Your guide to news from cruise destinations around the world

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,

Hurricane Tomas scatters cruise ships

P&O's Ventura is among the cruise ships which have been diverted away from the Caribbean island of St Lucia following the devastation caused by Hurricane Tomas. No ships will call at the island before Sunday at least, and what will greet them when they return is still not clear. At least 14 peole are believed to have been killed when Tomas struck at the weekend, triggering landslides and bringing down bridges. The capital of Castries, where cruise ships dock, is believed to be cut off from the rest of the island. My picture (above) shows Ventura in the port, together [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:17+00:00 4 November 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Have a night out – on a ship

If the medieval merchant Marco Polo had stayed at home - whether that was in Venice or the Croatian port of Korcula which I visited on Sunday - he would never have opened trade routes between Europe and China and the world might be a different place today. The cruise ship that bears his name is, however, making a success of selling ship visits and going nowhere. A series of events on Marco Polo, planned for October 30 while it is docked at Tilbury, proved so popular that three more dates have been added for what is described as "sampler [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:18+00:00 27 October 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Secrets beneath the palace

Going underground is becoming a recurring theme of my Croatian voyage aboard Aegean Odyssey. On the day's organised walking tour of Split, passengers were shown around Diocletian's Palace, a remarkable walled city built as a retirement home by the Roman emperor, and since occupied by a series of squatters who all left their mark without doing enough damage to the original to prevent it deservedly becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site. Above ground it is spectacular enough, with a mausoleum built to contain the emperor's body and then later - and ironically in view of the number of Christians Diocletian [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:19+00:00 24 October 2010|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

Surprising treasures old and new

My guidebook to Croatia, from the excellent Bradt series, runs to 392 pages, of which five and a half are devoted to the city of Zadar. Of the church museum, part of the Benedictine convent attached to the 16th Century St Mary's Church, it says only that it "houses a wonderful collection of reliquaries, paintings and sculpture." That one brief line serves only to disguise the wealth of treasures that greeted the unsuspecting passengers on tour from Voyages to Antiquity's Aegean Odyssey this morning. For a start, I don't think any of us expected to be welcomed by one of [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:19+00:00 22 October 2010|Cruise Destinations|1 Comment

Underground in search of history

The skies over Venice turned from blue to black and then to vivid orange as a thunderstorm passed overhead at sunset. Spurred on by a sirocco wind and an almost full moon, high tide threatened to spill from the lagoon into Piazza San Marco, where raised duckboards were ready to provide a dry path for the visitors. So what did I choose to do? Go underground, of course, which also meant I was descending below sea level. As one of the passengers from Voyages to Antiquity's Aegean Odyssey afforded the rare privilege of visiting the basilica of St Mark after [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:19+00:00 21 October 2010|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

To Antiquity … and beyond!

Voyages to Antiquity, the new one-ship cruise line launched earlier this year by industry veteran (he must be starting to hate that description) Gerry Herrod, didn't get off to the most auspicious of starts. Work on updating the ship, Aegean Odyssey - which included reducing its capacity from 650 passengers to 378 - took longer than expected, and striking Greek dock workers conspired with the Icelandic ash cloud to hold up the re-launch. The first passenger reviews were less than enthusiastic; customer service was spotty, as were the aft decks, thanks to an imperfect funnel design. Recent reports have been [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-10-20T09:30:00+00:00 20 October 2010|Cruise Destinations|0 Comments

Yeah mon! Jamaica’s new terminal is still not ready to welcome cruise ships

Royal Caribbean have invested a small fortune in developing a new cruise terminal at the port of Falmouth, Jamaica, to be used by their giant ships Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas. They pumped in £75 million to add to the £90 million the port borrowed from HSBC to pay for the project, which should by now be employing 600 people to welcome more than half a million visitors every year. But construction delays meant that by the scheduled date of March this year the terminal was not completed , and itineraries for Oasis were hastily rearranged, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-10-19T18:17:22+00:00 19 October 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Majestic time without Her Majesty

I am still getting my breath back after the hectic events of the Queen Elizabeth naming ceremony, partly because of the ferocious air-conditioning in my cabin, but mostly because of the hectic schedule of events. Into a mere 12 hours was crammed a champagne reception, the ceremony itself, a quick tour of the ship, another champagne reception, a four course dinner, and then a thorough examination of the ship's bars and the Yacht Club disco - which I seem to recall took until 2.00 am. That left just five hours sleep before the alarm clock summoned me to a quick [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:19+00:00 14 October 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Cruise ships make the headlines

Gales blew my Scottish islands cruise off course last week, preventing planned visits to Iona and Staffa. Instead of risking stormy open waters off Mull, the plucky little Glen Tarsan of The Majestic Line sought shelter in the sea lochs of the west coast. Not that the change of plan helped me find any internet access, so there's lots of cruise news to catch up with this weekend. And all the time I'm sitting at home watching impatiently as our American cousins and some of the UK's top travel agents get first look at Cunard's new Queen Elizabeth. It will [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:20+00:00 10 October 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Entertainment, Cruise News|0 Comments

Majestic week of peace in Scotland

Captain Greybeard may be disappearing from the radar for a few days - I shall be cruising around the isle of Mull on board a converted trawler carrying just 11 passengers and a crew of four. Rather different from my recent trips on Diamond Princess and Balmoral, and a world away my forthcoming visits to Queen Elizabeth and Allure of the Seas. There's no internet access on the boat, and after days spent clambering in and out of the tender to go ashore, and walking on the beach at Calgary or in the wildlife sanctuaries of the Treshnish isles, I [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-10-01T14:45:04+00:00 1 October 2010|Cruise Destinations|1 Comment