All the latest cruise news from the man in the know

World Cup screenings at sea

There will be two groups of passengers on cruise ships this summer - those desperate to keep up with the latest exploits of Rooney, Ronaldo, Messi and Drogba in the World Cup, and those who have taken to the sea in the hope of avoiding wall-to-wall TV coverage from South Africa. As the opening date of June 11 grows closer, and more cruise lines announce that they have paid for rights to screen matches, it's beginning to look like the fans will have the upper hand. England supporters sailing with P&O, Cunard and Ocean Village will be able to watch [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-04-09T00:50:19+00:00 9 April 2010|Cruise Entertainment, Cruise News|0 Comments

Azura makes her grand arrival

Grey skies and a chill wind greeted P&O's Azura on her arrival in the UK today, but there was a warm welcome from cruise ship enthusiast lined up at vantage points on Southampton Water. The 116,000-ton ship will be named by ballerina Darcey Bussell on Saturday, and sets out on her maiden voyage on Monday. Before then she will host thousands of visitors - among them regular P&O passengers, travel agents, and 1,200 specially-invited guests for the naming ceremony. Carnival UK chief executive David Dingle clambered aboard the vessel off the Isle of Wight at 6.00 am this morning, and [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:29+00:00 7 April 2010|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|4 Comments

Name change for P&O Cruises

They call themselves Britain's favourite cruise line, and from today P&O Cruises has a new name, to avoid confusion with Britain's most popular ferry company, P&O Ferries. Welcome to Panda Cruises - involving the change of just one vowel in the name, but necessitating a multi-million pound makeover for the seven-ship fleet. The all-white vessels are to be repainted black and white, like their cuddly namesakes. The 116,000-ton Azura, which has just been delivered by the shipyard in Italy, will be the first to display the new livery when she arrives in Southampton next week. The handover of the vessel [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 1 April 2010|Cruise News|8 Comments

Lively Cruise Show 2010 gets it right and pulls in the crowds

What a difference a year makes! The crowds have been flooding in to London's Olympia today for The CRUISE Show, and they found plenty to entertain them - in contrast to last year's event at the ExCel Centre. There was free wine and Champagne aplenty as the big cruise lines sought to attract customers. Those looking for a relaxing massage could take it easy in MSC's mini Aurea spa, while visitors looking for action tackled Royal Caribbean's climbing wall or practised their golf swing in Fred Olsen's simulator. SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer drew younger passengers to the Norwegian [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 27 March 2010|Cruise News|6 Comments

Miami plans to out-gun rival port

Surely it's just a coincidence that within days of Fort Lauderdale's Port Everglades announcing a record day for cruise passengers, rival port Miami, a few miles down the coast, is revealing plans for a new "mega-terminal." Isn't it? Miami is where the cruise boom started, back in the 1970s, and it still lays claim to the title "cruise capital of the world", with more than four million passengers a year. Although it will be the home port for NCL's Norwegian Epic, launching this summer, it lost out to Port Everglades for the two biggest cruise ships in the world, Royal [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 25 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

RNLI thanks Fred Olsen Cruises

Congratulations to Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines - and its generous passengers. After 40 years of fund-raising, the company is to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution Cash is collected on board Olsen's cruise ships through raffles, quizzes, church services, foreign coin collections and auctions. Fred. Olsen has also supported the charity by donating numerous cruise prizes, which in turn has helped generate funds through the Lifeboat lottery and other competitions. The money donated by Fred. Olsen passengers has funded three inshore lifeboats, three mobile training units, kitted out three seminar rooms at The Lifeboat College, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-03-23T13:41:53+00:00 23 March 2010|Cruise News|0 Comments

Adonia will be P&O’s pathfinder

Cruise ships come in all shapes and sizes, from mega-liners to super-yachts; boutique vessels to expedition ships - just never call them boats, all right? Now P&O have invented a new classification for Adonia, which joins their fleet next year. Carrying just 710 passengers, this will be the fleet's "pathfinder ship," managing director Carol Marlow announced yesterday. In less than three weeks, Marlow will be watching proudly as Darcey Bussell smashes the Champagne to launch super-liner Azura, but there's just time before that to announce Adonia's 2011 programme of cruises. "Adonia is an exciting introduction to our fleet and one [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 23 March 2010|Cruise News|2 Comments

Record day for Port Everglades

Ruby Princess (left) and Independence of the Seas leaving Port Everglades The news that Port Everglades - the cruise ship port in Fort Lauderdale, Florida - had a record day yesterday in terms of passenger numbers is both a confirmation of the increasing popularity of cruising, and a footnote to my reports of potential overcrowding at sea. A total of 52,000 passengers passed through the port yesterday; half of them on their way home at the end of a cruise, the other half setting out on their holidays. The previous record day for business was on January 3 last year, [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 21 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|1 Comment

Alaska deal in the pipeline

Anyone planning a cruise in Alaskan waters, as I am later this summer, will be pleased to see that the state's governor, Sean Parnell, was doing more than soaking up the spring sunshine during his trip to Florida this week. He was there, of course, for the Cruise Miami convention, and sat in the front row of the audience as Holland America CEO Stein Kruse - one of the biggest operators in the region - warned that the exodus of cruise ships from Alaska would continue in reaction to punitive taxes. Now the Anchorage Daily News is reporting that Parnell [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-03-20T16:07:57+00:00 20 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Top cruise deals of the week

It's official - cruise holidays are becoming more and more popular, and 2009 saw continued growth in the number of passengers, despite the belt-tightening recession. Figures released this week show that 1.53 million Brits took a cruise last year - up four per cent from 2008 - and a record 1.75 million are now predicted to holiday at sea in 2011. Almost 600,000 Brits started their cruise from a UK port, while 939,000 flew off to join their ships in destinations such as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Bill Gibbons, director of the Passenger Shipping Association, told a conference in [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 20 March 2010|Cruise Deals, Cruise News|0 Comments