New skippers steam into summer with Windermere Lake Cruises

We're steaming into summer – with three new boat masters joining our crew after trainee skippers sailed through Maritime and Coastguard Agency tests with flying colours.

📷: PICTURED - Captain Nowshad Jobair, Examiner at Maritime and Coastguard Agency with newly qualified boat masters Charlotte Thornborrow, Doug Henderson and Anca Nistor (right of frame)

The new boat masters take up their roles as the most popular paid for attraction in the Lake District launches its new timetable for this year’s busy main season.

Charlotte Thornborrow, Doug Henderson and Anca Nistor will take charge of vessels and carry passengers on spectacular cruises around England’s longest lake after successfully completing intensive training.

The newly qualified boat masters say they are looking forward to showing passengers the beauty of Windermere and say it’s the best office in the country!

VIDEO: Skipper training

ITV News joined us in February 2022 to find out more about our new skipper training. Watch the full report below.

*Thanks to ITV News / ITV Border for the footage

Windermere Lake Cruises moves to its summer timetable on Saturday, April 2nd with local residents still qualifying for a 50 per cent discount on all sailings until May 1st.

The new timetable includes

• Historic “steamers” including flagship MV Tern back in regular service
• The return of the popular Walker’s Ticket
• Red Cruise joint tickets available for Windermere Jetty Museum entry
• The Green Cruise to Wray Castle is back
• Local residents 50% discount for whole of April

The summer timetable covers sailings between April 2nd to October 31, 2022.

The fleet of historic “steamers”, modern launches and the newest addition to the fleet MV Swift will operate on four different cruise routes every day including Sundays.

They are:

• Bowness and Ambleside (Red Cruise) taking in Brockhole and Windermere Jetty Museum.
• Bowness and Lakeside (Yellow Cruise)
• The Islands Cruise (Blue Cruise)
• The Green Cruise which links Ambleside and Brockhole with Wray Castle.
• The popular Walker’s Ticket also returns where visitors can disembark a boat on the traffic-free Western shore of Windermere and continue their journey between Wray Castle and Ferry House on foot, before catching another boat back to Bowness or Ambleside.

Customers who are keen walkers continue to help Windermere Lake Cruises raise funds for charity. Each year Windermere Lake Cruises donates 10% from the sale of its walk books to The Lake District Foundation. The latest donation totals £1,064.26.

The Walker’s Ticket – and all other scheduled cruise tickets – are still half price to people living in Cumbria and north Lancashire until the end of April thanks to the Local Residents’ Discount Card. They still qualify for a 20% discount from May to the end of October.

You can download a copy of Windermere Lake Cruises’ summer timetable HERE.