A couple of crossings of the Dover Strait on P&O's new flagship ferry Spirit of Britain. This will be the theme ship in Shippax Designs 2011 (see http://www.shippax.se/). I was accompanied by Klas Brogren and Mike Louagie - respectively owner of Shippax and photographer/editor of Cruise & Ferry Info. As you can see, throughout, the weather was perfect and there were good photographic opportunities at the beach in Calais (above and below):
After photographing Spirit of Britain's arrival, we made a little diversion to Dunkerque to photograph the DFDS Seaways 'D-class' in their new livery:
Then back to Calais and onboard Spirit of Britain, initially for an evening crossing to Dover. Here, Klas poses on the vehicle deck:
P&O's British food promotion in the 'Routemasters' truckers' restaurant:
My dinner in the Brasserie - a very fine steak it was too:
Next morning, we could explore the ship in daylight. She is very spacious and bright:
A DFDS Seaways 'D-class' leaves Dover:
More interiors on Spirit of Britain:
Breakfast in the truckers' restaurant:
Mike Louagie at work with his camera, documenting Spirit of Britain for posterity:
Klas gives a close inspection to all of the details of the Brasserie restaurant and the adjacent delicatessen shop:
Throughout, the vessel is decorated with facsimiles of vintage P&O trave posters:
A brief outline history of P&O in a hallway also proved very popular with passengers. Whenever I passed by, people were reading it and looking at the photographs:
Dover Strait passengers doing tradtional things on the sun deck:
Decks already in need of a good clean.
Arriving at Calais and the shop:
The very bright and attractive family lounge - here there was a lot of attention to design details:
The sun decks are also very attractive, but quite a lot of passengers were irritated by the height of the glazed screens. There is also a more swish Club Class sun deck with sun loungers (below):
Seafrance Nord-Pas-De-Calais arrives in Calais; the Tricolor was not looking as it should:
A precocious child with a cheroot (above) and reading the papers in Club Class (below):
