just a week or two ago of the bits that FOCLs have recently missed out of their winter itineraries...

 

 

 

 

And our trip to the North Cape was included... even a nice warm jacket for us to keep... delivered to our cabin at the start of the cruise. Even the coach journey to the North Cape was amazing.

 

 

The scalloped snow shows the line of the road that we travelled on.

 

 

It was such a wonderful day... fresh snow, brilliant sunlight, calm seas and relatively balmy day for the northernmost point (almost) on the European continent... the North Pole is just 2,000 km or so over the horizon.

 

 

Forget about list of things to do before kicking the bucket... even our bus driver said... "Just enjoy!"

 

 

Other included trips were to the Arctic "Cathedral" in Tromso and the Bryggen in Bergen.

[twotravellersLondon]

4 hours ago, CruiseMark said:

Thank you for the excellent insight. Could you please PM me the name of the company you used to get such a great price?

 

 

We used SAGA. We booked at the beginning of the booking period and had a 35% discount. We have compared next seasons prices on the basis of a balcony cabin... the entry level on SAGA.

 

Also included in our price was visits to the speciality restaurants... one example...

 

 

Compared with the main dining room...

 

 

These are pics of other included visits...

 

Bryggen in Bergen...

 

 

Northern Light Cathedral in Alta by free shuttle bus...

 

 

Arctic "Cathedral" In Tromsø...

 

 

After between 25 and 30 cruises with "Fred" & FOCLs as well as cruises with the likes of SAGA, P&O, Princess & Cunard, we shopped around... and find that on a like for like basis... FOCLs is now just so much more expensive for a less good offering... so we've found that it really helps to compare the market. 

 

We would always take a balcony cabin because probably by the time a cruise ship reached Alta and most certainly by the time it reached Honningsvåg it would be further North and closer to the Pole than any other cruise ship or expedition ship on earth. By the time that it rounded the North Cape it would be further North than even the Hurtigruten ferries. At that Latitude of well over 71˚ North the decks on cruise-ships may well be closed because it's too windy, too wet, too snowy or the sea's too high and so the only sheltered, safe, dark spot... to patiently look out for the Aurora is the balcony.

 

This is important because, the most likely place for the Northern Lights to be seen on a cruise is while the ship is travelling off shore. (That's because the sky is likely to be clearer, the ship often travels at night and the fact that he ships spend more time at sea than in port.) Often ships try to increase the chances of possible sightings by spending some time just off the Norwegian coast in sea areas such as Lopphavet, which is a stretch of open sea along the border of Troms og Finnmark. It's a fairly open area of sea off the entrance to the Altafjorden. P&O's Aurora is currently just leaving that area.

 

I was brought up in a seaside village in the North of Scotland where the Northern Lights were common in the dark of winter.  Over more than a quarter of a century we've successfully seen the Northern Lights dozens of times in Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the sea areas in between. They can last for seconds or for hours, be as faint as smoke trails or as bright as neon lights, vary from a light green haze to startling shafts of light and create the illusions of anthropogenic forms of the faces of animals, trolls and all manner of other things. While it's possible to see the effects of the northern lights during the day... the blue of the sky can change to a translucent turquoise... the one thing that's certain the human eye needs to be well adjusted to the darkness of the night sky to see and appreciate them in all of their glory... (these days it can take us up to 30 minutes in the dark if the lights are faint... young eyes can adjust quicker!) Anyone inside a ship or behind reflective glass is far less likely to see the light in their true intensity or colour.

 

The HD Northern Lights images that we see in the media have often been taken on highly sensitive cameras on solid tripods set on viewing positions with little extraneous light to allow for timed exposures of 15s or more. On many occasions the pictures have been digitally enhanced.

 

What passengers on a cruise ship are more likely to actually see with the naked eye is... something like these that we took a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

On a good night (Five solid hours) on Fred's Boudiccain 2015 while cruising Lopphavet... this is the type of thing that we saw from the deck.

 

 

This "Troll" came out of nowhere almost frightened the living daylights  out of those of up on deck and, then vanished in an instant. You can see the goatee beard on the chin, the well define pointed nose, the deep hollow eyes, the Troll-like ears and the hair blowing away into the distance. Ten seconds of intensely exciting, awesome Primeval Fear... it left us all gasping!

 

 

The Friend in the red jacket was also with us on our last cruise!

 

 

And the Northern Lights excursion...

 

And the Northern Lights excursion... this is when we were on "Fred" at Alta in 2014... (Again on the Boudicca) almost knee deep in snow on a green on the local golf club. Five coaches went... the great majority were too cold to stay out and retreated back to the coaches or the club house where there was ample supplies to hot drinks and chockie cake. About a dozen of us braved the weather and we rewarded with this beautiful Aurora Bow rising majestically behind the clubhouse. It was awesome... and nobody in the light and warmth of the clubhouse had any idea that it had ever been there. However... folks who had stayed on board the Boudicca and looked out from the ship's decks saw it... despite the lights of the town.

 

 

 

 

You've probably guessed that we find the lights exciting and we're willing to wrap up very warm and have the patience to stay out in the cold for ages to watch and wonder.

 

 

Good luck in selecting your cruise. We hope that you will have a wonderful time, that you'll see the lights and that you'll have memories that will last a lifetime.

[Britboys]

On 4/1/2023 at 12:30 PM, twotravellersLondon said:

 

We used SAGA. We booked at the beginning of the booking period and had a 35% discount. We have compared next seasons prices on the basis of a balcony cabin... the entry level on SAGA.

 

Also included in our price was visits to the speciality restaurants... one example...

 

 

Compared with the main dining room...

 

 

These are pics of other included visits...

 

Bryggen in Bergen...

 

 

Northern Light Cathedral in Alta by free shuttle bus...

 

 

Arctic "Cathedral" In Tromsø...

 

 

After between 25 and 30 cruises with "Fred" & FOCLs as well as cruises with the likes of SAGA, P&O, Princess & Cunard, we shopped around... and find that on a like for like basis... FOCLs is now just so much more expensive for a less good offering... so we've found that it really helps to compare the market. 

 

We would always take a balcony cabin because probably by the time a cruise ship reached Alta and most certainly by the time it reached Honningsvåg it would be further North and closer to the Pole than any other cruise ship or expedition ship on earth. By the time that it rounded the North Cape it would be further North than even the Hurtigruten ferries. At that Latitude of well over 71˚ North the decks on cruise-ships may well be closed because it's too windy, too wet, too snowy or the sea's too high and so the only sheltered, safe, dark spot... to patiently look out for the Aurora is the balcony.

 

This is important because, the most likely place for the Northern Lights to be seen on a cruise is while the ship is travelling off shore. (That's because the sky is likely to be clearer, the ship often travels at night and the fact that he ships spend more time at sea than in port.) Often ships try to increase the chances of possible sightings by spending some time just off the Norwegian coast in sea areas such as Lopphavet, which is a stretch of open sea along the border of Troms og Finnmark. It's a fairly open area of sea off the entrance to the Altafjorden. P&O's Aurora is currently just leaving that area.

 

I was brought up in a seaside village in the North of Scotland where the Northern Lights were common in the dark of winter.  Over more than a quarter of a century we've successfully seen the Northern Lights dozens of times in Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the sea areas in between. They can last for seconds or for hours, be as faint as smoke trails or as bright as neon lights, vary from a light green haze to startling shafts of light and create the illusions of anthropogenic forms of the faces of animals, trolls and all manner of other things. While it's possible to see the effects of the northern lights during the day... the blue of the sky can change to a translucent turquoise... the one thing that's certain the human eye needs to be well adjusted to the darkness of the night sky to see and appreciate them in all of their glory... (these days it can take us up to 30 minutes in the dark if the lights are faint... young eyes can adjust quicker!) Anyone inside a ship or behind reflective glass is far less likely to see the light in their true intensity or colour.

 

The HD Northern Lights images that we see in the media have often been taken on highly sensitive cameras on solid tripods set on viewing positions with little extraneous light to allow for timed exposures of 15s or more. On many occasions the pictures have been digitally enhanced.

 

What passengers on a cruise ship are more likely to actually see with the naked eye is... something like these that we took a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

On a good night (Five solid hours) on Fred's Boudiccain 2015 while cruising Lopphavet... this is the type of thing that we saw from the deck.

 

 

This "Troll" came out of nowhere almost frightened the living daylights  out of those of up on deck and, then vanished in an instant. You can see the goatee beard on the chin, the well define pointed nose, the deep hollow eyes, the Troll-like ears and the hair blowing away into the distance. Ten seconds of intensely exciting, awesome Primeval Fear... it left us all gasping!

 

 

The Friend in the red jacket was also with us on our last cruise!

 

 

And the Northern Lights excursion...

 

And the Northern Lights excursion... this is when we were on "Fred" at Alta in 2014... (Again on the Boudicca) almost knee deep in snow on a green on the local golf club. Five coaches went... the great majority were too cold to stay out and retreated back to the coaches or the club house where there was ample supplies to hot drinks and chockie cake. About a dozen of us braved the weather and we rewarded with this beautiful Aurora Bow rising majestically behind the clubhouse. It was awesome... and nobody in the light and warmth of the clubhouse had any idea that it had ever been there. However... folks who had stayed on board the Boudicca and looked out from the ship's decks saw it... despite the lights of the town.

 

 

 

 

You've probably guessed that we find the lights exciting and we're willing to wrap up very warm and have the patience to stay out in the cold for ages to watch and wonder.

 

 

Good luck in selecting your cruise. We hope that you will have a wonderful time, that you'll see the lights and that you'll have memories that will last a lifetime.

Lots of great info there thank you and super photos.

One tiny point for clarification only - the two Saga ships are only very slightly smaller than Fred's two larger ships (around 3000/4000 tons) and they are actually bigger than Balmoral. They do however take around 300 fewer passengers.