Cruise Gossip

The Baked Alaska Parade is one of the much-derided rituals of holidays aboard cruise ships. Modernists may hate it, but traditionalists love the moment when waiters march through the restaurant carrying their desserts aloft, often with the lights dimmed and sparklers ablaze. I was secretly delighted during my Red Sea cruise on Thomson Celebration last week when the parade was a fitting conclusion to the Gala Dinner. Especially when, as one of the guests at the Captain's table, I was serenaded by a group of singing restaurant staff. Imagine my surprise today to discover that February 1 is Baked Alaska [...]

Royal Caribbean must have been delighted that their coup in getting Mail on Sunday travel editor Frank Barrett on board Oasis of the Seas a week before the rest of the British media resulted in three lavish pages in the paper's travel section. The cruise line has been cranking up the publicity machine for the biggest cruise ship in the world and has been rewarded with the headline "S.S. Stupendous." Barrett, not known as a huge fan of cruise holidays, appears to have finally woken up to the facts that many of us realised some time ago - that cruises [...]

Anyone who has read John Heald's Carnival blog will know he has a great sense of humour - and a British sense of humour at that - so I am pleased he has taken my gentle chiding in the spirit it was intended. I had a go at him earlier this week because he had fired a shot across the bows of Oasis of the Seas - which had been delayed by rough weather in the Atlantic - without accepting that two of his own company's ships had also had their itineraries messed about by a bit of wind. As [...]

I hate to say it, but cruise director and cruise blogger extraordinaire John Heald has shot himself in the foot with his latest daily report. As a loyal employee of Carnival Cruises, he never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at their biggest rivals, Royal Caribbean. Today he has a go at Oasis of the Seas, which was delayed by storms while crossing the Atlantic, and will be two days late arriving in Fort Lauderdale. "There are lots of ships making the transition from Europe to North America at the moment and all without incident despite some typical Atlantic [...]