Boudicca takes the cruise battle north of the Border to Scotland

Of the four cruise ships in Fred Olsen’s fleet, three have distinctly Scottish names. Black Watch shares emotional connections with the Highland infantry regiment and Braemar and Balmoral are, of course, named after places in Royal Deeside.
As far as I know, the warrior queen Boudicca, whose name is carried on the fourth ship, never rode into battle north of the Border. And yet this is the ship which will spend most of the summer sailing out of the Clyde and the Forth.
The Scottish season starts on May 7 when Boudicca arrives in Greenock at the end a three-night voyage from Southampton, via Dublin. It then sets out on a 13-night cruise to the Canaries – first of four departures from the port. The May 20 sailing is a 21-night cruise to the Adriatic, featuring lessons and demonstrations from Masterchef finalist Robert Ash, who runs a cookery school in Burgundy.
The June 18 sailing from Greenock to Norway takes the ship to Rosyth, on Scotland’s east coast, from where it will leave on a total of five cruises to the Baltic, Norway, Spitsbergen and Iceland, before setting up base in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in August.
Boudicca will be one of 37 cruise ships visiting the Port of Tyne this year, a huge increase on the 20 calls in 2011.
The port was voted the best in the UK in a recent Cruise Critic poll, and has also attracted Thomson Cruises which will be operating the 1,250-passenger Thomson Spirit from the Tyne in June and July. Saga has five cruises using the port this year and Cruise & Maritime Voyages a further three. There will also be visits from MSC Lirica, Seabourn Sojourn, Discovery, Minerva, and Deutschland
Newcastle’s success in attracting 35,000 cruise passengers – in addition to the 300,000 who travel by DFDS ferry to Amsterdam – has brought £45 million to the north-east and prompted the port authorities to exhibit last week at the Cruise Shipping conference in Miami.
All this at a time when, according to the latest figures from Cruise Britain, more passengers than ever before are visiting the UK through its 50 cruise ports. Last year say 878,000 people joining their cruise through a UK port, an increase of five per cent on 2010.
Cruise Britain Chair Kate O’Hara said: ” Over the last seven years, we have seen the number of visiting passengers double. The uniqueness of Round Britain cruises together with our history, heritage, culture and scenery ensure our continued success. Britain will be very much on the world stage in 2012 and this can only mean a higher profile for the country in the global travel market.”