The 1950s steamship Shieldhall operates out of Southampton and runs regular trips down the Solent and back, cruises into Portsmouth and back, has occasional evenings thrown in, and special occasions such as watching some yachting off the Isle of Wight for instance, too. August 2022 saw us suddenly realise that we’d never been on Shieldhall or, for that matter, a steamship of any kind. And Southampton’s close to us. And we like being on the sea. And we like cruise ships. And Shieldhall sometimes cruises past the cruise ships in dock then comes back as the cruise ships are leaving. I mean, at some point we were going to have to get on Shieldhall and see what she was like, and it just so happened that August 2022 was that point.
We booked a hotel for the night and headed down one Saturday in order to try one of their sailings titled “Steam to the Solent cruise and see the cruise ships depart.” The NCP car park serves us well when we travel to Southampton and it was a lovely day for a walk to the port. But check the distance if you’re thinking of doing the same thing because some people aren’t as agile and fit as us. Wait a minute. Most people are more agile and fit than us. Okay, well, still check the distance. It’s a bit of a walk and it’s not the most attractive of scenery on the way, although you will see some of the cruise ships you’re about to see from the water, only from land. Wow! What a treat!
Boarding was a painless affair. A quick check of the tickets we’d purchased, then up the gangway. There were lots of spaces to sit down on deck but quite a few already taken. However, we found the all-important beverage-dispensing location, purchased some fabulous beers, and found a shady spot to wait for the sail away.
Let’s quickly talk about one of Southampton port’s landmarks. It’s not something you’ll see from every cruise that departs Southampton, but if you’re lucky enough to be berthed at the western end of the port, or your ship is required to turn around in that area, or if you book a cruise on Shieldhall which happens to be near that area too, then you just might be treated to the sight of Southampton’s Great Big Pile of Rubbish.
What a sight that is. Nothing says Southampton quite like it. Rusting metal and discarded crap piled high. And interestingly, not too far from where all the now common-as-muck Tesla cars are stored just behind it. When you think of Tesla, do you think of a pile of crap? You probably do if you remember that Elon Musk is connected to it, and it’s hard not to combine all those elements in your mind when you’re at this part of Southampton.
Hey! I didn’t come here to read about your views on Billionaire Incel Boy! Get on with the write-up about Shieldhall, you!
Fine. I’m not going to cover much of the steamship here because there will be far better sources online for that. You want the history and power output and how much Shieldhall weighs, and things like that? My friend, you want Wikipedia’s entry on SS Shieldhall, not this rambling stream of consciousness around a load of photographs taken on a cruise down the Solent. What were you thinking, coming here like that? Here’s the place you visit on the internet to see pictures of cruise ships that happened to be in Southampton port on a Saturday in August, 2022, as seen from a steamship chugging past them on the water. Somebody, somewhere, somewhen in the future may need this information. That’s what I’m here for.
The first cruise ship we passed on Shieldhall was one of P&O‘s two Grand-class ships, Ventura. It’s no secret to our stalkers that we are immensely fond of the Grand-class design and general size, and we’ve cruised on Ventura a few times now. This website has a menu and from it there’s a Cruises section, and from that there’s a P&O Cruises sections, and from that there’s a Ventura section. And guess what!? From that you can see the cruises we’ve taken on Ventura. We like Ventura.
Shieldhall next passed a very different cruise ship. This was the Norwegian Cruise Line ship, Prima. We’ve never cruised with NCL before, and in fact, nobody had cruised on Prima before as we sailed past because she was just entering service with a shakedown trip. We’ve read that some people don’t like the artwork. We liked the artwork. We’ve read that some people don’t like that shape of the bow. We liked that too. We’ve read that some people didn’t like the idea of people sliding past their balconies. Now, admittedly, we wouldn’t want to be in those balconies because we like cruise ships for the sea views, not the tubes filled with wet, screaming kids and adults. But that’s just us. However, overall, we thought Prima looked really interesting. And then we checked the prices to cruise on her and thought yeah, no thanks.
The third of the four cruise ships docked in Southampton on that day came swiftly upon us. This was another P&O ship, but this was Iona. Oh dear. We’ve cruised on Iona. You can read about it here: Cruise: Iona Seacation. You know how much I said we liked Ventura up above? Well, turn that upside down and that’s our feelings about Iona. Not good. Not good for us, anyway. It was just the one cruise, and we’re not averse to giving ships or lines or ports or countries second chances, but they’ve got to be good deals with enough else to distract and impress in case the thing we’re offering a chance of redemption to fails to grab hold of the opportunity. That’s more-or-less my way of saying you’d almost have to pay us to cruise on Iona again. Almost. Not a fan of the design, and especially not the way the wrap-around promenade now stuffs up night viewing and sea views from lower balconies. Not happy to see all the Carnival ships going the same route either. Oh well. There’s a ship for everyone, and this particular design of ship is for the tasteless masses. If you’re part of the tasteless masses then you might enjoy Iona.
The final ship we cruised past as Shieldhall continued on her merry way down the sunny Solent was Princess Cruises‘ Sky Princess.
Princess Cruises is the line that suits us the best (for now). Our first cruise was with Princess, the most cruises we’ve taken have been with Princess, and they tread that line between being not the best for families and not the best for the elderly that works perfectly for us, the child-free, middle-aged couple you’re beginning to realise you can’t stand.
At the time of writing this (March 2023) we’ve also cruised on Sky Princess herself three times, although only the first cruise is currently written up and the second one is in progress. There are things we like about Sky Princess and things we don’t, and three cruises on the same ship in just over a year was, with the benefit of hindsight, too many. We felt a little bit done with her by the end, even though in each case it was a combination of destinations and value for money that had us booking cruises in the first place. Certainly, if you’ve not cruised before then Sky Princess would be a great first cruise ship to choose if you’re anything like us. But, fortunately, very few people are like us so, whatever you do, ask questions and seek way more details as well as explaining your own tastes and likes and age and family situation before doing something stupid like booking a cruise based off some recommendation online. The internet is full of terrible, terrible information.
For the remainder of this first part of the write-up about our cruise down the Solent on Steamship Shieldhall I’m going to let the photos do the talking. These are mostly of the views from the ship back to Southampton, across to the Isle of Wight, and even towards our home in Portsmouth in the distance, but a few snaps from when we took a look at the engine room area are included too. Yes, if you take a trip on a steamship like Shieldhall then you can go and take a look at the engines if you’re so inclined. They don’t let you do that on modern cruise ships, so something for the engineers out there. Again, you can find better pictures and videos of the ship herself elsewhere online; this is about the experience you can expect if you sail past the cruise ships instead.
In the concluding part of our Shieldhall cruise I’ll cover the return to Southampton, so you can expect many of the same photos but taken at a slightly later time of the day when I’d had many more beers aboard. That’s the sort of quality content you don’t find elsewhere on the web. You’ll also see a couple of the ships we’d already passed, now sailing out of the Solent themselves, and get to hear the battle of the noisy sea buggers as one ship’s horn takes on Shieldhall’s terrifying steam whistle.