Ski-Style Chair Lift Debuts at Mahogany Beach Cruise Center in Roatan

 

A new elevated chair lift – which will offer a round-trip transfer between the new Mahogany Bay Cruise Center in Roatan and beautiful Mahogany Beach – will debut in conjunction with the cruise facility’s grand opening next month.

Unique to the Caribbean, the “Magical Flying Beach Chair” will be the first chair lift that transports riders from a cruise ship terminal directly to the beach.

The new beach chair lift will be one of the marquis features of the modern $62 million Mahogany Bay Cruise Center, which will welcome its first cruise ship, Carnival Cruise Lines’ 2,124-passenger Carnival Legend, on Friday, November 20.

The Mahogany Bay Cruise Center, which encompasses 20 acres of waterfront property and includes a two-berth cruise terminal, is a joint project of Carnival Corporation and Roatan businessman Jerry Hynds.

Guests board the new beach chair lift system at the facility’s expansive Welcome Center and are dropped off directly on Mahogany Beach, a 10-acre private island featuring an 825-foot-long white-sand  beach replete with lounge chairs, floats, a beach volleyball court and myriad watersport opportunities.  There are also eight exclusive cabanas for rent offering private beach access.

Modelled after a traditional ski lift and incorporating the latest technological advancements, the new “Magical Flying Beach Chair” takes cruise ship passengers on an exciting, fun-filled six-minute ride across nearly 1,200 feet of cables suspended 67 feet above a lush canopy of trees.

Accommodating four riders each, the galvanized steel beach lift chairs are available to cruise ship holidayers for a $5 fee which includes unlimited rides throughout the day.  Chair lift passes are also included in pre-sold beach activity on board the cruise ships calling at the port.   The chair-lift system has the capability of transporting up to 1,500 passengers per hour.

The “Magical Flying Beach Chair” was designed and installed by Rain Forest Trams, a company that owns and operates five adventure parks in Central America and the Caribbean.  Rain Forest Trams also operates Mystic Mountain in Jamaica, one of the Caribbean’s top attractions.  The beach chair was manufactured by Salt Lake City-based Dopplemayer, a world leader in ropeway engineering.

The chair lift is an exciting feature of the expansive Mahogany Bay project, which includes two cruise ship piers and can accommodate up to 8,000 passengers daily.  The facility is expected to host more than 200 cruise ship calls and more than 500,000 passengers annually.

The Mahogany Bay Cruise Center also offers a wide range of retail outlets, including two themed bars, a restaurant and several shops. A transportation hub with the ability to accommodate taxis, rental cars and tour buses, along with a wide range of shore excursion opportunities, are also available.

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Cruising à la Française

Here is Mark Tré’s latest report on the state of cruising in France, a country where, despite having produced ships of state such as Normandie and France and cruise ships up to the size of RMS Queen Mary 2, its own residents are far behind the rest of Europe in taking up cruising.
Even those operators who have more recently entered the French market sometimes have trouble ramping up to the next ship size as the market grows (or they hope will grow). So let us have a look at this late developing market.

The State of the French Market
Unlike the UK market and more recently the Spanish, Italian and German markets, France is a long way behind in the number of its residents that take a cruise every year. From 212,000 cruisers in 2003 the market had grown by 2007 to only 280,000, a smaller 32% rise compared to it neighbours Italy, which had grown 85% to 640,000 and Spain, up by 69% to 513,000 in 2007.
France, a country of 64 million souls, produced less than 1% of the total European cruise market of 4 million passengers.
Taking fifth place in Europe, French passengers represented only 7.9% of those booking cruises in the top five European countries, while 37.8% came from the UK, 21.6% from Germany, and 18.1% from Italy and 14.6% from Spain, both neighbours. Perhaps too used to their own croissants and espressos, breads, wines and cheeses, the French seem positively reluctant to step aboard a cruise ship and go exploring.
It now seems that the French Line was run entirely for the benefit of French emigrants and American tourists, and after the demise of Paquet Cruises, the country was not represented by a single large cruise ship other than the 394-berth Club Med 2 and 330-berth Paul Gauguin in Tahiti, both of which are niche products.
But things may be changing. In 2008, the French market grew to 310,000 compared to 280,000 the year before, or by almost 11%. While growth from 2006 to 2007 was 15.7%, this was still double digit and in an uncertain year and has to be compared to previous years’ growth rates of between 3% and 5%. In Spain, on the other hand, the market actually fell by 4% in 2008 while Italy grew by only 6%.
France is still the poor man, but in 2008 it grew faster than any other major European market outside Germany, which grew by 19%. The big question is can France begin to grow in the same way Germany has. It is still very early days but both Royal Caribbean and Carnival Corp & PLC, as well as some indiginous French operators, are keen to find out.

Croisières de France
Formed in late 2007 as an arm of Pullmantur Cruises, Croisières de France has been operating unilingual French-language cruises with Bleu de France since May 2008. The product is all-inclusive, with fare, port charges, gratuities and drinks with lunch and dinner and in the bars all included in the price.and unconfirmed estimates put carryings by this ship, dedicated to the French market, at about 30,000 passengers during her first year of service.
After having concentrated in its first year by summer on the Mediterranean market from Marseilles and the Caribbean by winter, Croisières de France is changing its approach for 2010. Instead of sending Bleu de France to the Caribbean this winter, the line will embark passengers on a ship of sister company Pullmantur.
Pacific Dream, formerly Celebrity’s Horizon, will carry a mix of Spanish-speaking passengers and francophones from both France and Quebec, sailing from La Romana in the Dominican Republic, a popular haunt as well and with good airlift for French-speaking Canadians escaping the frozen north, as did Bleu de France last winter.
Meanwhile, the French ship will remain in the Mediterranean, as with so many other cruise ships in recent years, and will also sail the Red Sea. This should allow Croisières de France to build its passenger numbers further in anticipation of further expansion.
In the meantime, a rumour last week had  Bleu de France being sold to another operator, widely touted as being Saga of the UK. Built as Hapag-Lloyd Cruises’ last Europa, she would be a perfect replacement for its Saga Rose, which is being retired as the new SOLAS 2010 regulations come into effect.
If this is true, the problem for Croisières de France will be that while Bleu de France has 374 cabins, the next size up, Pacific Dream (ex-Horizon), has 715, which would mean having to double the line’s carryings in one fell swoop if she were chosen as a replacement.
Although little different from adding a second ship to a one-ship operation, some doubt that Croisières de France would be able to double its business that quickly in an uncertain market. On the other hand, the French economy is now out of recession and grew by 0.3% in the first quarter while the French purchasing manager’s index is this month at its highest in almost three years.

Croisières Paquet
While in the larger ship market, other news to come out of France is about Paquet, which was acquired many years ago by Costa Cruises of Genoa. Now dormant for a decade, Carnival plans to revive the Paquet brand in 2010 in an agreement with Marseilles-based TMR, who will market the 820 lower-berth Costa Allegra from Marseilles exclusively for French cruise passengers.
Best known for the cruises that were previously operated by Mermoz, the last word in French cruise ships of any size, several hundred items from which raised €195,000 recently at an auction in Marseilles, the Paquet brand could have a lot of sway in how the French choose their cruises.
The new Paquet will thus provide head-on competition for Croisières de France, operated by Carnival arch-rival Royal Caribbean. As Costa Allegra is returning from China, where she is being replaced by a larger ship, it has not yet been announced just how French her crew may be and whether she will be similarly a totally unilingual ship, but it seems certain that a French cruise staff will be taking over for these cruises.
To begin service from Marseilles in May 2010, she will add to Costa’s own capacity from that port with an initial programme of four 11-to-14-day cruises to the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. These cruises will test the waters through to late June and will be followed by more Paquet cruises, mostly musically-themed, in September and October. Costa now accounts for half the uptake of French passengers, or more than150,000 berths on their Marseilles calls.
Her Future
By using TMR instead of its own Costa channels in France (and Costa has been building up good volumes from Marseilles), the revived Paquet will be using a separate distribution channel to the French market, and one that is a little more upmarket. TMR founder Maurice Ravon chartered Norway, ex-France, in 1993 and again in 2000, and in 2003 carried some 15,000 French passengers in the 684-berth Insignia (since renamed Regatta), on charter from Oceania Cruises, and in 2004 in her sister ship Nautica.

Compagnie du Ponant
Ponant Cruises, as it has recently been dubbed for the English-speaking world, got its start in 1988 when it was founded by two former French merchant navy officers as Compagnie des Iles du Ponant (recently shortened to Compagnie du Ponant) at Nantes. Its first ship was the 64-berth sail-assisted Le Ponant, built in 1991, and she was joined in 1998 by the 90-passenger megayacht Le Levant.
This pair of newbuildings was joined in 2004 by the former Song of Flower, acquired from Radisson Seven Seas and enlarged from 180 to 226 passengers.
Since 2006, Compagnie du Ponant has been Marseilles-based as the cruising arm of CMA CGM, successors to the original French Line and Messageries Maritime. More than forty CMA CGM cargo ships also carry passengers, of which they can accommodate more than 336 when full, primarily on routes to China, Australia, South America and the French West Indies.
Jacques Saadé, CMA CGM chairman, has made sure that as many new CMA CGM ships as possible include passenger accommodation when they are built as a kind of tribute to the traditions of the once-famous French Line.
Ponant Cruises, meanwhile, is due to take delivery in 2010 of two new ships from Fincantieri, which while not large with 264 berths each, will bring another 528 berths into a company that now counts only 380, thus more than doubling its capacity. To be named L’Austral and Le Boréal, these two ships will be ice-strengthened and will cruise worldwide, to Asia, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Antarctic, Spitzbergen, Iceland, Greenland, the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes, among other destinations.
A good amount of their business will be in charters and the latest news on the that front is that Le Boréal has been chartered to long-time Antarctic operator Abercrombie & Kent for its 20th Antarctic season between December 2010 and January 2011. Unlike any other expedition ship before, Le Boréal provides balconies with 95% of its cabins, something totally new for the Antarctic.
For Antarctic cruises, capacity will be limited to 199 passengers and fares will start at $9,995 or $15,975 per person. Le Boréal will succeed Swan Hellenic’s Minerva, which will be cruising the Far East instead. Le Boréal will thus become the first French ship to have been built for polar trades since the Marion Dufresne II, which, built at le Havre in 1995, carried a dozen passengers to Kerguelen and the French Antarctic territories.

The Port of Marseilles
Two-thirds of the French market, about 200,000 passengers, cruise the Mediterranean, and for this its major port is Marseilles. As of earlier this year, the Port of Marseilles has one of the more interesting cruise terminal operations as here, three non-French lines, Costa and MSC from Italy and Louis Cruise Lines of Cyprus, have teamed up to operate a tripartite cruise passenger terminal now called the Marseille-Provence Cruise Terminal (MPCT) under a €12 million plan that will expand cruise capacity in the port, with a goal of handling one million passengers a year starting in 2011.
That presumably means 500,000 each way but is a measure of how significant some feel the French cruise market could be.
All three of these lines already embark passengers in either Genoa or Savona on one day and then in Marseilles the next for their 7-day cruises and the same occurs at disembarkation, with cruise traffic in Marseilles having shown interesting growth in the past few years. While Costa and MSC operate their own offices in France, Louis Cruise Lines relies on its own affiliate, CroisiFrance, to book its French passengers.
And as well as both Costa and MSC having introduced newbuildings to the market from Genoa/Savona and Marseilles, Louis is almost doubling its own capacity with one ship by replacing the 756 lower-berth Coral with the 1,460-berth Louis Majesty on December 4.

CroisiEurope, Plein Cap, CPTM and Others
In addition to the 310,000 French ocean cruisers that booked in 2008, some 142,000 river cruisers significantly increase French numbers. Strasbourg-based CroisiEurope, with a fleet of 26 vessels on the Danube, Rhine, Rhone, Seine and elsewhere, and the 200-berth coastal cruiser Belle de l’Adriatique cruising the Croatian Coast for affiliate CroisiMer, is now the largest river operator in Europe.
It is a sign of the infancy of the French market that CroisiEurope presently has a larger berth capacity than any other French cruise operator. Last month, it also dedicated a new brand, CroisiMusique, to operating music cruises.
Other operators active in France have included Nouvelles Frontières and Plein Cap Croisières, with their chartered 240-berth Adriana sailing from Nice as well as in the Black Sea, and from Brest and Norway in 2010. And in Tahiti, Compagnie Polynésienne de Transport Maritime’s Aranui 3 carries 180 passengers on supply voyages to the Marquesas and Tuamotu Islands.
Also Tahiti-based, Paul Gauguin began life as a French ship, but was sold  in 2006 to Boston owners. This summer, after operating for many years under a marketing agreement with Regent Seven Seas Cruises, the Bahamian-registered Paul Gauguin has been taken over by French Polynesia-based Pacific Beachcomber, owners of four Intercontinental resorts in French Polynesia.
One interesting site in Marseilles to-day is the laid up Pullmantur cruise ship Atlantic Star, which had been built in 1984 as the steamship Fairsky, only a few miles away in Toulon. Whether  Atlantic Star will at some point be repowered with diesel engines and placed back into service is an open question, but here is a French-built ship laid up in a French port where just a few years before much of the Renaissance fleet had been laid up as well.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if the new Croisières de France, the revived Croisières Paquet and Compagnie du Ponant will provide the seedlings from which will grow strong French cruise brands, as Aida and now TUI Cruises have developed in Germany, and Pullmantur and in Iberocruceros Spain.
In these times, much of this success will probably depend on how the big boys with many resources, particularly Carnival and Royal Caribbean, treat the very particular French market.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Our Best World Passenger Freighter Voyage

Passenger Freighter Information
From The Cruise People, Ltd. – Canada’s Original Cruise Agency

 

While many other products disappeared in this financial environment, Rickmers Pearl String world voyages continue to delight our clients and is rapidly becoming our best seller.
Passengers appreciate the sense of mystery. The ships are partly tramp (going where the cargo goes) and also partly general cargo, as opposed to all containers, which means longer stops in some ports ( 1 – 3 days). Our clients enjoy spending extra time ashore. They also appreciate sailing through both the Suez and Panama Canals.
Voyages are usually about 126 days in length from Houston to Houston (or Hamburg to Hamburg) with a sailing almost every month. There are two port lists – ports usually visited and ports visited if cargo is being delivered or loaded. Sometimes the itinerary will change after sailing, depending on the cargo.
Segments may be booked, subject to availability. For example, one could sail from Houston to Hamburg, Singapore or Shanghai or from Singapore to Houston.
Prices are reasonable and average Eu 80 per day plus port taxes/fees and deviation insurance. In many cases, there is no single supplement so you are not penalized for sailing alone in a single cabin.
There are early booking reductions for full, round voyages. If under deposit 12 months in advance, rates are reduced by 10%. If under deposit six months ahead, rates are reduced by 5%. That means you could save almost Eu 1,000 by booking your full voyage a year ahead!
Although age limit is 75, this company will accept older passengers with two excellent medical reports from the passenger’s physician – one with deposit and one closer to sailing.
There is a web site which allows you to follow the progress of your ship on its way to pick you up and your friends and relatives can follow your voyage progress as you sail.
Usual ports – Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Hamburg, Antwerp, Genoa, Suez Canal transit, Jakarta (Tanjung Priok), Singapore, Hochiminh City, Shanghai, Dalien, Xangang, Qingdao, Masan, Kobe, Yokohama, Panama Canal transit, Houston.
Possible additional ports – Jeddah, Jebel Ali (Dubai), Mumbai, Laem Chabang (Thailand), Haiphong Roads, Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Nagasaki, Long Beach, Galveston, Norfolk.
Out-of country hospital/medical insurance including emergency evacuation (sometimes called air ambulance) coverage is required. Cancellation insurance is strongly recommended to protect your fare in the event of illness, accident or bereavement of passengers or members of immediate family. We are happy to quote on insurance for Canadian residents and supply a source for our American clients.
Passengers must carry a valid passport which doesn’t expire until at least 10 months after sailing. There are some countries which require tourist visas and passengers should submit copies of these at least 2 weeks prior to sailing. Note that the China visa must be a multiple-entry visa.
Please feel free to ask us for more information on these or any other voyages.

New St. Lawrence Cruise Ports

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is not often that particular areas of the world come up with new cruise ports that have not already been exploited but indeed it does happen. Just as in the more temporate climes of Mexico and Roatan, new cruise ports are beginning to open up in the moderate Gulf of St Lawrence, which is really a summer destination only.
So what are these ports that are beginning to attract lines such as Carnival, Costa and MSC, all newcomers to the area, which has always relied on Montreal and Québec for turnarounds?
Here is a whirlwind tour.

The City of Saguenay
The new City of Saguenay, which is selling itself under the same name as the well-known fjord and tributary of the St Lawrence River, is actually an agglomeration of the municipalities of Chicoutimi, the area’s largest city and once the shallow-draught terminal of a weekly cruise operated by Canada Steamship Lines until 1965, the deeper port of Bagotville, where Canada Steamship Lines overnighted steamers from Montreal, Québec, Murray Bay and Tadoussac used to turn around, and Port Alfred, a larger pulp and paper and aluminium port. To-day, the whole area is known as Saguenay.
Saguenay’s new cruise port, a development of the old Bagotville wharf, attracted 28,000 visitors in 2009 and was this year’s venue for the annual Canada New England Cruise Symposium this June.

Baie Comeau
Baie Comeau is a relatively new place as from beginnings in 1937 when the Québec North Shore Paper Company opened a pulp and paper mill there to supply the Chicago Tribune and the New York News, it grew in the 1950s to include an aluminium smelter and a grain elevator. It was also the birthplace of one of Canada’s 20th Century prime ministers.
But this year, Baie Comeau is benefitting from a new $26 million Glacier Exploration Centre opened in a converted church this June. Carnival Cruise Lines are expected to make five calls on Baie Comeau in 2010 with Carnival Glory. Baie Comeau has already had a number of calls from Holland America Line and Fred.Olsen Cruises.

Sept-Iles
Although in existence since the French regime, and a base for the Hudson’s Bay Company (founded in 1670), a sometime whaling station and a base for fur traders as well, Sept-Iles did not get its real start until 1954, when it became an iron ore loading port for the Iron Ore Company of Canada. Sept-Iles and nearby Clarke City also featured, however, as a major port of call for mailboats operating from Montreal.
To-day, a new wharf has been opened in town that allows cruise passengers to board a train to visit the Innu summer camp on the Moisie River, long known as a gathering place for salmon fishing. The Sept Iles have long had a railway connection, from 1906 from the bay to a pulp mill at Clarke City, and from the 1950s by the Québec North Shore and Labrador Railway and the Arnaud Railway to Labrador.
Holland America Line has been one of Sept-Iles’ first major cruise line customers.

Havre St Pierre
Like Sept-Iles, Havre St Pierre is expected to gain from new calls by Carnival Cruise Lines in 2010. Once a port of call for regular cruises, nearby is a cabin said to have been built by who later became Lord Strathcona, who at that time was a Hudson’s Bay Company factor.
Now, the port, which has not seen regular cruise ship visits since the 1930s, has opened up as an ilmenite shipping port but is again is trying to attract cruise lines to make a call on its naturally protected harbour and visit the nearby Mingan Islands.

Gaspé
Unlike Baie Comeau, Sept Iles and Havre St Pierre, which are newer ports developed in the 20th Century, Gaspé has been around for centuries, and was first industrialized by fishermen from important Jersey firms such as Robin, Collas & Company. Starting in about the 1920s it became more of a tourist haven and benefited from weekly sailings from Montreal and Québec by large steamers, one of which cruised from Miami in the winter time.
A cruise destination for the Québec Steamship Company, Furness Bermuda Line, Clarke Steamship Company, Royal Viking Line, Baltic (March Shipping) and Yachts of Seabourne, Gaspé and the nearby rock of Percé are once again opening up to cruise ship visitations. Nearby is also the famous bird colony of Bonaventure Island.

Québec City
Not a new port, but certainly one of the big gainers, earlier this month, history was made at the Port of Québec as more than 13,000 cruise passengers embarked or disembarked in one 48-hour period. Three ships, Crown Princess, Norwegian Spirit and Costa Atlantica, also made inaugural calls.
Princess Cruises, Costa Cruise Lines and Norwegian Cruise Line are among the lines that now make the city their point of departure and arrival since the new larger ships are too tall to get under the Québec Bridge to Montreal.
The port now features three cruise ship terminals, Pointe-à-Carcy, the newest cruise terminal, Anse au Foulon, formerly known as Wolfe’s Cove, the turnaround for Canadian Pacific’s once-giant Empress of Britain of 1931, one of the first of the giants unable to make it to Montreal, and home later for Queen Elizabeth 2 until the construction of the new town terminal where RMS Queen Mary 2 and other ships berth.
This month also saw the first visit of Cunard’s Queen Victoria, which tied up at the nearby Canadian Coast Guard Pier, where icebreakers and buoy tenders are usually berthed, for an overnight stay. This month also saw Holland America Line’s Maasdam, the city’s most frequent cruise visitor, make her 100th call. Maasdam has now brought 129,000 passengers to Québec.

(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

RMS QUEEN MARY 2 to Become Largest Ship Ever to Visit the Clyde

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RMS Queen Mary 2, the most famous ship in service, will make her inaugural call to Greenock and the Clyde on Monday 19 October 2009 during a special ‘lap-of-honour’ to mark her fifth birthday. Queen Mary 2 will be the largest ship ever to have sailed up the Clyde – a river which has binding and historical ties to Cunard as over 120 Cunarders have been launched there since 1839. Cunard Line is also celebrating the 170th Anniversary of its founding in 2009 – so a double celebration for the company and its flagship.

The 151,400-ton Queen Mary 2 will arrive at Greenock at 0800 hours on 19 October and remain at the Greenock Ocean Terminal until 1830 hours. To mark the call there will be a firework display immediately before her departure.
Commenting on the visit, Cunard’s Managing Director Peter Shanks, said:
“Most of Cunard’s great ships, including Cunard’s first ship Britannia, and Lusitania, Aquitania, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Caronia and Queen Elizabeth 2 were all built on the Clyde. As a proud Scotsman myself, born in Glasgow and having spent my early years in Troon, I can say just how we proud we are of our associations with the river. It is appropriate for our flagship Queen Mary 2 to pay tribute to her Scottish forbears and this visit during Queen Mary 2′s birthday celebrations is very fitting”.

The voyage commemorates the introduction into service of RMS Queen Mary 2 five years ago in January 2004. Still the largest, longest, tallest, widest, most expensive ocean liner ever built and, since the retirement of QE2, the fastest passenger ship in the world. Queen Mary 2 entered service just four days after being named by Her Majesty The Queen during the most spectacular naming ceremony Southampton, her home port, had ever seen. Since that historic entry into service Queen Mary 2 has sailed almost 750,000 nautical miles, completed over 120 Atlantic crossings (the route for which she was specifically built, the first passenger ship to be built for that trade in 35 years), and made calls to 115 ports in 45 countries.

Since becoming Cunard flagship in May 2004, taking over the mantle from Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Mary 2 has also become one of the most celebrated ships in the world and successfully continues the Cunard passenger liner tradition established 170 years ago.

 

Technorati Tags: Queen Mary 2,Britannia,Lusitania,Aquitania,Queen Mary,Queen Elizabeth,Caronia,Quuen Mary 2

Cunard Line’s QUEEN VICTORIA Makes Inaugural Calls to Halifax and Québec

 

Left photo: Halifax (source: Alan Deveau, Eastern Eyes Aerial Photography)

Right photo: Québec City (source: Québec Port Authority)

6 October 2009 – As part of her Autumn Colours voyage, which features calls through the New England and Canada coasts, Cunard’s Queen Victoria made her inaugural visits to the Canadian ports of Halifax on Friday, 2 October, and Québec City on Sunday, 4 October. The ship will call on St. John’s, Newfoundland, before returning to Southampton on October 12.

Queen Victoria’s first-ever voyage to Canada holds special significance, as it is the homeland of the line’s founder, Sir Samuel Cunard, who was born in Halifax in 1787. Cunard established the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in 1839 to carry the Royal Mail between England and North America. In 1840, he inaugurated the first timetabled steamship service across the Atlantic Ocean, with a route from Liverpool to Halifax and then Boston.

“Cunard prides itself on honouring its history and legacy, so it was a great privilege for me to bring Queen Victoria, Cunard’s newest queen, across the Atlantic and present her to the homeland of our company’s founder,” said the ship’s Master,

Captain Ian McNaught. “Our calls to Halifax and Québec continue Cunard’s tradition of providing guests with legendary voyages and historic ports of call and we appreciate the welcoming reception we received in each city.

Upon arrival to Halifax, Queen Victoria toured the harbour, providing grand viewing opportunities for the city’s residents. As she docked, she was welcomed by the famed 78th Highlanders Pipe Band, a performance group from the Halifax Citadel Regimental Association.

A number of dignitaries attended the onboard events commemorating Queen Victoria’s arrival, including Percy Paris, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage for Nova Scotia; David Hendsbee, Deputy Mayor, Halifax Regional Municipality; Robert Brooks, Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture & Heritage; John Langley, Cunard Steamship Society; Margaret Wittingham-Lamont, Mission to Seafarers; Mark MacDonald, Chair, Halifax Port Authority; Karen Oldfield, President and CEO, Halifax Port Authority; and David Danskin, Halifax Citadel National Site.

To honour Queen Victoria’s maiden call to Halifax, the Halifax Citadel Regimental Association performed a musical number composed especially for the occasion.

To celebrate Queen Victoria’s arrival at Québec City, the Port of Québec hosted a charity lunch onboard, benefiting the local Fondation des Hôpitaux de Enfant-Jésus-Saint-Sacrement. Onboard to welcome the liner into the city were Ross Gaudrealt, President and CEO, Port of Québec; Martin Lachance, Director, Leisure and Medias, Québec Tourism Office; and James Murphy, General Manager, Ramsey Greig & Co. Limited. The celebration continued into today, as Queen Victoria docked overnight in the Port of Québec

For more information and to book a voyage aboard Queen Victoria or flagship Queen Mary 2, consult The Cruise People on 1-800-268-6523.

Flickr Tags: Queen Victoria,Queen mary 2,QM2

PRINSENDAM Receives New Cabins

As part of the continuing Signature of Excellence enhancement programme, Holland America Line has announced the addition of 22 new staterooms to Prinsendam. The drydock will occur in Freeport, Bahamas, from January 4 through 13, 2010.

“Prinsendam continues to be a ship with one of our most loyal followings,” said Richard D. Meadows, CTC, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programmes. “The new staterooms will mostly be verandah cabins. This will also allow us to create some other very special additions.”

With the addition of cabins aft, the pool deck will expand with more space and many more deck chairs for passengers to enjoy. A new sea-view bar will be created to enhance the ambiance further.

Sixteen of the new staterooms will be deluxe verandahs and two will be slightly smaller verandahs. Four will be standard inside staterooms. As customary with all Prinsendam accommodation, appointments will feature elegant bathrooms and recently redesigned closet space. Amenities feature Mariner Dream Beds, 250-count linens, Elemis spa bathroom amenities, large vanity mirror, stainless steel fruit basket, flat panel television and DVD player, quality shower head, and more. Passenger capacity of the vessel will increase from 793 to 837.

New cabins will be fully finished while under way and ready to book for the 54-day Quest of the Argonauts voyage, sailing March 24 roundtrip from Fort Lauderdale to the Mediterranean, Black Sea and back. The ship sails a leisurely eastbound course across the Atlantic for an extensive Mediterranean exploration with calls at ports in more than 10 countries, including Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Russia, Georgia, Greece and Turkey. The cruise includes overnight stays in Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal and Istanbul, Turkey, as well as late-night departures in Athens and Santorini, Greece, and Lisbon, Portugal. Prinsendam will visit Bermuda and New York City before returning to Fort Lauderdale.

Other standard maintenance and technical service will take place along with upgrading laundry and galley equipment.

LiveJournal Tags: Prinsendam