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Sunday, 4 August 2013
Royal Caribbean Flagship sale starts now! Onboard credits, half price deposits, huge savings!
Coastal Croatia: five days of pampered 'SeaDreaming'
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| SeaDream and the cliffs of Capri |
With just 56 staterooms for 112 guests served by 95 crew, SeaDream I will sail five days from Dubrovnik in Croatia to Civitavecchia (Rome) on October 9, visiting Kotor in Montenegro, the Greek island of Corfu, a sail-by of Mt Etna volcano in Sicily, and a day on Italy's Isle of Capri.
Price begins from just US$2804pp twin-share including 5-star dining, wines with lunch and dinner, drinks from the open bars, use of power and sail water-sports where permitted, a 30-course golf simulator, gratuities and port charges and taxes.
Details from travel agents or www.seadream.com
ALSO still available is 7-days on SeaDream II, that this year once again just beat twin-sister SeaDream I to the title #1 in Boutique Vessels in the Berlitz Guide to Cruising, and which will sail on September 28 from Civitavecchia visiting Portovenere for the Italian Riviera's famed Cinque Terre (Five Villages,) Portofino one of Italy's most beautiful towns, and France's breath-taking St Tropez, Sanary-Sur-Mer, Cannes and Antibes.
The voyage ends with an afternoon and an overnight in Monte Carlo, Monaco to try your luck at the Casino; prices begin from US$3726pp twin-share, again inclusive 5-star.
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
A Legendary Experience: Carnival Legend to Arrive in Sydney
Carnival Spirit's sister ship, Carnival Legend, is arriving in Sydney next year from the East Coast of America. The ship has been custom-built to create history-making holidays, and pays tribute to some of the world's greatest legends throughout the ages. Guest can take a dip in the Camelot and Avalon pools, wish for magic at Club Merlin Casino, and taste iconic flavours at Truffles Restaurant. Music lovers can head for Satchmo's Lounge and Billie's Piano Bar, then dance the night away at Medusa's Lair Dance Club.
Carnival Legend will offer multiple ports of call (Los Angeles and Tampa), diverse cultures, exciting cities and activities on one cruise. Onboard features include a wide range of bars, dining choices and a variety of fun outdoor activities including the iconic Water Park and Green Thunder Waterslide, as well as indoor and relaxation options and exciting entertainment.
Carnival Legend will sail from the East Coast of America mid-August 2014 arriving in Sydney on 22 September 2014. Itineraries on offer:
· 13-day cruise from Tampa to Los Angeles sailing through the Panama Canal, Costa Rica and Mexico departing on 17 August 2014 with prices from $1925 per person, twin share.
· 23-day cruise from Los Angeles to Sydney sailing through Tahiti, Fiji and Noumea departing on 30 August 2014 with prices starting from $2,795 per person, twin share.
Travel the World is also offering Carnival Legend guests the opportunity to combine the two itineraries for a legendary 36-day cruise experience sailing from Tampa to Sydney through Mexico, Tahiti, Fiji and Noumea. By booking through Travel the World, clients can access competitive airfares; from Australia to Los Angeles from $1,450, or Australia to Tampa from $1,610
For further information on bookings, please contact Travel the World on 1300 950 622 or www.traveltheworld.com.au. (Australian Dollar fares include taxes and gratuities).
Monday, 29 July 2013
A Long World Cruise From Oceania – Other Cruise News: Early World Cruises – And A Different Kind of World Cruise
by Kevin Griffin
While European lines such as Hapag-Lloyd Cruises have traditionally offered longer world cruises each winter, stretching up to 180 days, most English-speaking lines have stuck to a formula that sees world cruises come in at 105 to 110 days. Oceania Cruises, however, has chosen for its first world cruise in 2015 in the 30,277-ton Insignia, to offer an extended 180-day cruise. We take the opportunity of this announcement to look at some earlier world cruises, dating back to 1891 and 1909, and not just to the usually-quoted 1922 of Cunard Line’s Laconia. Finally, we look at an alternative world cruise that is offered year-round – this time by container ship!
THIS WEEK’S STORY
A Long World Cruise From Oceania
New from Oceania Cruises, fresh on then news that sister line Regent Seven Seas Cruises had just ordered a fourth new ship, is an announcement that it will offer a long 180-day world cruise in 2015, visiting five continents, forty-four countries and eighty-nine ports of call, in its 30,277-ton Insignia.
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| Insignia and Nautica |
Outbound calls will be made at the Caribbean ports and islands of Santa Marta, Aruba, Bonaire, Margarita, Grenada, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Barbados and Tobago before heading along the South American coast to Devil’s Island, Belem, Fortaleza, Natal and Recife, then crossing the Atlantic to Africa, where she is scheduled to call at Lome, Cotonou, Sao Tome, Walvis Bay, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban Richards Bay, Maputo, Nosy Be, Zanzibar and Mombasa.
From Mombasa, Insignia will set out across the Indian Ocean to visit the Maldives, Mangalore, Cochin, Rangoon, Langkawi, Port Kelang, Singapore, Ko Samui, Sihanoukville, Bangkok, Saigon, Ha Long Bay and Hong Kong.
From Hong Kong she will then proceed to China, South Korea and Japan, with calls at Xiamen, Shanghai, Tianjin, Incheon, Nagasaki and Kagoshima, thence Keelung, Kaohsiung, Manila, Kota Kinabalu, Brunei, Kuching, Benoa, Komodo and Darwin.
In Australia and the South Pacific, she will leave Darwin for Cairns, Whitsunday Island, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Picton, Napier, Tauranga, Auckland, Nuku’alofa, Rarotonga, Raiatea, Bora Bora, Moorea, Papeete, Ruahine, Rangiroa, Nuku Hiva, thence Hilo, Honolulu, Lahaina and Nawilili in Hawaii.
The final leg from Hawaii will take in Los Angeles, San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, Huatulco, Puerto Quetzal, Corinto and Puntarenas in the Pacific and Cartagena and Key West in the Atlantic before her early July return to Miami.
Two-for-one early booking fares, which are only valid for the next fifty days or so, start at $39,999 per person in an inside cabin, $41,999 in an outside and $55,999 per person in a verandah cabin. The best accommodation, the Owners Suite, is on sale at $114,999 (regular $300,984) per person.
These early booking fares are valid until September 17 and include round-trip US flights to and from Miami. If booked by September 17, the fare will also include free upgrade to first-class air travel, prepaid gratuities, a pre-cruise night in Miami, visas for sixteen countries, luggage delivery, unlimited laundry services and Internet.
Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ Europa in Dubai
This length of voyage at 180 days approaches the world cruises offered by Hapag-Lloyd’s Europa, which are usually about the same length, and about two-thirds longer than the usual world cruise.
“As the leading specialist in destination cruising, we wanted to create a unique port-intensive voyage that reflects the dreams of the true explorer, rather than speed across the seas racing to the next convenient port as is the norm in a typical 100- to 110-day world cruise,” said Kunal Kamlani, president of both Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas.
In addition to eleven overnight calls, the Insignia will spend two nights each in Cape Town, Rangoon, Singapore and Shanghai.
In addition to eleven overnight calls, the Insignia will spend two nights each in Cape Town, Rangoon, Singapore and Shanghai.
OTHER CRUISE NEWS
Early World Cruises
Built at Barrow-in-Furness, in the shipyard where BAE Systems is today building seven “Astute” class nuclear-powered fleet submarines for the Royal Navy, the Empress of India was launched on August 30, 1890. After fitting out, she departed Liverpool on Sunday, February 8, 1891, on Canadian Pacific’s first world cruise, one in which it offered a voyage in the Empress of India from Liverpool via the Suez and Hong Kong to Vancouver, a journey across Canada on its own famous trans-continental railway and a Transatlantic liner crossing back to Liverpool.
Thus, on Tuesday, April 28, 1891, the Empress of India became the first White Empress to arrive at Vancouver, after a voyage of 79 days, whereupon her world cruise passengers continued their journey across Canada and around the world.
Within less than six months, Canadian Pacific offered two more world cruises, with the Empress of Japan leaving Liverpool on April 11, 1891, and the last of the trio, Empress of China, sailing from Liverpool on July 15. This trio, the first twin-screw liners on the Pacific, had been ordered by Canadian Pacific for a new mail contract that connected the UK and Hong Kong by way of its recently-completed transcontinental railway, over which the first train had run between Montreal and Port Moody in July 1886, with the line reaching Vancouver in May 1887.
While these were really positioning voyages to get the new ships from Liverpool to Vancouver, this was not the end of the story for Canadian Pacific. More world cruises would follow when new ships were ordered for its Transpacific services and in the 1920s and 1930s, Canadian Pacific would become one of the best-known names in world cruising, with several of its Empresses offering world cruises, and most particularly the 42,348–ton Empress of Britain (ii) of 1931, the first ship to be designed to cross the North Atlantic by summer and offer a world cruise every winter.
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| Cunard Line’s Laconia, Empress of India 1891 and Cleveland |
After the delivery voyages of Canadian Pacific’s Empresses, the next stage in world cruising occurred in 1909, when a new world cruise routing was offered by Frank C Clarke of New York, an early organizer of cruises, who chartered Hamburg America Line’s 16.960-ton Cleveland to offer two world cruises five years before the Panama Canal was opened.
The Cleveland left New York on October 16, 1909, and took 108 days to proceed across the Atlantic to ports in the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, India and the Far East before finishing her world cruise in San Francisco on January 31, 1910. Passengers then returned to their homes from the West Coast by train San Francisco to New York by way of Suez.
Cunard Line’s claim that its 19,680-ton Laconia made the first world cruise in 1922-23 is correct only insofar as this was the first complete circumnavigation of the world by a cruise ship, something obviously could not be done before the Panama Canal opened in 1914. The first full circumnavigation by the Laconia thus left New York in November 1922, took 130 days and called at twenty-two ports on her way around the world. But this was only one of four world cruises that winter.
In fact, world cruises boomed in 1922-23, with the Laconia being only the first of four ships to leave New York on world cruises that winter. The others, booked either by Frank C Clark or by American Express, were United American Line’s 19,653-ton Resolute, Canadian Pacific’s 18,481-ton Empress of France and Cunard Line’s 19,602-ton Samaria, which sailed in the opposite direction from the other three, proceeding from west to east.
And A Different Kind of World Cruise
Finally, for a world cruise of a totally different kind, one can choose the French Line CMA CGM. Its Columbus Loop service now offers a total of nine partial world cruises throughout the year, with the 89,787-ton CMA CGM Dalila, built in 2011, and 90.931-ton CMA CGM Figaro and CMA CGM La Scala, built in 2010.
These three ships run between New York, Norfolk and Savannah on the East Coast and Seattle and Vancouver on the West Coast, sailing by way of the Suez Canal, or sometimes the Cape of Good Hope, and ports in Malaysia, China, South Korea and Japan.
As with the Cleveland’s cruise of 1909, one must travel by train or plane between the two coasts of the United States in order to complete a full round-the-world trip.
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| French Line CMA CGM. Its Columbus Loop service now offers a total of nine partial world cruises throughout the year, with the 89,787-ton CMA CGM Dalila, built in 2011, and 90.931-ton CMA CGM Figaro and CMA CGM La Scala, built in 2010. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Quick) |
Ports of call in Asia include Tanjung Pelepas, Hong Kong, Yantian, Shanghai and Pusan on the way out from New York and Yokohama, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Yantian and Tanjung Pelepas in the opposite direction back from Seattle.
These modern container ships carry seven passengers each in three double cabins and one single, come equipped with swimming pools, and meals are taken with the officers. Fares are set at €100 per person per day and include full board, port charges, deviation insurance and complimentary French table wine with lunch and dinner. CMA CGM Dalila and Figaro fly the French flag, while CMA CGM La Scala is registered in London.
Part voyages are also possible but the full 112-day round voyage from New York to Seattle and back, or vice versa, costs €11,200 (about $15,495 or £10,075). New York to Seattle is €6,000 (about $8,300 or £5,395) for 60 days and Seattle to New York €5,200 (about $7,195 or £4,675) for 52 days.
The next sailings from New York are by La Scala on August 7, Figaro on September 16 and Dalila on September 30, followed by La Scala again on November 25. Sailings from Seattle are by the Dalila on August 8, La Scala on October 3, Figaro on November 14 and Dalila again on November 28.
(Kevin Griffin is managing director of specialist cruise agency The Cruise People Ltd in London, England. For further information concerning cruises mentioned in this article readers can visit his blog)
Sunday, 28 July 2013
Alaska cruise post-tours
SEVEN full days exploring the amazing wilderness and national parks of Alaska are a unique highlight of the 40-night fly/cruise/tour available from leading on-line cruise operator ecruising.travel
The Kenai Fjords National Park, North America's highest peak Mt McKinley, a motorcoach tour to Talkeetna and rail journey into Denali National Park, gold panning at Fairbanks' Gold Dredge No8 and a sternwheeler riverboat trip down the Chena River are all part of the wonderful touring sector.
The best of Alaska has never been more affordable as your tour takes you past the dazzling glaciers and stunning coastline and into the heart of Alaska with its amazing scenery and wildlife.
Departing on May 1, 2014, the itinerary includes 27 days cruising from Fort Lauderdale to Colombia through the Panama Canal to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver before spending seven nights cruising through Alaska's amazing fjords and bays.
The entire package is priced from $8599 per person twin share and includes return air fares from Sydney, three nights pre-cruise accommodation at the Mandarin Oriental in Las Vegas, (plus a night helicopter flight over the Vegas Strip) and three nights at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort before beginning the cruise on board Island Princess.
The deal also includes seven nights' accommodation in Alaska, coach and rail travel with extensive guided sight-seeing, all meals and entertainment throughout the cruise and use of the ship's many facilities.
For more information on this itinerary contact ecruising.travel on 1300 369 848 or check-out www.ecruising.travel
Award of Excellence for Scenic Cruises
Scenic Cruises, the cruising division of Scenic Tours, has received an 'Award of Excellence' from renowned author Steven B. Stern after being ranked in the highest class category for river cruise ships in his book, 'Guide to European Riverboats and Hotel Barges'. Stern has sailed on over 790 cruise ships, river cruise ships and hotel barges, visiting every major port of call in the world, and personally inspecting virtually every ship currently in operation. He has evaluated every vessel based on comfort and luxury.
In the comprehensive guide, Stern has ranked 16 different river cruise companies into four categories, Deluxe, Premium, Standard and Economy. The river cruise ships have not been categorised based upon price or clientele like ocean cruising. Instead Stern says, "Some riverboats offer more than others, and therefore, I have assigned class categories to reflect which are in the best condition, are most well-appointed, and offer the most common facilities, the best dining and service, and the most comfortable accommodation. Those that are all-inclusive and include all alcoholic beverages, all tours, and other amenities will receive the highest ratings."
Scenic Cruises is proud to announce that they were one of two companies in the world and the only Australian based River Cruise line (out of 16) to have all their river cruise ships classed into the highest category (Deluxe). Scenic Cruises Managing Director, Glen Moroney, says "This award recognises our efforts to ensure high standards and consistency of these standards right across the Scenic fleet. We want our guests to enjoy the same luxurious experience regardless of what ship they sail on."
The awards comes after the recent announcement of being named the 'Best Luxury Cruise Line' by the prestigious New York Travel Writers Society (NYTWS), the 'Best Luxury Tour Operator' by Luxury Travel magazine's 2013 Gold List, and the 'Best River Cruise Line' by Cruise Passenger Magazine.
In the comprehensive guide, Stern has ranked 16 different river cruise companies into four categories, Deluxe, Premium, Standard and Economy. The river cruise ships have not been categorised based upon price or clientele like ocean cruising. Instead Stern says, "Some riverboats offer more than others, and therefore, I have assigned class categories to reflect which are in the best condition, are most well-appointed, and offer the most common facilities, the best dining and service, and the most comfortable accommodation. Those that are all-inclusive and include all alcoholic beverages, all tours, and other amenities will receive the highest ratings."
Scenic Cruises is proud to announce that they were one of two companies in the world and the only Australian based River Cruise line (out of 16) to have all their river cruise ships classed into the highest category (Deluxe). Scenic Cruises Managing Director, Glen Moroney, says "This award recognises our efforts to ensure high standards and consistency of these standards right across the Scenic fleet. We want our guests to enjoy the same luxurious experience regardless of what ship they sail on."
The awards comes after the recent announcement of being named the 'Best Luxury Cruise Line' by the prestigious New York Travel Writers Society (NYTWS), the 'Best Luxury Tour Operator' by Luxury Travel magazine's 2013 Gold List, and the 'Best River Cruise Line' by Cruise Passenger Magazine.
Thursday, 25 July 2013
Cruise Passenger Magazine: Full steam ahead under new owners
We have ambitious plans to grow the business across all platforms, and we are keen to engage with you to ensure that our products serve cruise better.
Our management team includes Peter Lynch, former travel publisher at Fairfax Media and managing director at Big Splash Media, and Commercial Manager Leisa Chell, who many of you may know from her days as manager of travel at News Ltd.
Sally Macmillan, who has occupied the chair for the past four years, will remain as editor. Teresa Ooi, a senior journalist with The Australian will be managing editor and writer.
We have a great track record of successfully publishing to high net worth individuals in similar demographics. We publish in superannuation, as well as for government and associations. We understand this market and relish talking to an audience of 75,000 cruise travellers in the biggest growth sector in tourism.
“Cruise Passenger is alone in its market demographic talking solely to those who love to cruise or are about to embark on their first experience at sea,” says Peter Lynch.
“We are strong believers in the power of print and online as a combination. We will be announcing ambitious online plans shortly, so watch this space!”
Cruise has a circulation of 25,000, including 15,000 to CLIA agents in Australia and New Zealand, who hand them to clients asking about cruise.
Please contact us directly with ideas, stories and pictures for our magazine, website, Facebook Page and newsletter. We are keen to write on new products, innovations, trends and, of course, deals - so send us your best!
Our next magazine is publisher at the end of September.
Send your releases to media@cruisepassenger.com.au.
Or call Peter Lynch, Sally or Teresa on 02 9299 8699
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