penguin

That's interesting, how did the checks then work as you left? Presumably someone then needed to check you had seen them

Being pedantic, I don't see how customs officers would help with passport control! Although I'm too young to remember the need for customs officials.

Nonsense, it's clearly the Christmas tree on the mast - the complaints always start at this time of year and it's bound to hurt the aerodynamics 😂

There are rumours of other factions trying to stir up the protests in order to cause chaos. It's very hard to build a stable society and so easy to wreck it. Sadly we are all emotive creatures.

Plus Tallink's Romantika/Victoria 1 and Baltic Queen/Baltic Princess. Interestingly, I don't think any of the sisters run the same routes, but are all paired up with other ships.

Luckily *the* december ferry isn't until next week Having said that, I was impressed with Etretat in a force 6-8 storm. Obviously a lot of movement, but given the conditions I thought she handled it very well (although the car was caked in salt and soot the next morning!).

The new logo looks really smart on her. I'm not sold on the stripe across the front though, I personally don't think it suits that shape. It looks almost like a batman and robin mask!

It couldn't have been more obvious, could it! That'll teach me to forget about economie. Although I suppose we can't really learn much from them as to what they would do with two identical new builds.

Individuality is a big strength. It will be interesting to see what happens with the e-flexers. BF have certainly taken full advantage of the mix of sizes/ages/purposes in the current fleet. I wonder how or if the two new sister ships will be differentiated. Come to think of it, has BF ever had two sister passenger ferries before?

I must admit I was far more partial to the blue/red. That's really interesting as I'd say they're going in the opposite direction, with all the details on the lettering, gradients etc. If anything I'd say the old logo/typeface was more clean and minimal. It's slowly growing on me, but it will take a while to get used to. It looks best in the PR materials I think.

(Do they need to be? It's often said that the availability of cheap labour in the UK is used as a substitute for investment in better technology. If you've got a near limitless supply of cheap labour, why bother with the upfront costs of modern techniques/machinery)

A clear and overwhelming will of the people then 🤣 As much as I'd like to see a second referendum, I haven't yet seen any indicators of a strong shift in public opinion. Even though most polls indicate public opinion is probably 52/48 the other way, until this becomes 60/40 I don't think it would be easy to make a case for (or indeed settle the question). I actually think polling on related questions is far more revealing - people's attitude to no deal vs "bad deal" shows that the perception of sovereignty is still more important to people than any potential economic problems. I do find it interesting that so many seem to claim that May's deal isn't what people voted for and also argue that a second referendum isn't justified as nothing is different to 2016. (although the goalposts for brexit seem to keep moving!)

I'm not sure you'll ever get an accurate picture of UK public opinion on here. I can't imagine UK ferry enthusiasts being in any way representative of the wider population. That's why so many twitter analytics based political polls failed in the previous elections. There are vast sections of society that either aren't or are under-represented on twitter. Even out of that self selected population, you skew it even further by only being able to get data from people who choose to talk about politics (on a related note - US polls had problems even with traditional methods, many Trump voters wouldn't talk to pollsters). The end result tells you something about those people - but it's impossible to extrapolate it any further. It's a great bit of fun to see what the forum thinks, but I wouldn't think too hard about it!

As much as I love the location of the current terminal, and depending on how the space gets used, I daresay there is potential to enhance the experience. A large public area on the seafront adjacent to the terminal could make for a fantastic first impression of the city, both the view as you sail past and on foot leaving the terminal. Obviously that's wildly optimistic - my gut feeling is Commerical value of the land will win out.

I wouldn't worry too much - according to the papers it's only the metropolitan elite that can afford travel! We're too much of a select audience