John Honeywell, Author at Captain Greybeard

Engine problems force Saga Sapphire to abandon maiden cruise

Engine problems have forced cruise ship Saga Sapphire to abandon its maiden voyage. The vessel is in harbour at Valencia, Spain, awaiting repairs and passengers will be flown home to the UK on Monday. The new flagship of Saga Cruises' fleet should have been returning to Southampton next Wednesday (April 18) at the end of an inaugural cruise which was delayed by a week because its multi-million pound refit overran, but passengers due to join the next voyage have now been told they will be flown to Marseille on April 25. Plans for a gala welcome in Lisbon tomorrow (Sunday) [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:50+00:00 14 April 2012|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|19 Comments

Good things that came out of Titanic

Exactly 100 years ago today, Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, at 20 minutes to midnight on April 14, 1912. Within less than three hours the biggest liner of its day had sunk, with the loss of 1,503 passengers and crew. And yet fascination with the glamour associated with the ship's maiden - and only - voyage, and more particularly the 1997 film starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo diCaprio, has probably sold more cruises than any fancy advertising campaign. This week's Titanic memorial cruises aboard Balmoral which left Southampton and Azamara Journey from New York have been condemned [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:50+00:00 14 April 2012|Cruise Gossip|1 Comment

Fog on the Tyne greets Lirica

And speaking of MSC Lirica, which we were in my last item, about Abu Dhabi, the ship arrived on the Tyne today, with 1,700 passengers -97 per cent of them from Germany - setting out to spend the day exploring local attractions such as Alnwick Castle, Hadrian's Wall, Durham Cathedral, and the shops of Newcastle city centre. The port is looking forward to welcoming a record 37 cruise ships in 2012, Port of Tyne Chief Operating Officer Steven Harrison said: "The Tyne is a new destination for MSC and the Lirica, but other new cruise operators we will welcome this [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:50+00:00 12 April 2012|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

MSC Cruises pulls out of the Gulf

The Sex and the City girls may have had an exciting time when they visited Abu Dhabi for their second outing on film, but the experience is not proving as rewarding for cruise line MSC, who have announced they are withdrawing from the port - and the Arabian Gulf - after just one season. Definitely not a case of Carrie On Cruising, then. The company cited the limited facilities and range of destinations in the area when they disclosed that MSC Opera - the ship they planned to have in the Gulf next winter as a replacement for MSC Lirica [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:51+00:00 12 April 2012|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|1 Comment

Why Micky should thank protesters who disrupted Carnival meeting

When Micky Arison gets into his office at Carnival Corporation HQ in Miami today, the first thing he should do is sit down and write a big thank you letter. The chairman and CEO of the biggest cruise company in the world - which owns UK brands Cunard and P&O - may not have enjoyed being harangued by activists at the annual shareholders' meeting yesterday, but in a roundabout way they did him a huge favour. Protesters from a group calling itself 1Miami, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, bought shares so they could attend the meeting and [...]

By John Honeywell| 2012-04-12T06:40:24+00:00 12 April 2012|Cruise News|0 Comments

Romantica shows off her new look

The tranquility of Good Friday morning in Valletta was shattered by the arrival of cruise ship Costa Fortuna - whose name never ceases to amuse me - exchanging whistle blasts with sister ship Costa neoRomantica, which had berthed in the spectacular Grand Harbour a couple of hours earlier. Little Minerva sat peacefully between them, saying nothing. But it was interesting to see the substantial changes made to Romantica during its recent £75 million refit. Two half-deck extensions had been built at the forward end of the ship, originally launched in 1992, adding 111 new cabins and increasing passenger capacity from [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:51+00:00 11 April 2012|Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Titanic memorial back on course

One hundred years ago today, relatives stood on the quayside at Southampton to wave farewell to some of the city's 538 residents who were doomed never to return from the Titanic's maiden voyage. Today their descendants gathered at the same spot to place wreaths on the water and observe a minute's silence before marching through the streets alongside schoolchildren who were carrying pictures of the crew members. They finished up at the new SeaCity museum, where Olympic oarsman James Cracknell cut the ribbon to declare it officially open, assisted by William and Henry Ward, aged eight and six, whose great [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:51+00:00 10 April 2012|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Minerva works her magic on me

As the Roman goddess of medicine and magic, crafts and poetry, weaving and wisdom, Minerva is almost the perfect name for a cruise ship. Arguably it would be good to add travel to the list, but Mercury got there first. Minerva the cruise ship is now refreshed after a multi-million pound refit, and it was appropriately to Italy that I flew last week to spend a few days on board - embarking in Naples and sailing to Sorrento and Palermo before visiting the magnificent Roman amphitheatre at El Djem in Tunisia and then disembarking in Malta. But it's not the [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:51+00:00 10 April 2012|Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Thomson ships go Platinum

Thomson Cruises plans to spend millions of pounds on modernising two of its ships, putting them on a par with the four-star hotels in its Platinum Collection. Thomson Dream, built in 1986 and carrying 1,506 passengers, will be first to get the treatment. Cabins will be re-furnished and supplied with flat-screen televisions and tea and coffee-making facilities. Bars and restaurants will be up-graded and décor throughout the ship will be brighter and more contemporary. A suite of treatment rooms is to be added to the spa. Platinum-rated hotels must attain a 90 per cent "good" or "excellent" customer rating - [...]

By John Honeywell| 2012-04-06T10:04:42+00:00 6 April 2012|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Of all the films in all the world …

First port of call on Saga Ruby's mystery cruise last December was a north African city which has for decades been synonymous with glamour and romance - among people who have never been there. For the passengers who stepped ashore in an industrial container port shrouded in dust from the phosphates being loaded from silos into a cargo ship, and with its once-elegant boulevards a shadow of their former selves, Casablanca did not exactly live up to the image created by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In fact some, who had visited the Moroccan city on earlier travels, chose to [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T15:59:51+00:00 3 April 2012|Cruise Entertainment|0 Comments