Captain Greybeard

One of my favourite cruise ships, Fred Olsen's Black Watch, is about to be spruced up. The ship will go into dry-dock on December 2, when she returns from a trip to the Canary islands, and will be back at sea in time to sail on a five-day Christmas markets cruise leaving Southampton on December 14. Soft furnishings will be replaced in the Neptune Lounge theatre and adjoining Pipers Bar, the splendid Observatory bar, and in the main Glentanar restaurant. A number of cabins will have their bathrooms re-fitted. The biggest change will be the creation of a new casual [...]

UPDATE: For a detailed first-person report and pictures of the coming-together, take a look at John Heald's blog. You'll have to scroll through his opening remarks, his answers to dozens of questions, and an interview with fellow-CD Ryan Fitzgerald, but it's well worth the effort. Regular readers of the informative blog compiled by Prinsendam captain Albert Schoonderbeek will be well aware of the problems that winds, tides and currents can cause when a cruise ship is entering or leaving harbour. And those problems became apparent last night when Carnival Legend was leaving port in the Mexican resort of Cozumel. Caught [...]

It's still more than a year before Cunard's newest ship, Queen Elizabeth, is scheduled to make her maiden voyage, but the publicity machine is already being cranked into gear. Alastair Greener, entertainments director on board sister ship Queen Victoria, has visited the Fincantieri shipyard at Monfalcone, in north-east Italy and reported back with a selection of pictures and video clips on his We Are Cunard blog. Intrepid Alastair even climbed a 200-ft crane to get some good pictures. "Everywhere you looked you could see parts of our new ship. Each carefully numbered block will eventually become part of this massive [...]