The time has come to start another series of cruise travelogues, and this is the first of many posts covering our 2025 cruise into the Arctic Circle aboard Ambassador Ambience.
This would be our first cruise with Ambassador although back in 2018 we’d spent a night sailing aboard the now-defunct Astoria with the now-also-defunct Cruise & Maritime Voyages, which can be considered a precursor cruise line to Ambassador or the ashes from which the Ambassador phoenix arose. Only less purple.
Cruising with a line for the first time brings with it some risk. Every line does things differently and targets different sorts of cruisers so it’s vitally important to do some research first to make sure it’s a good fit for your age, temperament, and expectations. Additionally, cruise durations have a big impact on what sort of cruising experience you’re going to get aboard. Short cruises attract a younger, more of a party crowd, and the vibe on the ship might be very different to something longer. If the cruise line doesn’t quite suit you then too long a cruise will feel like torture. If I was the sort of person who handed out advice to people looking for cruise answers, then I’d say that a week to ten days is a solid length of time you should aim for if this is your first time with a line, or with cruising at all.
We’re quite contrary people and we’re also pretty experienced now so for our very first cruise with Ambassador we decided to book a seventeen-day cruise above the Arctic Circle (our first proper time cruising that far north although technically we’d been on a ship that just straddled the line of latitude a few years earlier) in search of the Northern Lights at the top of Norway. We like Norway so this would be a chance to see more of the country and tick off some new ports. We like seeing the aurora (we’ve been lucky enough to see it a few times now). We’d dug into Ambassador enough to know that there was a very good chance we’d like cruising with them. It wasn’t that big a risk, and, thanks to Ambassador running a promotion at the time, the price per person per night worked out good enough to opt for a balcony cabin on the ship too. And we like balconies when we can justify the additional cost.
Among the many new things that this cruise would bring would be a new cruise port to depart from and arrive at. Tilbury lies on the north side of the Thames, just to the east of London. It’s certainly a place we could have driven to on the day of the cruise but for a more stress-free holiday we decided to travel up after work the evening before, staying at a hotel near Waltham Abbey. It was cheap, easy to find, cut a lot of the cruise day travelling out of the equation, and there were a couple of pubs close by so it worked well for us. We’d almost certainly do the same on a subsequent cruise from Tilbury, and at the time of writing this we do actually have plans for that very thing in late 2028.
Whether you’re heading to Tilbury for an Ambassador Cruise from the clockwise or anti-clockwise direction around the M25 you’re going to need to get off at the A13 and head east. As we’d stayed at Waltham Abbey we were coming from a clockwise direction so it was a longer drive than it needed to be, but it did mean we could avoid the Dartford Tunnel. I’m sure the tunnel is fine most of the time but we’ve been caught in it once before and our lives are better without that worry.
The signs to the docks were easy to follow and we were soon pulling into the car park where we were directed to a place to drop our cases off, then to the parking bays. From this point to stepping on board Ambience was about ten minutes and that includes walking with our hand luggage to the port building, checking in, having a photo taken, picking up our cards, and following the throng through the walkways jutting out from land to the jetty against which the ship was docked. It was so quick that I didn’t have any chance to take any pictures from within the cruise terminal building itself which is a shame as it’s truly lovely, but below you’ll see what the building looks like from the outside, as seen from our balcony a little later in the day.
The cruise terminal building was completed in the 1920s, just a little too early to embrace the Art Deco that would have totally suited its role, instead favouring some lovely neo-Georgian touches. Of historical significance is that the Empire Windrush docked there in 1948, bringing migrants from the West Indies to help in Britain’s post-war restoration efforts.
Boarding the ship brought us straight into the heart of Ambience. This was the spacious Centre Court, spread over three levels. We had arrived before the rooms were ready and we had a carry-on wheelie case with us so we decided not to have an explore of the ship – there was no rush, after all – but instead grab a seat in Centre Court as we could see some vacant. It would have been rude not have some drinks and we’re not rude people.
We were finishing up our second drink when the announcement was made that our cabins were now ready. As I’ve already mentioned, we’d booked a balcony room for this cruise, deck 10 forward (always nice as we’re Star Trek fans), starboard side, cabin 10135. The cabin was bright and clean with the bathroom coming across as understandably dated but perfectly fine. We weren’t on the cruise to spend copious amounts of time showering. Storage was incredible. You could pack for four people for a world cruise here. The television was small with none of the on demand offerings we’ve come to expect, but that wasn’t a big deal. We weren’t on the cruise to watch TV either. One thing that was a problem in this room – and this might have been a transient thing that’s since been fixed, or it might have been because we were heading to the far north in winter time with a lot of old people aboard – was the air conditioning’s base temperature of too bloody hot. If the thermostat did a thing then we never found out why or how. It was very warm in this room, to the extent that we ended up wedging a chair in the doorway to the balcony just to sleep at night. Yes, we slept with our balcony door open while cruising past snowy landscapes in the Arctic Circle.
We had time for a little explore now before muster and that began on the top deck where Ambience’s pools and Ambassador’s purple and green colour scheme took centre stage. We didn’t actually venture into the pools at all on this cruise and I’m not entirely sure why as they looked very inviting.
A friendly member of staff decided we looked parched and convinced us to grab another drink outside before we went forward to the Observatory, Ambience’s nightclub venue and crow’s nest area. We were blown away by how lovely the Observatory was during the daylight hours and we’d come to the decision very quickly at night that it was in fact the most beautiful nightclub at sea. The ship was designed with passengers in mind, not profits at the passengers’ expense, and you could really tell. The public spaces on Ambience aren’t just big and airy, they’re also gorgeously decorated. She may be an old ship with a somewhat unique look from the outside but she’s one of the classiest vessels at sea once you’re aboard.
Muster was held in the theatre for us and this was another venue that immediately surprised and impressed us. Leg room! So much leg room! We could stretch our legs out and not touch the seats in front.
If we have a balcony cabin then we will typically enjoy the sailaway from our balcony with a drink in hand. However, not only was Tilbury a new port from which to disembark for us, it also meant we’d be sailing along the snaking course of the Thames before hitting the open sea. This would all be new to us and so we wandered out both forward and aft to catch the evening departure views. One of the big benefits of our cabin being forward on deck ten was that we were on the same deck and only a dozen metres back from a forward viewing spot under the bridge. We’d end up popping out here a lot on this cruise because Norway’s landscape encourages that sort of behaviour. The sunset scenes from the ship’s aft were a particularly nice view for our first night aboard Ambience too.
Ambassador do fixed-time dining which isn’t our preferred choice but we understand why a lot of the older and smaller ships do things this way. We had the late sitting and were on a table for four, only our table companions didn’t join us for this first night. In fact, we probably only saw them about half the time as either they were trying some speciality dining or we were or we’d eaten late and hit the buffet or they’d decided on the buffet or they’d got talking to other people and missed dinner entirely. That saved us having to come up with new conversations every day, at least. Service was superb. Food across this cruise was good, without being spectacular, with the exception of one speciality evening which very positively impressed us. You’ll have to wait for that write-up.
After dinner we found ourselves in Raffles, the up-class piano lounge on Ambience. Again, just stunning decor with a height that just made it feel that little bit more special again. The pianist was excellent on this cruise – actually, all the performers were excellent – and this would be our early evening venue almost every evening. We finished this first night by taking an elevator up to the Observatory and this started our fun game of seeing what elevator decoration we’d get. Polar Bear on this occasion, as you can see. Quirky, but simple fun.
The Observatory at night was utterly stunning. Various sorts of entertainment would take place here across this cruise but it would always end with a late-night disco, and we’d almost always be some of the last people in it each night. On this first evening aboard Ambience we got talking to a guy who’d known Divine. Disco royalty.
Ambassador don’t run a late-night buffet but they do bring around trays of nibbles at about eleven o’clock each night. Odd, we thought, on our first night on the ship, but by day three we were already experiencing a Pavlovian response of extra salivation as snacking time approached and we wondered what choice there’d be to tempt us now.
That’s the end of our first day aboard an Ambassador Cruise Lines ship. In the next post in this Ambassador Ambience cruise travelogue series there’s a sea day and formal night dinner to look forward to.