Cruise Lines

Costa Cruises is going for an industry first by floating out two ships on one day. On June 27, as the 2,828-passenger Costa Luminosa hits water for the first time at Fincantieri's Marghera yard in Venice, the 3,780-passenger Costa Pacifica will be doing the same in Fincantiari's Genoa yard.

Once they are in the water, work will start on kitting out the ship's interiors - the first to be themed a ship of light, the other a ship of music.

The two vessels, which will give Costa 13 ships, will then share a naming ceremony in Genoa at the end of April 2009. As tey say, two' company...

Now you can come back from your cruise not only feeling good, but looking good too.

Norwegian Cruise Line has become the first cruiseline to offer Botox at sea. Passengers keen to become human pin-cushions in their quest to banish wrinkles and lines will find the treatment on Norwegian Dawn, Norwegian Spirit and Norwegian Gem.

It will be rolled out fleetwide this autumn.

If you've ever wondered what all this luxury cruising lark is all about, this is it, Yachts of Seabourn style.

Not only was there a free excursion for everyone on the ship during my voyage - it's called an Exclusively Seabourn event and there's one per cruise (ours was into the Sicilian countryside, to taste olive oil and wine) - but a welcoming committee of crew for when you get back.

True, this costs a lot on paper, but it can work out cheaper than lesser-starred cruiselines when you take into account the fact that all drinks and gratuities are included ... and that includes in the spa, where you pay the cost of the treatment and that's it.

Even more impressive, after a lovely massage this morning, I didn't have to fend off the usual hard sell for anti-ageing, anti-stress or anti-anything-else products that I neither need not want.

It's not all rosy in the Seabourn garden though. I've got a lovely big shower but the actual shower head is so far in one corner I can't actually get under it, and my so-called French balcony is big enough to stand on...Just. And hit bad weather in one of these tiny 8,000-ton yachts, as we did last night, and you know all about it - at least I and many of the other passengers did.

But all these negatives are why Seabourn is building bigger ships. Will it ruin the Seabourn style, where I exit my cabin to be greeted by name by my stewardess, not just as ma'am.

Let's hope not, or we'll all just have to keep taking the pills - literally!

As the website Cruise Critic so rightly says, once one starts, they all start. Yes, it's fuel supplement hike time again.

For bookings made from June 20, Norwegian Cruise Line's daily charge rises to $11 per person, with no maximum, while Carnival UK, which encompasses P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Ocean Village and Cunard, has put its fuel supplement up to £4.50 per person per day, with a maximum £63 for cruises up to 14 nights.

Fred Olsen's supplement, meanwhile, hits £5 per person per day to a maximum £70 from June 10.

As I wrote recently in a news story for the Telegraph, cruisers now not only have to fork out for gratuities, but also have to pay at least the same amount again for the fuel supplement. We are talking of at least £140 per person extra for each cruise, on top of the cruise price.

How much longer can it go on?

Airline cutbacks in response to the soaring price of fuel is causing major headaches for US cruisers, a USA Today Cruise Log Blog reports.

The soaring price of oil has forced airlines to make some drastic moves in recent weeks, including cutting back service, raising fares and adding new baggage fees. And that's causing major headaches for cruisers who rely on airplanes to get to ships.

Be interesting to hear if agents over here are finding similar problems. Another good reason to cruise from the UK, I think.

How sad to see that Carnival is pulling Carnival Freedom from the Med next year. All the talk is about the growth of cruising in Europe - and the line is about to launch ex-UK cruises for the first time - yet here's a first sign that the downturn in the economy is taking its toll.

Carnival fills its Med cruises with a majority Americans, but with the strong euro and swingeing airline fuel supplements (and the amount the cruiseline are now charging is not drop in the ocean) there are fears these guys won't be venturing across the Pond next year.

So Freedom will be staying in the Caribbean, which we know from the 9/11 terrorist attacks is the cruiselines' bolt hole when things get tough. Anyone already booked on the 2009 Med cruises can cancel or rebook without penalty before July 10.

The good news is that Carnival Splendor, which is selling well in the British market, is still scheduled to be back for a second season of ex-UK cruises from Dover to the Baltic next year.

Shows when the going gets tough, you can always rely on the Brits.

Oceania Cruises is the latest to increase its fuel surcharge, which is going up to $15 per person per day from June 16. As there's no maximum, this is going to hit those on longer voyages particularly hard.

Does anyone care? Apparently not. Sales and marketing director UK and Europe Bernard Carter says winter 09/10 is about to launch and agents should advise clients to book fast to secure their cruise because last time all the best rooms sold out in record time.

As the current saying goes, crunch, what crunch?

Did anyone else read about this new book, Cruising from A-Z, in which author Bill Glenton - billed "a leading cruise writer" - warns that many holidaymakers booking a cruise risk "taking a voyage to disappointment"?

'While holidays afloat are usually enjoyable, cruising is now such a vast and complex business that it easy to make mistakes and select a cruise that disappoints. I often meet passengers who feel like a fish out of water.'

Luckily his book "shows us how to choose a cruise and ship to match our personality and pocket, while steering us clear of the shoals and rocks that can lie hidden in the fog of brochure boasts".

Hmmm. Rather than wade through the cliches, I think it would be much simpler and far more productive to speak to a travel agent who specialises in cruising.

I see Champagne will be out and English sparkling wine will be in for the naming of Carnival Splendor by classical musician, singer and presenter Myleen Klass next month.

"Saves Carnival a bit of money I suppose," a cynical former journalist friend commented. "Or maybe they're just hoping that the cheaper glass is guaranteed to smash."

Of all the cruiseships in all the world and you had to crash into mine.....

My thanks to Mike at Gill's Cruise Centre for news of a collision between Costa Cruises' Costa Classica and MSC Cruises' MSC Poesia off Dubrovnik on June 6.

You can view footage of the collision at the LiveLeak website 

I know MSC and Costa don't get on that well ... but this is getting silly!

Do luxury and exploration cruising go together? Ultra-luxury line Silversea was certainly in no doubt when Prince Albert II - previously known as World Discoverer - arrived at London's Tower Bridge to collect its first complement of luxury explorers.

Silversea has done a lot of work to bring this 132-passenger ship up to its luxury standards, but somehow it misses the mark.

Maybe it's the faux teak on deck seven - such a shame as the real teak in the outdoor grill one deck down looks every bit the upmarket part - or the MFI-look furniture in the cabins (sorry, suites) although some tooms are a nice size, achieved by knocking two into one, and they really have done a great job with the bathrooms. And can you really call one room with a table a spa?

Must admit my heart sank most, though, when I spotted the chains in the dining room that will be used to stop chairs flying around in rough weather. The joys of small ship cruising.

Prince Albert II sets off on its maiden voyage tomorrow, cruising from Tower Bridge to Tromso with around 85 passengers on board.

It will cruise the Arctic and Norwegian fjords until August, when it heads over to the US, South America and on to Antarctica, all the time with a complement of ultra-enthusiastic hippy-style biologists, geographers and anthropologists on board to lecture the luxury lovers before and after they venture ashore in off-beat places on the fleet of inflatable Zodiacs.

If you expect exploration, this ship will be great. If you expect Silversea-style luxury, you'll be disappointed. But I am still not convinced that luxury and real exploration go together anyway. Only time will tell.

I see Disney Cruise Line just won the questionable honour of paying the highest fee to pass through the Panama Canal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25084475/

Just hope it was worth it.

If John Heald, the blogging Carnival cruise director with an irritating penchant for dots (read the blog and you'll see) - who must be a little jaded after all his time around cruiseships - can get excited about the new suites on Seabourn Odyssey, they must be good (although of course Yachts of Seabourn is owned by Carnival so maybe he is just a tad biased.)

http://johnhealdsblog.com/2008/06/12/seabourn-odyssey-and-the-lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-bill/#more-3542

Odyssey comes into service June 24 next year but is already on sale and, as Heald admits, has some of the most expensive suites at sea - I've just done a piece on the Grand Suites for the next TW Cruise and they will set you back nearly £11,500 for seven nights, and you still have to pay for flights and a transfer.

If they aren't good, guess there's no hope.

It was a pizz-a cake for Costa, when it decided to celebrate its 60th birthday Down Under by setting a new world record for the longest pizza line in the world - a total 826 stretching 221 metres. http://blogs.usatoday.com/cruiselog/

Cheering Aussies looked on as 25 local chefs sweated their way to victory in Sydney's Italian quarter.

Once the man from the Guiness Book of Records announced the record broken, the pizza were collected up and distributed to local charities to feed homeless and disadvantaged people. Good work.

What is happeneng on our high seas? If they are not crashing into each other or into ports, cruiseship are running aground.

easyCruise's easyCruise Life, which only set sail for the budget line last month, is the latest - Associated Press says it ran aground in the Aegean Islands. None of the passengers or crew was hurt.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/cruiselog/

Don't miss this comment:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/cruiselog/2008/06/easycruise-ship.html#uslPageReturn

So 89-year-old Beatrice Muller, the New Jersey woman who has lived on the QE2 for the past nine years, is looking for a new home. No surprise there given Cunard has sold the ship to the Dubai Government. She has until November to pack her bags and leave.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=51075048.blog#uslPageReturn

Now she needs another cruiseship to call home.

Which would you choose?

The website Cruise Critic reports Hurtigruten is pulling the Nordnorge out of Antarctica because the vessel is needed to replace one that sails along the Norwegian coast between bergen and Kirkenes - Hurtigruten's core business - and is being sold.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=2640

Maybe they are also rather fed up with the difficulties of operating in the White Continent. This is the ship that last year went aground in Deception Island and then came to the aid of passengers who had escaped from the sinking Explorer. This year Fram, its newest ship, which will continue to do Antarctica cruises, had to limp home early after hitting an iceberg.

Swan Hellenic's Minerva was named yesterday at a quiet ceremony in Dover, just before the ship set off on its second cruise under its new name - which is actually the vessel's name when it sailed for Swan before, but since leaving Swan five years ago it has sailed as Alexander von Humboldt and Explorer II.

Lady Sterling, wife of the man who bought the brand from Carnival Corp and then sold it on to All-Leisure Group, which also owns Voyages of Discovery, did the honours as godmother and Paul Carter, the cruise director, assures me the Champagne did break.

Crystal Cruises is converting 12 deluxe cabins into eight Penthouses when its 1,080-passenger Crystal Serenity goes for a refit in November. Reducing capacity when others are increasing, as the luxury line proudly proclaims. Well yes. Just.

The ship will come out of the refurb with 72 Penthouses, 32 Penthouses Suites and four Crystal Penthouses, which have to be among the largest and most luxurious rooms at sea.

All you need are deep pockets and you're on your way to cabin heaven, complete with a butler, of course.

My stint on Swan Hellenic's Minerva is just about to end, mainly due to other commitments and partly because the guys in head office were concerned that if I stayed on to Kirkwall and we hit bad weather, the ship would not be able to get in to the port.

Result? Minerva would head off to Norway - it's next stop after Scotland - with me on board when I was supposed to be elsewhere.

But they hadn't factored in Captain John Moulds. "I'd have got you in," he told me over dinner yesterday evening, after telling me that bad weather is no obstacle for him when it comes to landing passengers in Antarctica - the most unfriendly climate in the world.

Somehow I really think he would.

The first ice bar at sea will be among the evening hotspots - or do I mean chill-out zones? - on Norwegian Cruise Line's new generation of F3-coded ships.

First it was wavy cabins, now a new reveal, as the Americans insist on calling the simple process of telling us what will be on board its new 4,000-passenger Freestyle ships launching in 2010, lists all the nightlife venues being lined up for these big ships.

There's an adults-only POSH Beach Club - OK, not just for evenings - and wonder of wonders, no theatre. Could it mean the Broadway-style show really is dying. One can live in hope.

Interestingly it looks like that sacrosanct all-inclusive entertainment on a cruiseship bit could be going out of the window. Especially interesting because on my first cruise with NCL they charged for a comedian - and then said if it had happened (the UK office obviously doubted me but I still have the paper to prove it) it was a mistake. Are they about to make another mistake, I wonder?

And while we are on interesting, all this has come out almost in tandem with Royal Caribbean International's next big reveal - there's that word again - about the neighbourhoods (no longer areas, you note) on the giant new Oasis of the Seas. That's Genesis with its 5,400 passengers, in case you've forgotten.

There will be the Boardwalk with a carousel and tattoo parlour (how tasteful), double-decker suites and the first zipline at sea.

At least it will be a quicker way to get down the decks than the lifts on the Freedom-class ships.

Good to see the Leading Cruise Agents is going from strength to strength under the leadership of Peter Deilmann's managing director Stuart Perl - who is still with Deilmann by the way. He has just stepped in to guide the LCA as well.

It has just signed up the Worldchoice Cruise Club, adding 45 members, and eight independents, and taking the total to 94 members.

Can only be good news for the cruising business.

Apologies but blogs are going to get a bit erratic for a few days as I'm cruising between Moscow and St Petersburg with Viking River Cruises.

A fascinating experience. Just been learning today how a bell was punished and banished to Siberia. Well this is Russia. Food and service are a bit iffy, and my room is a little bizarre, but the big problem - slow and expensive internet.

So this comes to you from Uglich - an unknown town but really quite sweet and at least the sun is shining. I'll be back when I can find more cheap street internet cafes like this.

Princess Cruises has become the first cruiseline to offer the Wii fit on all its ships. Apparently passengers can try their hand at a ski jump, Hula Hoop or heading soccer balls.

And there was me thinking people went on a cruise for a holiday.

Why do it yourself when you can get your cruise passengers to do it for you?

That is clearly the new motto of Voyages of Discovery as their new Antarctica brochure features pictures taken by passengers who have sailed to the White Continent with the line. Clearly they reckon past passengers' recommendations are the best way to sell the cruise.

As I've been there with Voyages, I have to say I agree.

More than the service, more than the destinations we visited, more than the food, the big topic of conversation on my cruise from Moscow to St Petersburg was the internet. Or rather lack of it.

"If you come in a month it will be working," Viking River Cruises chairman Torstein Hagen told me. Not really a lot of good to those of us spending a swingeing 10 euros (£8.30) for an hour online, during which time we were lucky to open one email.

I do admire his confidence, especially as the problems have nothing to do with techie stuff, but rather the fact that right piece of paper hasn't been signed by the Russian authorities. That's the bit he expects to be completed in the next few weeks.

But if he can cut through the red tape that has wound its way around so much of Russian life since the ending of the Soviet regime, and it really does happen, it's great news for all Viking's Russian river cruisers to come.

Even better, Hagen tells me that from the start of 2009, all Viking ships except those sailing the Yangtze in China, will have free wi-fi and laptops to hire for those who don't want to drag their own on holiday.

What a difference an upgrade makes. This is a standard cabin on Viking River Cruises' Viking Surkov. See where the pole is? That's where the wall of the cabin used to be.

During last winter's upgrade, two standard cabins were knocked into one to at least give some space to swing a cat. The bathrooms were enlarged so there is now a separate sink and shower.

At the same time, two deluxe cabins have been made into three. Which no doubt explains why I also have a pole. I did wonder. Even more odd, I have a door that opens into a wall. A bit alarming when you forget....

Mine is a deluxe cabin, but quite compact, and I managed to cause upset in the Viking family by saying I found the décor a bit drab. Heavy brown curtains combined with dark bedspread (it did help to keep the net curtains open to let in the light, but meant passing passengers also got a clear view in).

"You find it drab because you are too young for this cruise," I was told.

As I had preceeded my Viking Russian river cruise with a stint on Swan Hellenic (average age 70) I'm getting used to being told I'm too young.

It's quite flattering really, but suggests a) that river cruising is only for oldies and b) that oldies only like drab. I don't buy either.

So full marks to Victoria Kennedy, the hotel and entertainment manager on Swan for livening up the cabins with white curtains with coloured flag motifs and a matching bed runner. As my cabin was small with only a small window to let in the light, it was a welcome bit of cheer, appreciated even by the oldies.

I see to see on the Travelmole website that the Orient Lines' brand has been bought and will be back with us if the new owner can find a ship.

Orient Lines was the "discovery" arm of Star Cruises and put up for sale last year because it really didn't fit with the Star/Norwegian Cruise Line concept of growing fleets of lively big ships.

http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1129565.php?news_cat=4

Orient Lines' one ship, Marco Polo, was sold to a Greek company and is now chartered by Transocean Tours and operating cruises from Tilbury to the Norwegian fjords and Baltic before heading off to the Antarctic this winter.

As its much-the-same 2009 programme is already out and selling, I assume that's one ship the new owners will have to strike off the list of possibles.

Has anyone looked at the new P&O Cruises' website? Such an improvement. All the info was there before, I'm sure, but the home page used to be so cluttered and came with a blast of irritating music if you weren't quick enough to get it switched off.

Now there's easy navigation, whether you want to know about the ships, the destinations, find a cruise and several new touches. I especially like this one:

A 'recently-viewed cruises' panel will give users a quick and easy route back to the last three cruises they viewed.

 

I have been given lots of info about the number of hits since it launched, as well as about who is doing what and talking to whom. But the big question is whether it brings in more bookings. I wait to hear.

Congratulations to Nigel Lingard, Fred Olsen Cruise Line's sales and marketing manager.

He has been named Norway Travel Ambassador of the Year by Innovation Norway (that's the tourist board to you and me) for his support and enthusiasm in promoting Norway over the past 30 years.

He was snapped with Heidi Dahl, Innovation Norway's director of tourism international markets (left), and Wench Nygard Eeg, of Cruise Norway

There was so much that was really great about Holland America Line's new ship, Eurodam, in Southampton for a Friday-night bash so that it could be shown off to the UK trade, journos and past and prospective passengers.

My stateroom was lovely, with a comfy bed, super-soft dressing gown, super-big balcony and large bathroom - thankfully without the garish gold sinks that penthouse people have to live with - with his and hers sinks, and a separate bath and shower.

The new Tamarind restaurant, on the extra deck that makes this a Signature-class ship instead of a Vista-class, really looked the pan-Asian part. And I loved the NCL-type hideaway alcoves in the Silk Bar, which is also a new addition.

But what were those private cabanas all about?

The ones by the Lido pool, with their lovely made-for-two loungers, are one thing - although I'm struggling to know why anyone would want to be hiding behind curtains on a pool deck (for sure you wouldn't be soaking up the sun, as one HAL person suggested, and if couples have anything else on their minds, I would suggest a busy pool deck is not the place).

But the ones on deck 11 - the Retreat - looked like plastic seaside tents at best and builders' huts at worst (workers were making a few finishing touches to the ship so it was an easy connection to make). And just outside was a spartan deck area with some ordinary loungers and chairs. Why would you want to lounge/sit there, just to watch others in their cabana? Or indeed for a view of the closed curtains?

Princess Cruises' brilliant adults-only Sanctuary they certainly ain't, even if the price (from $30 per day for the Lido, $45 for the Retreat) does buy you a butler to douse you in Evian water if you get too hot, iced fruit skewers mid-morning and a glass of bubbly in the afternoon.