Cruise Encounter of the Fjord Kind as Marco Polo meets Britannia

It’s David and Goliath. Or Little and Large. Old versus new. Whichever way you look at it, a great picture. Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ plucky little Marco Polo had a close encounter with P&O Cruises’ Britannia at Flåm in Norway, and CMV passenger Karen Bradbury captured this shot.

Head of marketing, Mike Hall said “It brings it home to us all at CMV that operating a fine classic ocean liner, especially one that is celebrating her 50^th Birthday, has many advantages. The travelling public has never had so much choice to go cruising. The fact that CMV is more than 85% sold already for this year indicates that the traditional style of smaller ship British cruising is alive and doing very well.”

Marco Polo passenger Mark Greenhalgh added: “This shows the difference between classic cruising and the big new ships. On Marco Polo with open, tiered, aft decks you get to experience a true sailaway, seeing your destination slip away from sight as you leave, whereas most new ships have a sailaway party on the top deck around the pool where you can’t see anything. We had a fantastic time and took some really amazing pictures.”

THE STATISTICS

Marco Polo/Britannia:

Tonnage 22,080/143,000

History 50 years/2 months

Cabins 425/1,837

Passengers 800/4,324

PICTURE: Karen Bradbury