John Honeywell, Author at Captain Greybeard

Azamara goes all-in-cruise-ive

Boutique line Azamara Club Cruises is to offer all-inclusive drinks, matching the packages available on upmarket competitors such as SeaDream and Crystal. The line will also introduce a complimentary shore excursion - or AzAmazing Evening - on each of its voyages. The new benefits will begin when the line's ships return to Europe next year - March in the case of Azamara Quest, and May for Azamara Journey. All Azamara's cruises feature late-night departures and overnight stays in port. It will be during these that the "destination events" will be laid on. Typical evenings will include outings to the ballet [...]

By John Honeywell| 2012-10-01T18:40:26+00:00 1 October 2012|Cruise Deals, Cruise News|0 Comments

Searchers find body of woman who went overboard from cruise ship

The body of a woman who went overboard from P&O cruise ship Aurora has been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. The woman was reported missing as the ship was sailing from La Coruna in northern Spain, heading for Barcelona. Under the command of Captain Ian Hutley, the vessel immediately turned around at about 6.00 am on Saturday morning and spent much of the day conducting a meticulous search of the choppy waters off the coast of Portugal, north-west of Lisbon. Cruise ship Thomson Spirit, which was en route to Cadiz, also joined in the search during the afternoon. Aurora's track [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 29 September 2012|Cruise News|3 Comments

Big money in cruise souvenirs

Cruise passengers - who we were told this week save a fortune on their holidays compared with those on land-based tours - spend more of their spare cash on souvenirs. More than three times as much, according to a study conducted by an independent online cruise travel agency. A poll conducted for www.bonvoyage.co.uk, examined the spending habits of 2,005 Britons aged 18 and over; 1,002 of them had been on a land holiday for their last trip abroad; and the remaining 1,003 last went on a cruise. Almost all of them - 89 per cent - had brought back souvenirs. [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 28 September 2012|Cruise News|0 Comments

Take the family on a cruise and save enough money to buy a car

While P&O's sponsorship of Downton Abbey places the brand in front of a TV audience of millions each week, I fear the tactic will do little to change the widely-held - but totally inaccurate - perception of cruising as an expensive holiday. In fact, cruise ship holidays provide some of the best value around, and it's taken Thomson to prove it with a comparison of three different multi-centre breaks. A family of four on a Mediterranean tour from Palma, Majorca to Corsica, Rome, Florence, Toulon and Barcelona would spend an estimated £11,269 on flights, hotels, meals, drinks and entertainment. The [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 28 September 2012|Cruise Deals, Cruise News|1 Comment

Gulf cruise hotspot out in the cold?

Royal Caribbean International has confirmed it is to abandon cruises from Dubai after the forthcoming winter season. Serenade of the Seas will cut short its planned sailings this winter from 17 cruises to 11, starting in late January after the ship has undergone a dry-dock revitalisation and upgrade. Serenade is taking over in the region from Brilliance of the Seas (above, at Dubai's Port Rashid), which has operated from Dubai for the last three winters, cruising to Fujairah, Muscat and Abu Dhabi. Royal Caribbean International issued a statement which says: "In past years, we have been proud to take delivery [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 24 September 2012|Cruise Destinations|3 Comments

Sparkle with Crystal at Monaco GP

When it comes to shore excursions, they don't come much classier or more extravagant than those offered by Crystal Cruises. They can arrange to send passengers flying at more than twice the speed of sound in a Russian MiG fighter jet, for example, or cage-diving among great white sharks off the coast of South Africa for the even more intrepid. During next year's Monaco Grand Prix, when Crystal Serenity will be in port for two days, guests won't just be able to watch the race, they can sign up to stroll the pit lane and even party through with the [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 24 September 2012|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

Why Dingle Gold should find a place behind the bar of a cruise ship

It's surprising what gems turn up on Twitter from time to time. I found @DingleSpirit among the new users this weekend, and immediately assumed it was a new identity for David Dingle CBE (left), the chief executive of cruise conglomerate Carnival UK. As boss of the company which runs Cunard and P&O in this country and P&O Australia, he has been on Twitter for a while, as @david_dingle, although he is not exactly an ardent user; he has so far managed to post only two messages - the first was back at the beginning of July when he provided a [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 23 September 2012|Cruise Entertainment|0 Comments

Disney’s cowboy hat is just Magic

Disney does things differently - as I discovered last week on a trip to sample some of the shore excursions planned for passengers sailing on Disney Magic in the Mediterranean next summer. More on that to come soon, but meanwhile, after a season of cruises out of New York, Magic arrived in the Texan port of Galveston for the first time yesterday. The ship was dressed up for the occasion - with the addition of a huge cowboy hat on one of its two funnels. At 19-feet high and 14-feet wide, it was big enough for a cowboy 43-feet tall. [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:42+00:00 23 September 2012|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Cruising’s favourite towel animals fail the test for Hotel Inspector Alex

It's National Cruise Week, but anyone who spent Thursday trying to book a ship-board holiday might have had a problem. The country's leading specialist travel agents were not in their offices and shops. They had travelled far from the sea to Birmingham and were being urged to "think differently" at the Columbus Day conference organised by the Association of Cruise Experts. Thinking differently included listening to several speakers repeating the mantra that, following on from record growth last year with the number of UK cruisers passing 1.7 million for the first time, 2012 has been tough. Double-dip recession and the [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:43+00:00 21 September 2012|Cruise News|6 Comments

Classic cruise ships ‘arrested’

The future of Classic International Cruises is in doubt following the "arrest" of three of its four ships for alleged non-payment of fuel bills and crew wages. Their oldest ship, the 64-year-old Athena, was seized in Marseille at the weekend, together with Princess Danae - which was held briefly last month in Dublin over a fuel bill for £60,000. A third ship, Arion, has been detained in Kotor, Montenegro, although CIC's Princess Daphne continues to operate under charter to a German cruise company. The 16,000-ton Athena was chartered to Belgian company AllWays and its passengers returned home by plane and [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:43+00:00 19 September 2012|Cruise News|1 Comment