Captain Greybeard

Captain Greybeard/

Eclipse crewman lost overboard

Rescue workers have called off the search for a crew member from the cruise ship Celebrity Eclipse who jumped overboard in the English Channel. The ship was about eight miles north of the French port of Cherbourg and heading for Southampton when the incident happened on Friday night. A 31-year-old Filipino man was seen on the ship's CCTV to have climbed over a railing on Deck 3. The ship, carrying about 3,000 passengers, turned around to search for him, and the French coastguard was alerted. No trace of the man was found after an overnight search. The cruise line said [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 23 May 2011|Cruise News|3 Comments

Watch Dame Shirley name Adonia

If Helen of Troy had a face that launched a thousand ships, surely Shirley Bassey has a voice that could do the same. Yesterday, with some help from Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville, she named just one - P&O's Adonia. Helen would have been proud of her. After the traditional bottle-breaking ceremony in the afternoon sun - using Balfour Brut Rose, an English pink sparkling wine and a zip-wire - and a dinner menu which included lobster, smoked salmon, fillet of beef and a chocolate dessert, Dame Shirley returned to the stage after dusk to introduce a spectacular firework display. [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 22 May 2011|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Disney’s newest nightclub at sea will be a London underground fantasy

The team of imagineers working alongside the welders and fabricators at the Meyer-Werft shipyard in Germany are proof that when Disney build a cruise ship, they do it differently. Yesterday they disclosed some of the differences that will set their next new ship apart from its supposedly identical twin sister. Disney Fantasy will be launched next March, and follows the introduction of Disney Dream this January. Both carry up to 4,000 passengers; each has a sleek pointed bow and elegant twin funnels. They both feature the AquaDuck, a shipboard water coaster. Inside, things are going to be tweaked and changed, [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 20 May 2011|Cruise Ships|0 Comments

Bankrupt cruise line rescued

Billionaire Philip Anschutz, who owns David Beckham's LA Galaxy football team, and whose AEG company rents London's O2 Arena for about £1.5 million a year, has bought a bankrupt cruise line. A subsidiary of his Anschutz Corp has agreed to pay $39 million (£25 million) for Windstar Cruises, which was placed in administration at the beginning of April. The line operates three motorised yachts with computer-controlled sails; the four-masted Wind Star and Wind Spirit each carry 148 passengers, while the five-masted Wind Surf (above) - the biggest sailing yacht in the world - accommodates 312. The ships sail in the [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 19 May 2011|Cruise News, Cruise Ships|0 Comments

New Kids on the Beach

Half Moon Cay is one of the most beautiful of all the private resorts used by cruise ships. The perfect crescent of beach, on a peaceful island in the Bahamas, is surrounded by a warm, clear sea. The sand is as soft as talcum powder; there are snorkels and pedaloes for hire for the energetic, and sunbeds aplenty for those who just want to lie in the sun. The sign above the beach bar proclaims "I Wish I Could Stay Here Forever" and one of the most popular attractions is horse riding through the waves. Even with a shipload of [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 19 May 2011|Cruise Entertainment|4 Comments

Will Opera be hitting the right note for cruise passengers this year?

It's all been about opera this week. No sooner was MSC Opera under tow after being hit by electrical failure than P&O Cruises announced that Russell "The Voice" Watson would be performing on a three-night mini cruise aboard adults-only ship Arcadia in December. The December 3 departure from Southampton went on sale today with fares starting at £299. One travel agent friend of mine was reporting by mid-morning that all inside and outside cabins had sold out. He's hoping for a similar result when another £299 3-night Arcadia break goes on sale tomorrow. This one, leaving on December 12, will [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 17 May 2011|Cruise Entertainment, Cruise News|2 Comments

Crippled cruise ship towed into port

A fault in an electrical panel has been identified as the cause of the power failure which crippled cruise ship MSC Opera and left the vessel, with almost 1,800 passengers on board, adrift in the Baltic Sea. The 60,000-ton ship, on its first cruise of the season from Southampton, was towed into the Swedish port of Nynamshamn today. A team of engineers in from the STX shipyard in St Nazaire, France, was airlifted to the ship on Sunday and worked throughout the night to restore partial power. By yesterday evening most toilets on board - which rely on vacuum power [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 16 May 2011|Cruise News|2 Comments

Adonia celebrations delayed

Is Shirley Bassey a bringer of bad weather? I only ask because the portents for the christening ceremony of cruise ship Adonia at the weekend - at which she will be the godmother - are not looking good. When she appeared at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival - one of the wettest and muddiest on record - the 74-year-old singer famously wore diamante-encrusted Wellington boots. Saturday's weather forecast for Southampton is not too bad; partly cloudy with a high of 65 degrees and a 10 per cent chance of rain. But bad weather has delayed the ship on its Atlantic crossing [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 16 May 2011|Cruise Gossip, Cruise News|0 Comments

Cruise ship adrift in the Baltic

A cruise ship with 1,800 passengers on board is being towed to safety after spending much of Sunday adrift without power in the Baltic Sea. MSC Opera suffered a major electrical failure un the early hours of Sunday morning. Rescue tug Svitzer Trym is now towing the 60,000-ton ship to the Swedish port of Nynashamn, near Stockholm. The ship should have spent the day in port at Copenhagen, Denmark, but instead was adrift off the coast of the island of Gotland. It is now expected to reach the Swedish mainland by about 11.00 am on Monday instead of sailing for [...]

By | 2011-05-15T23:18:49+00:00 15 May 2011|Cruise News|1 Comment

Sea Me, Feel Me, Hear Me . . . Roger Daltrey gives surprise show on QM2

There was a special treat yesterday for passengers crossing the Atlantic on board Cunard's Queen Mary 2 - The Who's Roger Daltrey gave an impromptu matinee performance in the ship's Royal Court Theatre. On board to take part in a song-writing seminar led by Chris Difford, he spent half an hour talking with Entertainments Director Paul O'Loughlin about his early life and how he began his career in music before taking a few questions from the audience. As Edward Morris reports on the country music website CMT.com, he strapped on a 1963 Gibson guitar - as played by the Everly [...]

By | 2017-06-15T16:00:06+00:00 14 May 2011|Cruise Entertainment|7 Comments