John Honeywell, Author at Captain Greybeard

CMV charters cruise ship Azores to replace retiring Love Boat Discovery

Cruise & Maritime Voyages have found a replacement ship to take over from Discovery next year. The company, which also operates Marco Polo and Astor, is to charter Azores from Portuguese operator Portuscale. The ship's first cruise in its new colours will leave Bristol's Avonmouth docks on January 26 - a 30-night voyage to the Caribbean. During the course of 2015 the ship will also be sailing from London's Tilbury docks and Hull. The details of itineraries to destinations including the Northern Lights, Mediterranean and a Scottish-themed Edinburgh Festival cruise, will be announced next week. Azores, which first entered service [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 27 June 2014|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

The best holiday I’ve ever had

Outnumbered star Daniel Roche talks about "the best holiday I've ever had" - a P&O fly-cruise to the Mediterranean on board Ventura - with his real family rather than the TV family Brockman.

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 17 June 2014|Cruise Ships|1 Comment

AzAmazing Evening marks Henry’s heroism and the D-Day sacrifices

The sands of Normandy saw some distinguished action on Friday, the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The Queen joined Presidents Obama, Hollande and Putin at Omaha Beach where the liberation of Europe began with the landing of Allied troops on June 6 1944. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were among those attending a remembrance ceremony at Juno Beach to mark Canada's involvement. There's an armada of cruise ships in the area, carrying a few surviving veterans along with hundreds of passengers wanting to pay their own tributes. I am travelling on Azamara Journey, which spent the day [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-06-08T09:51:01+00:00 8 June 2014|Cruise News|0 Comments

Billionaire’s daughter charters cruise ship for island birthday party

In case anyone's curiosity was roused by my earlier cryptic message about a billionaire's daughter's birthday party, let me provide some more details. The young lady in question is Ekaterina Rybolovleva; her father, Dmitry, is the 79th richest man in the world according to Forbes - or at least he was until a court ordered him to pay out $4.5 billion in a divorce settlement last month. To celebrate her 25th birthday, Ekaterina threw a party on the Greek island of Skorpios, which she bought from the estate of Jackie Onassis for a reported £200 million. Despite that price tag, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-06-05T18:51:28+00:00 5 June 2014|Cruise Gossip, Cruise News|0 Comments

Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas is being launched in sections

It's a complicated business building giant cruise ships, especially when you've got two twin sisters under construction at the same time. The Meyer-Werft yard in Papenburg, Germany, is assembling Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas for Royal Caribbean. Work takes place under cover in a vast construction shed, but even that is not big enough to contain both vessels. So one mega-block of Anthem has been floated outside into a basin connected to the River Ems. The 120-metre long section will remain there until Quantum - which can be seen inside the building - emerges into the [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 5 June 2014|Cruise News|0 Comments

Grand Fromage joins the good ship Brie-tannia, heading for Port Salut

P&O Cruises have added a big cheese to their brigade of Food Heroes on board Britannia. He is Charlie Turnbull, who runs a delicatessen in Shaftesbury, Dorset, and is described as an "international cheese judge and expert." He will be advising P&O on the range of cheeses to be stocked in Britannia's Market Café at the heart of the ship's atrium, and in the fine-dining Epicurean restaurant. Turnbull is also planning to travel several times a year to present cheese tastings and to host cheese-related shore excursions. He will be joining James Martin, Marco Pierre White, Atul Kochhar, "Cake Boy" [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-06-04T16:21:11+00:00 4 June 2014|Cruise Food & Drink, Cruise News|0 Comments

Why has the growth in UK cruise passengers slowed to a crawl?

Confirming a slowdown in the spectacular growth in popularity of cruise holidays, industry body CLIA has pushed back the date when it believes UK passengers will top two million for the first time. Latest estimates calculate the market at 1.72 million, with many of those taking several cruises a year. The new target is 2020, but there was confusion at a press briefing ahead of the association's annual Selling Cruise seminar for travel agents, with one executive announcing 2018 before consensus was reached. Previous estimates anticipated the figure being reached much earlier. The latest forecast expects the total to increase [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-06-03T14:11:48+00:00 3 June 2014|Cruise News|0 Comments

Saga cruises branch out

Saga, the travel company specialising in holidays for the over-50s, has not had the best of luck with its cruise operation. The fleet shrunk from three to two last year with the closure of associated brand Spirit of Adventure and the retirement of Saga Ruby. The company pulled out of world voyages a couple of years ago and now operates mostly ex-UK cruises from Southampton and Dover. The two remaining ships, Saga Pearl II and in particular Saga Sapphire, have been less than reliable in recent months. Sapphire was temporarily left without power off the coast of Mull after a [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-05-29T13:01:37+00:00 29 May 2014|Cruise Deals, Cruise News|0 Comments

Queen Mary 2 says ‘Thank you, NYC’

The officers and crew of Queen Mary 2 continued the flagship's 10th Anniversary celebrations in New York, by thanking her US homeport for a decade of outstanding partnership. The ship has visited the city many times over the decade, as this brief clip will show, along with a few highlights of the day's events.

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:27+00:00 23 May 2014|Cruise Ships|0 Comments

After travelling hopefully across the Atlantic, QM2 delivers us to New York

Robert Louis Stevenson got it right. "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive," he wrote in El Dorado. He also said "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." I should have been thinking of those two statements when the alarm woke me at 4.15 am on Friday morning. It had been set so there was time to drag myself from bed in time for a landmark moment in Queen Mary 2's Transatlantic crossing. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge spans the entrance to the harbour, crossing [...]

By John Honeywell| 2014-05-19T08:59:25+00:00 19 May 2014|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Ships|0 Comments