John Honeywell, Author at Captain Greybeard

New damage to blaze-hit cruise ship

Unlucky cruise ship Carnival Triumph will be taking a trip to the body shop for repairs to a 20-ft gash in its side. The ship, in dock after an engine room fire in February, broke free from its moorings yesterday during a freak storm. It drifted out of control in winds gusting to 70mph and more before colliding with a cargo vessel. None of the 600 crew and 200 contractors on board were injured. However, a quayside shack housing two security guards was blown into the water. One man was rescued, but the second is missing. Carnival Triumph is in [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 4 April 2013|Cruise News|0 Comments

How Carnival switches on Sunshine

Check out the early progress being made on the conversion of Carnival Destiny into Carnival Sunshine in this video. The work is being carried out at Fincantieri's shipyard in Trieste, in north-east Italy, and many of the 1,000 crew and 2,000 contractors involved are being accommodated on another cruise ship chartered for the occasion. It's the Louis Olympia, which sailed until last year as Thomson Destiny, and was Airtours' Sunbird before that. The ship was originally the Song of America, built for Royal Caribbean in 1982. Sunshine's £100 million dry-dock, already one of the most ambitious and expensive in cruise [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 1 April 2013|Cruise News|0 Comments

Pregnant pause for ship naming

CAPTAIN GREYBEARD'S COLUMN FROM THE DAILY MIRROR, MARCH 30 With cruise ship Royal Princess nearing completion in an Italian shipyard, speculation is mounting over the identity of the special person who will be chosen to name her on June 13. When an earlier ship was given the same name at a ceremony in Southampton in 1984 the godmother was Princess Diana There is little doubt that Princess Cruises are keeping their fingers crossed that advancing pregnancy will not rule out the Duchess of Cambridge before the big day. Printed invitations should have been sent out to VIP guests two weeks [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 30 March 2013|Cruise News|0 Comments

Sea trials for two cruise newcomers

As Royal Princess enters the second day of her sea trials in the Adriatic Sea, Norwegian Breakaway (above) has returned to Bremerhaven from her trials in the North Sea. Breakaway spent much of this week sailing off the coasts of Norway and Denmark, testing her manoeuvrability and speed. Under the control of a captain from builders Meyer-Werft, the ship carried out a crash-stop test to discover how quickly it could be brought from full speed ahead to a full stop. It was also put through a Williamson Turn - the manoeuvre used to bring it back to a fixed point [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 30 March 2013|Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Excuse me but I don’t like this cruise, the waiters are too kind and helpful

Would you complain if the service you received on a cruise ship was better than expected? One Yorkshire couple did, unhappy that the unexpected kindness led them to hand out more in tips than they had expected. That's just one of the bizarre complaints from cruise passengers received by online travel agency bonvoyage.co.uk over the past year. The company has compiled a Top 10 of the craziest - and none of them include ships breaking down, or having to miss ports of call because of bad weather. 1. A lady on a Mediterranean cruise - it must have been her [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 29 March 2013|Cruise Entertainment|3 Comments

Sickness closes island cruise port

The cruise terminal at Grand Turk, in the British Overseas Territory of Turks and Caicos Islandsm has been closed down following a series of complaints of stomach upsets from visiting passengers. Ships began cancelling calls to the Caribbean port two weeks ago after outbreaks of gastro enteritis. The complex, developed by Carnival Cruise Corporation, houses a number of retail shops and a large Margaritaville bar and restaurant (above) with an open air swimming pool and FlowRider surf simulator. The cruise centre's fresh water supply comes from a reverse osmosis desalination plant. A Carnival spokesman said the company was investigating a [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 28 March 2013|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

UK first for record-breaker Oasis of the Seas will be return visit to Solent

Oasis of the Seas' first arrival in Southampton, announced today, is a welcome fillip for the UK cruise industry and will bring millions of tourist pounds into the local economy. The average cruise ship visit is estimated to be worth £2.5 million and with up to 6,300 passengers on board Oasis is 40 per cent bigger than any cruise ship ever to berth in a British port. But is it really the world's biggest, as Royal Caribbean claimed today? When sister ship Allure of the Seas was launched in 2010, Captain Hernan Zini proudly claimed that exact measurements showed his [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 27 March 2013|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

A Regal wetting for new Princess

This was part of my day yesterday, the ceremonial float-out of Regal Princess at Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard in north-east Italy, with Cruise Critic editor-on-chief Carolyn Spencer Brown as madrina, or godmother. It is a mere seven months since the first blocks for the ship's construction were laid in the dry dock, and there's another year of work to be completed before the ship is ready to take on her first paying passengers. As a Champagne bottle smashed against one end of the hull, the sluices were opened to allow water to reach the other. It will be tomorrow (Thursday) before [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:35+00:00 27 March 2013|Cruise Ships|0 Comments

What is the secret of the seven horns below Royal Princess’s funnel?

It's been an amazing two days. Since leaving MSC Preziosa and Genoa behind I have been staying in Venice, at the city's finest hotel; I have witnessed the ceremonial float-out of Princess's newest cruise ship, and I have been taken on a tour of the ship to be launched in June. Phew! The Gritti Palace, which has played host to stars from Greta Garbo to Brangelina and recently re-opened after a £40 million refit, was amazing. Not just for the €11.50 (small) tin of Pringles from the mini-bar, but the sheer luxury of its new fittings and surroundings - not [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:36+00:00 26 March 2013|Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Vision from the desert survives as Preziosa’s reminder of Gaddafi

It was Hannibal Gaddafi's plan to establish Libya's own cruise line that led to the construction of the ship which yesterday became MSC Preziosa. Little remains of the designs which would have ended up as Phoenicia if his father's regime had not been overthrown in 2010. Certainly not the aquarium which was planned to hold 120 tons of seawater and six live sharks. When MSC paid €550 million to pick up the part-completed vessel - being built to the same hull design as their ships Fantasia, Splendida and Divina - they did so in time for builders STX Europe to [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:36+00:00 24 March 2013|Cruise Ships|0 Comments