A Final Gambit
Now in her 16th year, and with revenues slowly beginning to fall as once regular passengers either stopped cruising or were sampling what was on offer elsewhere, it was Caronia's turn for some big decisions. The pace of change in passenger tastes was probably at an all-time high, along with the extra time now made available for statutory holidays.
Generally speaking, the marketing of Caronia had always been at the luxury end of the scale, however, there was now much more on offer elsewhere to tempt that discerning traveller than hitherto. Competition for selling cabin space on luxurious ships had probably never been so fierce as now.
So, as was the tradition with this ship, another very bold decision was taken. Caronia would not do her very popular Autumn Mediterranean Cruise this year. Instead, she would be booked to go for an extensive cosmetic refit at Harland and Wolff's yard in Belfast.
Here, for 10 weeks, some 1,200 men made busy as the biggest outwardly visible change was made - building a new 13,000 square feet lido deck. This meant the removal of the aft docking bridge and extending Sun Deck to accommodate a new and larger kidney shaped swimming pool. The whole new area was sheltered with glazed side screens.
Inboard, 8 new suites were built, replacing 12 previous Main Deck staterooms. The two private dining rooms of the Balmoral Restaurant were opened out to form a new annexe and the main lounge was extended to the full width of the ship. The lounge interior was also remodelled with quite a lot of the wood panelling removed and the soft furnishings brought up to date.
While the new lido area was really in keeping with the ship, the result of the changes in the main lounge was a bit of an incongruous mix of the old and the new. It may have been bigger and brighter, but now it was nowhere near as classy or as intimate as hitherto. In my opinion this change wasn't a success.
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