#CruiseLinersLiverpool - Liverpool City which Cruise Critic awarded us the 'Best UK Port of Call' for the 2013 season is today host to Thomson Spirit, the 33,390 tons vessel is only the second of 45 cruiseships callers for 2014, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The Thomson Cruises 1,254 passenger capacity ship docked along the famous waterfront of the Irish Sea city for a turnaround call. She follows the call of Discovery which not only opened the cruise season on the Mersey in March but also in the following month across the Irish Sea in Dublin Port.

Cruiseships have berthed at Liverpool Cruise Terminal since the riverberth facility was opened in 2007. The city of course can trace its maritime heritage as the birthplace of the first passenger cruise line.

The opening of the dedicated terminal has renewed the city's rich maritime heritage links with the great ocean liners of the world past and present and that been the unique transatlantic liner, Cunard Line's  'flagship' Queen Mary 2.

Whenever Queen Mary 2 calls to the Mersey they are apt given the berth is so close to the former Cunard Line building lining the famous waterfront.

Liverpool Cruise Terminal is also opposite the iconic Royal Liver building, and such a central location, joins just a handful of cities in the world to where cruiseships can berth directly in the heart of the city, among them are Sydney, New York and Venice.

The north-western English city is close to many large population centres and is an added attraction for cruise operators to offer customers as an embarkation point for cruises around the UK, Ireland, Northern Europe and the Norwegian Fjords.

Thomson Spirit will be heading to the west coast of Ireland and with an anchor call offshore of Galway Harbour next Saturday. This been the second caller for the city, which as previously reported, welcomed the Fram last month.

#CruiseLiners – Dublin Port has two cruiseship callers today, Thomson Spirit (1983/33,930grt) and Ocean Princess (1999/30,277grt) both are approximately the same in tonnage terms, yet they are starkly different in design, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Thomson Spirit had sailed from Belfast and flying the Thomson Cruises brand which celebrates 40 years having been founded by Canadian entrepreneur Roy Thomson who began cruises in the Mediterranean.

She is on a 13-day British and Irish itinerary with calls to Leith (Edinburgh) Kirkwall, Portree, Holyhead, Cobh, Torquay and Le Havre.

Ocean Princess sailed from Falmouth and she is one of the former Renaissance Cruises octet of 'R' class cruiseships commissioned as their R4. She is now operated by Princess Cruises, one of the many cruise brands of the US based Carnival Cruise Corporation.

The R Class were built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, and they have an emphasis in that cabins have individual balconies, which is increasingly the norm, particularly at the higher end of the market. Passenger areas and open decks are mostly situated above these accommodation decks.

Thomson Cruises have a fleet of five vessels which asides Thomson Spirit includes her one-year younger sister Thomson Celebration. Together they started careers for Holland America Lines (HAL) operating for the North American cruise market.

They too were built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique, with Nieuw Amsterdam (Thomson Spirit) entering service followed by Noordam (Thomson Celebration).

Upon reflection the pair compared to modern newbuilds are more inclined towards the liner era in design and layout in that they have considerably more open deck space, featuring two pools. Plus a full wraparound boat deck that incorporates not just the stern but views for passengers overlooking the bow.

The lifeboats are set much further apart rather than confined in enclosed deck spaces as found on Ocean Princess.

Arguably Thomson Spirit has only one 'full-length' passenger deck and a further three shorter decks above set within her superstructure which is highly unusual these days.

The internal layout also reflects a more traditional arrangement of facilities as the main passenger areas are concentrated along three central decks. While accommodation is located above and below these decks, which combined total seven cabin decks.

Holland America Lines present-day Nieuw Amsterdam is a cruiseship of the 'Vista' class built in Italy. Variations of the Vista series each of around 90,000 gross tonnes, include P&O Cruises Arcadia and Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth. Both vessels made anchorage visits off Dun Loaghaire Harbour this season.