All the latest cruise news from the man in the know

Slower crossings ahead

Gene Sloan's report on his USA Today Cruise Log about Cunard extending the length of its transatlantic crossings to seven days has been exciting lots of comment. Micky Arison, boss of Carnival Corporation which has owned Cunard since 1998, recently confirmed the longer crossings were being introduced in order to save fuel. Queen Mary 2 is the only ship sailing regularly scheduled services between Southampton and New York, and in 2011 only one of those voyages will be of six days. When I travelled to New York on QM2 in 2006 the crossing took six days. In the 1930s, the [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 19 March 2010|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|4 Comments

Room to manouevre as more cruise ships arrive in the Med?

My item yesterday about fears of cruise ships overcrowding the Mediterranean struck a few chords around the world. First to get in touch was a spokesperson for cruise.co.uk reminding me that the more ships there are sailing in Europe, the more chances there are for British passengers to grab a bargain. Which is true - provided the experience is not diminished by having to fight your way through the crowds to get to the sights or the shops. Another contact alerted me to the fact that there were five ships visiting Roseau, capital of the charming Caribbean island of Dominica [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 19 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|1 Comment

It’s getting mighty crowded

This week's release of deployment details for the 11 Royal Caribbean cruise ships which will be sailing in European waters next year was just the latest in a flotilla of similar announcements. Carnival, Celebrity, Disney, Holland America, NCL, Princess . . . they'll all be flocking here next year to join our own P&O, Cunard, Fred Olsen and Thomson. Not to mention Italian giants Costa and MSC. More ships are being built, and the cruise lines are pulling out of Alaska because of excessive taxes and stringent regulations, so the vessels have to go somewhere, and they won't all squeeze [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:30+00:00 18 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Cruises squeezed in Miami vice

Confirmation that cruises have never been better value comes with the admission from Carnival's president, Gerry Cahill, that his line - and others - cut from 10 to 20 per cent off their fares last year in order to keep bookings coming in. Fares are starting to creep back up, as consumer confidence increases, but cruise bosses meeting at Cruise Shipping Miami this week still think it will take a while for prices to recover to their levels before the start of the recession. "Consumers are starting to open their wallets again," said Dan Hanrahan, president and CEO of Celebrity [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:31+00:00 16 March 2010|Cruise News|0 Comments

Cruising from Alaska to Zadar

There's more to the new 2011 cruise programmes from P&O and Cunard than fly-cruises to the Mediterranean and seven-day Transatlantic crossings. Here are some more highlights from their new brochures: Azura • Cruising to the Central and Western Mediterranean, Baltic, Norwegian Fjords, Iceland, Western Europe and Caribbean • Sailing 17 ex-UK cruises from April 2011 to October 2011 and 11 Caribbean fly cruises from October 2011 to March 2012 • Cruises range from a four night cruise break to Azura's inaugural 15 night Icelandic cruise • Overnight calls in Venice and St. Petersburg • Prices starting from £599 for a [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:31+00:00 15 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Fly-cruises in the Mediterranean on the menu for P&O and Cunard

The two pillars of cruising from the UK - P&O and Cunard - both introduce fly-cruises to the Mediterranean in their programmes for 2011-2012, announced today. Adults-only Adonia - a replacement for Artemis - will be based in the Mediterranean from October next year, offering six fly-cruises departing from Savona, Athens, Trieste and Naples. Cunard's Queen Victoria will operate eight Mediterranean fly-cruises visiting up to nine different ports over 12 nights, from Venice, Rome and Athens. Thanks to her smaller size, Adonia will be able to visit some smaller ports of call not available to larger ships in the company's [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-03-15T07:34:26+00:00 15 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Crikey! QM2 heads Down Under

Crikey, cobber! If you see any Cunard bosses walking around with corks dangling from their hats, and singing Waltzing Matilda, then don't be at all surprised - they have come over all Australian this week. A grand dinner in Melbourne for passengers on Queen Victoria's world voyage was followed by an announcement that the line's flagship Queen Mary 2 will spend an unprecedented 28 days in Australian waters in 2012, circumnavigating the continent in the process. The voyage will be the longest period Queen Mary 2 has been based in any country outside her northern hemisphere home ports of Southampton [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:32+00:00 11 March 2010|Cruise Destinations, Cruise News|0 Comments

Married to an ocean liner

There's a bizarre story in Closer magazine about a 28-year-old woman who was so fed up with men that she married an ocean liner. It's under the category of "real life" although it seems anything but. Tasha Forrester had just split from her boyfriend two years ago when she took a tour of the former Cunard liner Queen Mary, which is now a floating hotel in Long Beach, California. Ignoring the fact that ships are traditionally referred to as "she", shop assistant Tasha said: "On the ship I began to feel better. It felt as if it was a big [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-03-07T17:56:15+00:00 7 March 2010|Cruise Gossip, Cruise News|7 Comments

Quotes that float . . .

Some more snippets and quotable quotes from Carnival UK's The Cruise Report, issued this week. "By adding £100 or £150 per person on board credit, cruises became effectively all-inclusive for some passengers. This kind of certainty about their overall holiday bill was clearly exactly what they wanted." Nigel Esdale, Commercial Director, Carnival UK "We did see a trend [in 2009] towards taking shorter cruises, with 16-night Mediterranean cruises something of a harder sell. The transatlantic voyages are mainly bought as seven-night holidays so they did well." Peter Shanks, President and Managing Director, Cunard Line "We are lowering our energy consumption [...]

By John Honeywell| 2017-06-15T16:00:32+00:00 3 March 2010|Cruise News|0 Comments

Two die as waves hit cruise ship

It's pretty hot and steamy here in Buenos Aires, in every sense of the words. The streets are humid after a thunderstorm last night, and I've just seen police investigating a stick-up at an electronics store a block away from my hotel - there was a pistol and the five bullets unloaded from its chamber lying on the pavement as I walked past. Might be a bit of a shock for the passengers being bussed around on city tours from the cruise ships MSC Opera and Costa Magica which are in port today. But they can console themselves that it's [...]

By John Honeywell| 2010-03-03T19:20:14+00:00 3 March 2010|Cruise News|0 Comments