Cruise Destinations

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Your guide to the latest news and updates from cruise destinations and ports of call around the world. Mediterranean, Europe, Caribbean, Alaska, South America, south-east Asia, Australasia, Arctic, Antarctica, Middle East. Southampton, Barcelona, Rome, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Barbados, Panama, Norway, Dubai, Bahamas, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Baltic, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Marseille, Athens, Greece, Venice, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Naples, Santorini, Mykonos, Le Havre, Amsterdam, Bruges, Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh, Kirkwall, Bergen, Svalbard, Iceland, Reykjavik, Costa Rica, Dominica, Puerto Rico, New York, Vancouver, Seattle, Skagway, Juneau, China, Shanghai, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand,

Best chance to see the Lights

The Northern Lights are putting on one of their most spectacular displays this year, thanks to an increase in solar activity. And according to the BBC's Professor Brian Cox, who presented Wonders of the Solar System, this is the best time of year to see them. But you don't need to tell cruise director Richard Sykes that - he saw the Aurora Borealis in all its glory yesterday, as this picture taken from the deck of Marco Polo near Alta, in northern Norway, vividly demonstrates. Oda Kvaal-Tanguay, of the Tromsø Tourist Office, explains: "This winter season is looking to be [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:09+00:00 16 March 2011|Cruise Deals, Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

Portsmouth scents cruise victory

Not long now before the new cruise terminal opens for business at Portsmouth, part of a £16.5 million investment intended to poach some lucrative business from near-neighbour - and deadly rival - Southampton. The first passengers to use the new building - across the harbour from Nelson's HMS Victory - will have come a long way to do so; the classic ship MV Athena arrives on April 14 after a 39-night voyage from Fremantle in Western Australia. I hope they're not too sweaty after their journey, or they might upset Lord Sterling, who last year voiced his concern that passengers [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:09+00:00 14 March 2011|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Cruise ships cancel Japan ports

With all ports in the country closed as a result of Friday's earthquake and the devastating tsunami, two cruise ships have been forced to cancel planned calls at Japanese ports. Cunard's Queen Mary 2, carrying almost 3,000 passengers on a round-the-world voyage, left Tokyo on Thursday and was due to be in Nagasaki today. It will instead head direct to Beijing in China where it will arrive on Monday. Separate arrangements will have to be made for a small group of passengers who were on an overland shore excursion to Osaka when the earthquake struck, and who were expecting to [...]

By | 2011-03-12T16:45:45+00:00 12 March 2011|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|9 Comments

Cruise ships on tsunami alert

Cruise ships in the Pacific are on tsunami alert after the devastation caused in Japan by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake earlier today, and the Japanese coastguard are reported to be searching for a vessel carrying 80 people which was washed away by the massive wave. Cunard's Queen Mary 2 left Tokyo yesterday (March 10) and is scheduled to berth in Nagasaki tomorrow, so is heading away from the worst-affected areas. A small group of passengers is ashore on an overland excursion to Osaka and a company spokesperson says they are all safe and accounted for. The official @cunardline Twitter feed posted [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:09+00:00 11 March 2011|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|18 Comments

Cruises diverted from troubled ports

Continuing unrest in the Arab world is still causing havoc with cruise ship schedules. Costa Crociere has announced that all visits to Egypt, Tunisia and Israel have been scrapped for the remainder of 2011. The company, which is the biggest cruise operator in Europe, had already said Bahrain would be left out of its Persian Gulf itineraries for the remainder of the season. Costa Deliziosa and Costa Luminosa, based in Dubai until the beginning of next month, will instead spend an extra day in port at Muscat, Oman. The move has been welcomed by Robert McLean, principal of the National [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:09+00:00 10 March 2011|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|3 Comments

Prepare for the biggest party afloat

All seven of P&O's cruise ships will be gathered together in Southampton next year to mark the 175th anniversary of the company's creation. Quite how the UK's busiest cruise port will be able to cope with so many ships and passengers on one day is not clear - January this year saw the first time in decades that six liners were turned round in one day. It will be a bonanza for Southampton's hotels, shops and taxi drivers. There will be something like 14,500 passengers leaving the ships in the morning and a further 14,500 boarding in the afternoon. There's [...]

Infernal nightmare in store among the eager cruise shoppers of Aruba

Dante's Inferno contained Nine Circles of Hell. If he were writing today - and managed to travel from his native Italy to the Caribbean - he might have added a tenth. Saga Pearl II is berthed in Oranjestad on Aruba, which although rather arid, has some beautiful beaches - presumably what originally drew visitors to the island. We are squeezed between Celebrity Milennium and Grand Princess, with Caribbean Princess further along the quay. Between them, the other cruise ships carry about 8,500 passengers and 3,300 crew - all of whom, it seemed, were trying to squeeze through the one gate [...]

By | 2011-03-04T18:41:35+00:00 4 March 2011|Cruise Destinations|4 Comments

What the lovely people of Cuba are crying out for amid the dust of failure

Whether it's thanks to Fidel Castro's stubborn refusal to change tack, a result of the long-standing embargo imposed by near-neighbour the United States, or because of the sudden withdrawal of financial aid when the Soviet Union collapsed, there is no way that Cuba's communist regime can be judged a success. I'm no economics expert, but it doesn't take much to realise this is a dirt-poor country in which everything appears to be falling apart - from roads, to homes, to the entire social infrastructure. In Havana I saw a crowd of people jostling to get into a building and wondered [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:10+00:00 2 March 2011|Cruise Destinations|1 Comment

No chance to go Caracas

Saga Pearl II's schedule for this 13-night cruise, officially dubbed Caribbean Coastal Explorer, originally included a day at the port of La Guaira on the northern coast of Venezuela. Many passengers had booked places on the all-day excursion to Caracas, the lively modern capital city 15 miles away. But plans have now been changed and the ship is to spend a day at Oranjestadt in Aruba instead. Captain Alistair McLundie came on the Tannoy at 9.00 a.m. this morning to relay the message that the company's insurers had advised against visiting Venezuela. The reasons were unclear; the Captain cited recent [...]

By | 2011-02-27T23:50:00+00:00 27 February 2011|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

Long and winding road that separates modern Cuba from its former riches

Mention Trinidad today and people might call to mind an island which has produced some of the Caribbean's best cricketers. But there are other Trinidads, not least the imposing Cuban town I visited yesterday. A national monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to its palatial mansions, Trinidad was built on sugar and slavery. In the late 18th Century 12,000 slaves toiled in the cane fields and the 56 sugar mills of the nearby Valle de San Luis, making a fortune for their masters who built homes in the town. While they were prepared to impose the cruellest of [...]

By | 2011-02-27T23:26:06+00:00 27 February 2011|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments