Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, the UK based destinational operator of four medium sized ships, has teamed up with a member of British high nobility in a Poison, Murder & Mystery cruise that will sail from Rosyth in Scotland on 10 July next year.
The company wants to capitalise on the success of the Titanic memorial cruise its largest vessel, the 45,000 gross ton Balmoral operated in 2012. In the Poison, Murder & Mystery cruise thsat will be operated by the 28,000 gross ton Boudicca, the company has teamed up with Her Grace, The Duchess of Northumberland, who has a poison garden at the ducal country seat of Alnwick in the North East of England. Fred. Olsen Senior, chairman of many companies in the family's business empire, including the cruise line, also has a poison garden, located at Guimar on the Tenerife in the Canary Islands in Spain.
The cruise will include a visit to both Alnwick, where the Duchess has invested £40 million to develop the poison garden that features more than 100 toxic plants and which featured in maby Harry Potter films, plus Guimar, where a theatrical company will stage a performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
Guest speakers on the cruise include felix Francis, som of the thriller author Dick Francis; Peter Dean who is Her Majesty's Coroner for Essex, Dr. Dan Jones, the noted poison historian and archaeologist, plus Dr Mark Siddall, curator of "The Power of Poison" exhibition at The American Museum of Natural History.
A theatrical company will travel on the cruise and passengers are encouraged to take up roles in a murder mystery that will evolve as the cruise progresses. They are also invited to try to solve the mystery and the person who does that will receive a world cruise for two persons as a prize.
The Northumberland dukedom belongs to the Percy family, whose ancestors came over to England from Normandy in 1067, in the wake of William the Conqueror. The current duke is the12th holder of the title. The ducal estate comprises two great houses, the medieval castle at Alnwick and Syon House, a splendid country house by Robert Adam, in Middlesex near London.
