MSC Announces Baseball Greats, Big Band Themes for 2010-2011 Caribbean Cruises

 

Celebrate the sun, sand, and surf with MSC for its 2010-11 Caribbean cruises onboard MSC Poesia to experience a line-up of popular Baseball Greats and Big Band themes departing from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Baseball Greats

The Baseball Greats theme cruise includes free interactive guest/player activities. Participate in a player-hosted trivia game where passengers test their baseball knowledge, question-and-answer sessions with the players, and a guest pitching contest. Be entertained during lively story-telling sessions where they share some candid revelations about "characters" of the game. Players will also host pitching, hitting, fielding and base running clinics.

The free autograph session at the end of the cruise is an extremely popular activity among the guests onboard. The player line-up on these itineraries will be announced at a later date.

Caribbean cruises featuring the baseball theme include:

– November 14, 2010: 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise calling at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; and Nassau, Bahamas.

– December 5, 2010: 7-night Western Caribbean Wonders calling at Key West, Florida; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; and Cozumel, Mexico.

– January 9, 2011: 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise

– January 23, 2011: 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise

– February 6, 2011: 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise

 

Big Band

The 16-piece Les DeMerle Big Band, with vocalist Bonnie Eisele, will be featured on two MSC Poesia sailings. Dynamic drummer Les DeMerle has toured and recorded with the Harry James Big Band and Wayne Newton; the band has also accompanied many performers such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., The Manhattan Transfer, Mel Torme and Al Jarreau.

In addition to their performances, the band will present a Big Band Jazz Concert and Les will conduct a lecture on the Big Band Era.

– October 23, 2010: 9-night Canada/New England repositioning cruise departing Quebec City, Quebec, Canada and calling at Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada; Boston, Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; New York, New York; and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

For more information about MSC Cruises and its selection of theme cruises, contact Michael Abel of The Cruise People on 1-800-961-5536 ext 24.

Royal Caribbean Cruises and Haiti

Image via Wikipedia

 

Royal Caribbean Cruises, one of Haiti’s largest foreign investors for almost 30 years, announced its plans to provide at least $1 million in humanitarian relief to Haiti in response to the catastrophic earthquake in Port-Au-Prince. Royal Caribbean will be partnering with charitable organizations – such as Food for the Poor, Pan American Development Foundation, and the Solano Foundation, the company’s foundation in Haiti – to provide additional assistance to the people of Haiti. Royal Caribbean will also be delivering much needed goods and supplies to Haiti via their cruise ships.

"The effect of the earthquake on Haiti has been catastrophic, leaving the country in need of not only immediate support, but assistance in their long-term recovery," said Richard D. Fain, chairman and chief executive officer, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. "Royal Caribbean wants to do its part to help out not only the general response, but also our hundreds of Haitian employees and their families through this disaster."

"In addition to our financial contribution, Royal Caribbean will continue to provide economic support through the continuous business we bring to Labadee,” Mr. Fain added.

Leslie Voltaire, Special Envoy of the government of Haiti to the United Nations said, "Given the terrible economic and social challenges we now face in Haiti, we welcome the continuation of the positive economic benefits that the cruise ship calls to Labadee contribute to our country."

The benefits started with Royal Caribbean International’s Independence of the Seas call to Labadee, Haiti, which included much needed supplies for the country.

The supplies were loaded on the ship during her call in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and included items such as rice, dried beans, powdered milk, water and tinned goods. In addition, 100 percent of the company’s net revenue from the destination will be contributed to the relief effort.

In the next two weeks, the following ships are scheduled to call on Labadee with additional supplies: Navigator of the Seas to-day, Monday, January 18; Liberty of the Seas on Tuesday, January 19; and Celebrity Solstice on Friday, January 22. When the supplies arrive in Labadee, they will be transported to an offsite location to be distributed by Food for the Poor, a long time partner of Royal Caribbean in Haiti.

In addition to working with Food for the Poor to distribute relief supplies, passengers sailing onboard Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises will be able to make a donation to Food for the Poor’s Haiti Relief Fund, via a charge to their onboard account. Guests who would like to contribute immediately can visit http://www.foodforthepoor.org/royalcaribbean to make a donation. Royal Caribbean also plans to use a portion of the $1 million donation to augment the company’s Crew Relief Fund, which can be drawn on by any of the company’s more than 200 Haitian crew members for assistance, as well as to match employee contributions to the partner organizations.

As the initial response effort gives way to the long-term recovery effort, Royal Caribbean will consider further support efforts.

QUEEN ELIZABETH Takes to The Water

Queen Victoria Arrives Early in New York – Veendam’s Retreat – Queen Elizabeth Getting Ready – Ships at the Vancouver Olympics

 

Queen Victoria Arrives Early in New York
On the final leg of her January Transatlantic voyage from Southampton, she arrived at New York early. Her original expected time of arrival had been about 18hr but she is arriving at noon instead. Those were treated to an introduction to New York by Ted Scull, writer and author of "The 100 Best Cruise Vacations," who is giving a running commentary from the bridge.
Passenger count for the Transatlantic crossing was reported to be 1,400 Brits, 220 Germans and only 97 Americans, plus others. Queen Victoria left Southampton on Monday, 4th January. She is due back at Southampton on 22nd April.
On one of her crossings, San Francisco to Sydney on 26th January, she will be followed six days later by P&O’s Arcadia, the ship that had originally been intended to be completed as Queen Victoria before there was a change of plan and the present ship was completed to a slightly longer design.

The Veendam‘s Retreat
This year’s contracted New York-Hamilton Front Street ship is due to start her season of 24 Bermuda cruises on 25th April. But an interesting story has been circulating in the meantime about her new Retreat area. In an effort to pack a few more passengers on board, last spring Holland America built cabins into the area that used to house her aft swimming pool.
It then replaced the pool with a new area called The Retreat, in which passengers sit in deck chairs with a few inches of water around their feet. Well, the Veendam‘s Retreat has apparently been leaking onto the outer decks and has created some problems. Not only that, some more cabins have been tacked on to the ship’s back end and she now has a ducktail and balconies that overhang her aft dining room, something that has quite ruined her appearance for some.
Holland America’s Rotterdam has been given a similar treatment, but with no ducktail, and four more of its ships are expected to receive similar modifications, including cabins that will open up directly onto the open promenade deck, between now and 2013.

Queen Elizabeth Getting Ready
Cunard’s new Queen Elizabeth has transferred from her building dock to her fitting out dock in Monfalcone. From the port bow quarter she is already painted in Cunard colours but the rest of the ship is still largely in primer as her new colours are being applied. The new Cunard ocean liner was floated out 5th January, when the honourary godmother for the occasion was Dennie Farmer, whose late husband served as Chief Engineer in both the original Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth 2.
The new Queen Elizabeth, whose master, Capt Chris Well, was a former master of Queen Mary 2, sets off from Southampton on her maiden voyage on 12th October this year and her maiden world cruise will leave Southampton on 5th January 2011.

THIS WEEK’S TOPIC
Ships at the Vancouver Olympics
With the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month, several cruise ships will be arriving in a very off-season Vancouver, whose usual cruise season lasts from about May to October. Holland America’s Statendam is at Vancouver’s Ballantyne Pier, while Mona Lisa, built in 1967 as Swedish America Line’s fabulous Kungsholm, has passed through the Panama Canal, also bound for Vancouver.
With Statendam as the first arrival, two more Carnival Corporation & PLC ships will also be coming to Vancouver. Carnival Elation is due on 28th January and  Oosterdam on the 31st. These three will be chartered to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who intend to use them to house 5,000 security officers. Separately, Norwegian Star is expected on 10th February to be used as a hotel ship by Newwest Travel & Cruises of Edmonton.
Last year, Cruise Connections Charter Management launched a law suit for unspecified damages against the RCMP in the District of Columbia. This case was launched after the RCMP reneged on an original contract with Cruise Connections of Victoria to supply two ships from Carnival and one from Holland America, as Cruise Connections claimed it had lost a $13 million profit.
Originally, the deal was to have been for two Royal Caribbean ships, but this was later changed to three. The RCMP was accused of fudging the numbers in order to break that contract so that it could take advantage of the world recession to obtain lower prices.
Things did go the RCMP’s way in June 2009 when the DC court threw the law suit out on the grounds that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. But where the RCMP had wanted to get a better price, in April it had ended up settling direct with Carnival and Holland America but for a higher price.
What they got was a new contract under which they are now paying $76 million for three ships instead of $55.4 million. Where are the savings, people have been asking, as they contemplate a bill for an additional $21.4 million, but the RCMP have said that they cannot discuss the subject.
Meanwhile,Cruise Connections also launched a $75 million lawsuit against Newwest Travel, claiming that it had breached an exclusive agreement whereby they had originally agreed to bid jointly to the RCMP, something that Newwest withdrew from after its financial backer got cold feet. Meanwhile, Cruise Connections won the RCMP bid and Newwest Travel arranged a separate charter to use  Norwegian Star as a hotel ship. Where that case has gone we don’t know.
However, recently, Newwest has had to reduce its expected prices on the Norwegian Star after bookings did not come in at the originally established tariff. The starting prices has apparently now come down somewhat from the original idea of $700 per room per night for a range of 2- to 20-night packages, including meals, airport tranfers and Olympic transfers.
Norwegian Star will remain at her berth in North Vancouver for 20 days, as well as offering positioning cruises from Los Angeles via Victoria to Vancouver on 6th February, and back from Vancouver via San Francisco to Los Angeles on 2nd March, each of four days. Her 1,150 rooms will add about 10% to Vancouver’s hotel capacity for the duration of the games.
Mona Lisa, meanwhile, will be berthed up the coast a bit at Squamish, BC, which is on the road from Vancouver to the ski hills of Whistler. She will be based there from 26th January to 23rd March to house 1,000 Olympic workers, with another 1,000 ashore in Squamish and 4,000 at Whistler.
Such hotel ship charters seem to be a complicated and risky business, for everyone that is except the cruise lines, for whom it seems most lucrative.
(Source: By Mark Tré – Cybercruises.com)

Holland America Line Highlights the Yukon in 2010 Alaska & Yukon Cruise Tours

13 CruiseTours Feature Yukon Destinations

In 2010 Holland America Line highlights the magnificent wilderness of Canada’s Yukon Territory. Of its 31 Alaska and the Yukon CruiseTours, 13 include Yukon destinations such as Whitehorse, Dawson City, Tombstone Territorial Park and Kluane National Park. New in 2010 is the “Best of the Yukon” CruiseTour, one of three adventuresome Expedition CruiseTours just introduced by Holland America Line.

“With more than 60 years’ experience in Alaska and Yukon tours, Holland America creates itineraries to highlight the best and most comprehensive Yukon experiences,” said Richard D. Meadows, CTC, executive vice president, marketing, sales, and guest programmes.

CruiseTours featuring the Yukon range from 10 to 20 days in length and depart May 9 through Aug. 28, 2010. All combine a three-, four-, or seven-day Inside Passage cruise with a land tour of top destinations in Alaska and the Yukon. Guests experience the wilderness, wildlife, native culture and history while travelling by luxury motor coach, rail and often river boat.

The new “Best of the Yukon” Expedition CruiseTour is designed to provide an in-depth Yukon experience. The itinerary is 12 days with a three-day north-bound cruise or 13 days with a south-bound sailing that includes Glacier Bay. Guests visit Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon Territory, and Dawson City, a Klondike National Historic Site where they have three nights and two full days to explore its gold rush heritage, Tombstone Territorial Park and active adventures from rafting to hiking. The tour also visits Beaver Creek in the Yukon and Tok and Skagway in Alaska. It includes a Yukon River cruise aboard Yukon Queen II, Kluane National Park sightseeing, White Pass & Yukon Route Railway with Lake Bennett excursion and the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve near Haines.

Holland America Line offers six Great Land Klondike CruiseTours ranging from 11 to 15 days that all feature Whitehorse, Dawson City and Yukon Queen II river cruise between Dawson City, Yukon and Eagle, Alaska. Four of the CruiseTours also include a scenic trip on the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway via Lake Bennett between Whitehorse and Skagway. All feature an overnight in Denali National Park and the six-to-eight-hour Tundra Wilderness Tour within the park.

Four Great Land Wilderness CruiseTours ranging from 10 to 13 days offer itineraries that include Whitehorse. Here guests may enjoy a natural history presentation at the entrance to Kluane National Park or a summer sled dog demonstration by Uncommon Journeys. On two tours they can take an optional full-day excursion to Kluane, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. All Great Land Klondike and Wilderness CruiseTours are escorted by a tour director and include travel on deluxe Explorer Coaches.

Two Glacier Discovery CruiseTours offer extensive 19- or 20-day adventures that include two nights in Whitehorse and Dawson City and “Double Denali.”

CruiseTours featuring the Yukon start at US$1,249 per person, double occupancy. For more information about booking an Alaska & Yukon CruiseTour, contact Diana Lang at The Cruise People, Ltd., her number is 1-800-961-5536 Ext 24.

Ceremonies Mark the Float Out of the World’s Newest Queen

Courtesy Cunard Line

Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth Reaches Major Milestone
Special ceremonies at Fincantieri’s Monfalcone shipyard near Trieste, Italy, were held yesterday to mark the float out of Cunard’s newest liner, Queen Elizabeth. Cunard’s President and Managing Director, Peter Shanks, was joined by 79-year-old Florence (Dennie) Farmer, who served as guest of honour at the event. Mrs. Farmer’s husband, Willie Farmer, joined Cunard in September 1938 and served as Chief Engineer on both the first Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth 2 until his retirement in October 1979. Since her husband’s passing, Mrs. Farmer has sailed with Cunard many times and her link with the two previous Queen Elizabeth ships is unparalleled. In recognition of this, Cunard has bestowed Mrs. Farmer with the honour, in Italian tradition, of being "Madrina" to the third Queen Elizabeth.

The first ceremony involved the welding of significant coins beneath the mast of Queen Elizabeth for good luck. Three coins were chosen – a half crown dated 1938 (the year the first RMS Queen Elizabeth was launched), a sovereign dated 1967 (the year RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was launched) and a sovereign dated 2010 (to acknowledge the new Queen Elizabeth being floated out in 2010).

After the coin ceremony, the focus moved to the dockside, where the liner was blessed and a bottle of Italian prossecco was smashed against the hull by the Madrina. The valves of the dry dock were then opened and the liner met the water for the first time.

"It is only a little over six months since the keel for this great ship was laid. In that short time, a solitary block at the bottom of the dry dock has, as a result of the skill and discipline of the workforce here at Fincantieri, grown into this awe-inspiring vessel," said Mr. Shanks. "Even in her present unfinished state, devoid of the carpets and curtains, furnishings and facilities, paintings and porcelain that we associate with a Cunard luxury liner, she is awesome. Of our 170 years of history, there has been an ‘Elizabeth’ in the fleet for more than 70 and this ship – the second largest Cunarder ever built -will take the name far into the 21st Century."

Queen Elizabeth will feature many unique Cunard traditions linking her with her fleetmates, RMS Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, and their predecessors. She also will feature all the modern day luxuries Cunard passengers have come to expect. Additionally, there will be features that will give the vessel her own style and personality.

The first Queen Elizabeth was one of Cunard’s greatest ships, and the new Queen Elizabeth will reflect her predecessor in interior grandeur, décor and style, but with a modern twist. From the outside, her distinctive black and red livery will hint at an experience that differentiates a Cunard vessel from a modern-day cruise ship. This will be most evident in the ship’s adherence to liner traditions, with elegant double- and triple-height public rooms on a grand scale, luxuriously endowed with rich wood panelling, intricate mosaics, hand-woven carpets, gleaming chandeliers and cool marbles. Art Deco features will pay homage to the original Queen Elizabeth and will allow the new ship to reflect a more civilized era of travel.

As successor to RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, the ship will also reflect this great liner through artwork and memorabilia, and her very own "Yacht Club." Queen Elizabeth will acknowledge the links that Cunard has enjoyed with royalty and the maritime world over the years with photography, memorabilia and exhibits.

Queen Elizabeth‘s Maiden Voyage, now sold out, will depart on Tuesday 12 October 2010. This 13-night celebration will leave from the company’s home port in Southampton (UK), and will call at Vigo, Lisbon, Cadiz, Las Palmas, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (overnight call) and Funchal.

Her inaugural season will run from October 2010 to January 2011 and include cruises to the Western and Central Mediterranean and the Caribbean. Fares for the ship’s 13-day Iberian Discovery voyage start from US$2,620 per person, based on double occupancy. Departing roundtrip from Southampton on December 1, Queen Elizabeth will visit Vigo, Lisbon, Cadiz, Grand Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma and Madeira.

Queen Elizabeth will depart Southampton on 5 January 2011 on her 103-night epic Inaugural world cruise, which has just opened for sale. This tour will feature 35 inaugural calls, including Cunard’s first call ever at Port Denarau (Fiji). In total, Queen Elizabeth will call at 38 ports in 23 countries as she makes her way west around the globe, with transits of both the Panama and Suez Canals and calls at Los Angeles, Auckland, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Lisbon.

Queen Elizabeth will be in great company, as her fleetmates will be on hand for several Cunard Royal Rendezvous meetings during the voyage: she will sail in tandem en route to New York with Queen Victoria before all three Cunard Queens meet in New York on 13 January; she will meet RMS Queen Mary 2 in Sydney on 22 February and in Civitavecchia on 13 April; and she will meet Queen Victoria again in Aruba on 19 January.

For more information about Cunard and to book a voyage aboard Queen Elizabeth, consult The Cruise People, call toll-free 1-800-961-5536 or email The Cruise People.