Captain Greybeard

The public forums on CruiseCritic came in for some criticism recently when it was revealed that Royal Caribbean had been providing perks to some of its regular passengers to encourage them to provide positive comment about its ships. Other cruise lines cried "foul" because they and the users of CruiseCritic expect the views and reviews on the message boards to be impartial. As indeed did the people running CruiseCritic, which is owned by internet travel conglomerate TripAdvisor. But I have discovered a British cruise line making rather better use of the forums, which are frequently packed with people asking questions [...]

Interesting to see how the latest problems afflicting P&O’s Aurora are being dealt with as they spread across the Internet and in the Press. The Daily Echo, in Aurora’s home port of Southampton, reported on Saturday that angry passengers had staged a revolt after the ship had called at just two ports in 22 days, following the repairs which necessitated an extended stay in Auckland, New Zealand. There was confusion in the story as to the ship’s whereabouts – it was said to be in Honolulu, when by Saturday it had already left San Francisco, where many of the passengers [...]

More news of Regent's Seven Seas Voyager, which I reported earlier this week damaged a propulsion pod which got tangled in fishing nets after leaving Singapore during its 115-night world cruise. Attempts to repair the problem when the luxury vessel called at Cochin, in southern India, were unsuccessful. Planned calls at Mumbai and Abu Dhabi have now been cancelled, and the ship is limping at reduced speed direct to Dubai, where engineers hope to complete the work. Arrival in Dubai is expected to be on Monday or Tuesday, and the line is currently calculating what compensation will be offered to [...]