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,

Strongman at Centre of the Earth

It's official. Captain Greybeard is strong enough to be an Icelandic fisherman, and he proved it by lifting a 54 kg stone on the beach at Djupalonssandur. OK, so there were two heavier stones which would have defeated me if I had tried to raise them, but at least I'm a half-carrier and not a weakling, which would have been my status had I managed only the lightest 23 kg stone. The beach is almost at the western tip of the Snaefellsnes peninsula, and its black lava shingle and sand is littered with the rusting remains of a Grimsby trawler, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:41+00:00 11 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Entertainment|0 Comments

A sell-out for Cunard in Reykjavik

The sun beat down on Reykjavik today as hundreds of passengers from Cunard's Queen Victoria set out on excursions to the Blue Lagoon, the Gulfoss waterfall, the Geysir Stokkir and Iceland's other spectacular attractions. Yet more went on a whale-watching expedition, which had been the first of the 10 tours to sell out. In fact the sun had been beating down as our watches showed midnight the night before, although as we were about to put the clocks back an hour it was really only 11.00 pm. We're not quite inside the Arctic Circle, so we don't quite get to [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-07-10T18:07:44+00:00 10 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Ships|2 Comments

Sailing north with Queen Victoria

Well the weather broke at just the right time, didn't it? Within the next few hours I will have finished packing and I'll be heading for Southampton to board Cunard's Queen Victoria for a cruise to Iceland and Norway. Check back here during the next two weeks for regular updates - on the ship and on the destinations. Or at least as regular as internet access will allow. I don't know about Iceland, but there are notorious satellite blackspots in the fjords. If you have any questions about cruising with Cunard, and sailing in Northern European waters, let me know [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-07-06T23:39:16+00:00 6 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Cruise sales set new world record

Recession? What recession? Bookings for the 2011 world cruises with P&O and Cunard opened this week with record numbers putting their deposits down. On Wednesday, 2,044 people booked voyages from the two programmes, an increase of almost 50 per cent on the business done on the same day last year for the 2010 world voyages. P&O has its biggest-ever world voyage programme on offer, with Arcadia, Artemis, Aurora setting off from Southampton in January, and Oriana offering a rare opportunity to go round the world in the autumn. Arcadia will be heading west to the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-07-04T14:09:15+00:00 4 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

30 cruise passengers hurt in bus crash

Thirty passengers from the cruise ship Freedom of the Seas were injured when their amphibious tour bus ran off the road on the US Virgin Island of St Thomas yesterday. Most of the injuries were minor, but one person was detained overnight at the Schneider Regional Medical Centre with a suspected broken ankle. The passengers were among 47 tourists on £40-a-head Pirate Duck Adventure visiting Charlotte Amalie by road with and a water-borne tour of the harbour, Hassel Island and Water Island. The vehicle is adapted from a second world war DUKW amphibious truck. Similar vehicles run tourist excursions at [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:41+00:00 2 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|1 Comment

Princess sails record-breaking cruise

Belfast might be the city which built the Titanic, but for years it has not had a berth suitable for today's giant modern cruise ships. That changed on Tuesday when the Crown Princess became the first vessel to tie up at the £10 million extension to Stormont Wharf at the head of Belfast Lough. She is the first of 40 cruise ships expected to bring more than 60,000 passengers to Northern Ireland this year. NI Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy unveiled a commemorative plaque on what is now the longest deep-water berth in Ireland, as 3,100 passengers flocked ashore, many [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:42+00:00 1 July 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News, Cruise Ships|4 Comments

Ready, Freddy, Go for 2010 cruises

To the plush Institute of Directors in Pall Mall this evening for chilled white wine, tasty canapés, and a chat with the friendly people from Fred Olsen, who are launching their 2010-11 cruise brochure. After a steady programme of expansion, buying new ships and stretching them, managing director Nigel Lingard was - for the first time in several years - not able to announce that Olsen will be growing again in 2010. In fact with the retirement of the venerable Black Prince before the end of this year, capacity will be down by 10 per cent. But the four remaining [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-06-25T23:50:49+00:00 25 June 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News, Cruise Ships|1 Comment

Double trouble for Falmouth

It's not a good time to be an ambitious cruise port called Falmouth. There are problems for two towns of that name on both sides of the Atlantic. Our very own Falmouth, in Cornwall, sits on one of Britain's finest natural harbours, but if it is to attract more business from visiting cruise ships, it needs a multi-million pound dredging scheme which has already been the subject of a £410,000 environmental impact assessment into work on channel deepening and the construction of a cruise terminal. But the South-West Regional Development Agency has announced that because it has been forced to [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-06-17T22:01:40+00:00 17 June 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

OV prepares for final season’s cruising

Casual cruise line Ocean Village may be about to disappear at the end of 2010, but it's not going to go quietly. Although one of the line's two ships will be transferred to new ownership in Australia later this year, the original Ocean Village will continue to provide "cruises for people who don't do cruises" for another year. A TV advertising campaign featuring the voice of Sarah Parish (right), star of BBC series Mistresses, launches next week to push the ship's winter season in the Caribbean, with fares starting at £599 a week for two-week cruises from Barbados. And next [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:43+00:00 28 May 2009|Cruise Deals, Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Swine flu scare quarantines ship

Cruise ship Pacific Dawn is at the centre of a swine flu scare Down Under, and has abandoned a call at the isolated Whitsunday Islands off the coast of Queensland to avoid the risk of introducing the disease. All 2,000 passengers and crew were quarantined at the end of the ship's last cruise, when the vessel returned to Sydney. At least 18 people, including a couple who married during the voyage, have tested positive for the H1N1 virus. The ship was allowed to sail with another 1,500 passengers, including 33 Britons, on a 10-day cruise to Australia's Barrier Reef, but [...]

By John Honeywell| 2009-05-27T22:30:10+00:00 27 May 2009|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments