MS BALMORAL

 

MS Balmoral is a cruise ship owned and operated by Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines. She was built in 1988 by the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, West Germany as Crown Odyssey for Royal Cruise Line. She has also sailed for the Norwegian Cruise Line as Norwegian Crown and Orient Lines as Crown Odyssey. In 2007–2008 she was lengthened by 30 m (98 ft) at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg, prior to entering service with her current operator.

TITANIC COMMEMORATION:

The Balmoral was charetered by Miles Morgan Travel to follow the original route of RMS TITANIC intending to stop over the point of sea on 15 April 2012, where the TITANIC wreckage is under the sea.

She set sail from Southampton On easter Sunday 8 April 2012 and reached Cobh on 9th april 2012. COBH was the last port of call for RMS TITANIC from where she set sail through the Atlantic.

A TREASURE HUNT:

Two passengers, Jane and Frank Allen, are tracing the trip of Jane Allen’s great aunt and uncle, who were passengers on the original journey. Thomas, 29, died that night. Edith, just 22 made it to a lifeboat and survived.
“I don’t think it’s ghoulish or macabre at all. But it was still quite unbelievable what happened that night,” said Jane Allen.
Frank Allen is haunted by the events that night a century ago.
“You look at the face of the man and wonder just how he met his end. He was never found there was no body he just disappeared on that night,” he said.
The Balmoral is nothing like the Titanic, but it too has 1,309 passengers, will be serving some of the same menus, and is tracing the Titanic’s route from Southampton, England to Cherbourg, France, to Cobh, Ireland and then stopping at the wreck site for a memorial service on April 14.
The original Titanic apparently hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, which ripped open the hull. The cruise liner later sank.
Unlike the Titanic, this cruise is expected to make it to New York in ten days