Cruise ship sets sail on Titanic memorial voyage

Cruise ship MS Balmoral A cruise recreating the voyage of the Titanic has set sail with the exact same number of passengers as the famous liner that sank on its maiden voyage. Passengers onboard the MS Balmoral , which left Southampton for the 12-night cruise yesterday, included relatives of people who died onboard the Titanic 100 years ago this month.
The cruise ship will retrace the doomed liner's fateful journey and take part in a memorial service at the spot where it struck an iceberg and sank.
Critics said the journey was in poor taste but all 1,309 tickets for the trip were snapped up at a cost of between £2,799 and £5,995 per person.
Food on board is from the menus of the White Star Line ship that sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
The organisers have even hired a band - the five-piece Grupetto from Belgium - to play period music in honour of the Titanic's musicians who are said to have played until the ship sank.
People from 28 different countries have booked to travel and retrace the liner's original route - via Cherbourg in north-west France and Cobh on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland - to the spot where the liner sank.
The Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank the following morning, claiming 1,517 lives.
The Balmoral is due to reach the North Atlantic wreck site next weekend for a memorial ceremony.
There will be a special memorial service for passengers above the wreck site on April 14 starting at 11.40pm, when the ship hit the iceberg and another at 2.20am on April 15 when it sank.
Passengers will leave wreaths and family artifacts in memory of those who died.
From the wreck-site, the Balmoral will go on to Nova Scotia, where some of the bodies of those who died are buried, and then onto New York, the destination Titanic never reached.
The Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines-operated MS Balmoral has been chartered for the event by Miles Morgan Travel, which specialises in tailor-made holidays.
A line-up of 10 specialist lecturers - some of the world's leading experts on the sinking - will be on board including Philip Littlejohn, grandson of Titanic survivor Alexander James Littlejohn, and the only Titanic relative to have made the dive to the wreck site.
Mr Littlejohn said: 'I'm sure my grandfather, a 1st Class Steward on RMS Titanic, would be proud to know his story will be shared with the passengers on this historic cruise.
'It will be an emotional moment when we are over the wreck site, where I dived in 2001 and where my grandfather left Titanic rowing Lifeboat 13.'