| ON BOARD ST ANSELM & ST CHRISTOPHER 3: Boat Deck aft lounges & shops |
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| Above & below: Sealink Television! Aft of the self-service restaurant was an additional lounge area, the starboard wing section of which was designated as a Children's VIdeo Room. This initially showed extracts from Disney films but also offerred Continental motoring hints for drivers. |
| Above & below: The further major refit in 1987 saw the shopping centre modified once more, creating a more relaxing retail environment, as demonstrated in the gift shop (above) and Duty Free (below) sections. |
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| Above: The video lounge was only the starboard-side section of the aft lounge, and the remainder of this space is pictured here in a view looking across to port. The overall colour scheme of the centre section was blue and green. |
| Above: Fronting onto the aft lounge at its stern end was the Duty Free shop. Nearly a decade after the Hengist had first appeared on the Dover Strait with a duty free supermarket (admittedly deemed experimental at the time and later removed), conservative Sealink management put the St Anselm and St Christopher into service with just this counter-service facility. This was quickly found to be unsuitable and in early 1983 the superstructure at this point was extended aft, over the originally open area of the upper car deck, right to the stern. The car deck beneath remained partially open to the elements, permitting the carriage of hazardous cargos. The additional space so created largely consisted of significant extensions to the shopping facilities, but a further refit in early 1987 costing £1.5m saw the new rest of the new area given over wholly to a shops, at which time many of the new windows created in 1983 were filled in. |
| Above: A Sealink News picture of the officers and crew of the St Anselm, led by Captain George Sutcliffe, gathered at the stern passenger gangway which connected with the linkspans at Dover. This picture was taken after the extension to the superstructure described above and shows the 'Flagship Service' plaque which had been with the ship since she entered service and remained long after that marketing push had been discontinued. |
| Above & below: Two views of the ships' new self-service shopping facilities, complete with six check-out points, which were added during the extensive refit of early 1983. |
| Above: Following the transfer of the St Christopher (by then Stena Antrim) to the Stranraer-Larne service in 1991, the stern area received further attention. With this route not being an international crossing, no duty free was available and therefore much of the extended shopping areas provided by the 1980s refits were no longer needed. Consequently, the area was redivided, with a smaller shop emerging on the starboard side (see bottom picture) and (after the 1993 refit) a cinema and the 'Blue Lounge' emerged in what had, since the move north, been effectively unused void spaces. The latter is pictured above, looking across to starboard with a door leading onto the outside decks to the right. On the far side, the reinstatement of some of the previously plugged windows can be seen. |
| Above: On the port side of the former shopping centre on Stena Antrim a new cinema was created - again some of the side-facing windows were reinstated. Picture courtesy Gary Andrews |
| Above: The shop as it was in the later years on Stena Antrim - the changes after the ship moved to the Stranraer station mentioned above resulted in a rather more compact space than had been the case at duty-free rich Dover. On the Stena Cambria, a small portion of the shopping area on the port side was given over to a miniature Club Class Lounge when the ship operated for P&O Stena Line. Picture courtesy Gary Andrews |