The last time my path crossed with that of Maggie Thatcher was on board Cunard’s QE2, when she attended a Royal reception to mark the ship’s 40th birthday, and I’m not convinced she’s the best marketing tool for cruises.
Others may think differently, and both Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery are linking the release of the biopic The Iron Lady to their formidable line-up of guest speakers.
Former Foreign Secretary Douglas (now Lord) Hurd, who served in Maggie’s Cabinet, will be travelling on board the newly-refurbished Minerva for a 15-night cruise in the Adriatic. As he was in office during the protracted wars which tore Yugoslavia apart in the early 1990s, he may have something appropriate to say when the ship calls at the Croatian ports of Dubrovnik, Korcula, Split and Pula, and the Montenegran city of Kotor.
The cruise, which begins in Malta and ends with two nights in Athens, also visits Trieste and Venice in Italy, the Albanian port of Sarande, and Itea (for Delphi) in Greece. Fares from £2,170.
For what it’s worth, I reckon Hurd’s a bit of a dry old stick. Far more entertaining will be the former ambassador to Russia, Sir Anthony Brenton who is travelling on board Discovery for a 14-night voyage from Harwich to Iceland and the Faeroes.
I happened to be on Fred Olsen’s Balmoral in the Baltic when he made his cruise ship debut, and I was thoroughly engrossed in his talks on Russian history and the dark arts of diplomacy.
He worked in Britain’s Moscow embassy in the 1990s, and was ambassador from 2004 to 2008. More appropriately for the journey to Iceland, with climate change a hot topic, he led the Foreign Office delegation at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Fares for the cruise, which visits Bergen and Flam in Norway; Akureyri, Isafjordjur, Grundarfjordur and Reykjavik in Iceland, and Torshavn in the Faeroe Islands, start at £1,499.
►Back at Fred Olsen, Grand National jockey and cancer survivor Bob Champion heads up a team of sports personalities who will be joining Boudicca’s 35-night round-trip to the Caribbean which leaves Southampton on January 19. He will be joined by footballer Terry Neill, who won 59 caps for Northern Ireland before going on to manage both Spurs and Arsenal, plus darts champions Cliff Lazarenko and Keith Deller.
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