Oceania Double Bonus Savings on Alaska Cruises

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Image via Wikipedia

To celebrate its inaugural Alaska season, Oceania Cruises has announced Double Bonus Savings on 10 new voyages for summer 2011. The limited-time promotion offers per stateroom savings of US$1,000 off cruise fares plus a $1,000 shipboard credit on top of two-for-one prices and free airfare. In addition, third and fourth guests in a stateroom may travel for $999 per person, cruise-only.

Depending on the cruise, scenic highlights encompass Hubbard Glacier, the Gulf of Alaska, Tracy Arm and College Fjord. With two-for-one cruise fares and Double Bonus Savings, a 10-day Alaska cruise starts at just $2,999 per person, based on double occupancy. This special offer expires Dec. 31, 2010.

“We are offering our best fares ever on our inaugural Alaska sailings as we kick-off the traditional Alaska selling season,” stated Bob Binder, president of Oceania Cruises. “We have a long-standing tradition of offering the best fares and promotions up-front to reward our loyal guests and encourage them to book their preferred voyage and accommodations as early as possible.”

Distinctly Different Alaska Cruises

Known for its award-winning itineraries to the world’s most alluring ports, Oceania Cruises inaugural Alaska cruises explore the Inside Passage in depth. Itinerary highlights include at least one full day exploring the Inside Passage and one or two complete days of glacier viewing on every cruise, as well as a mix of marquee as well as off-the-beaten-path ports. In addition to Sitka, Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan, itineraries feature quaint, less-visited outposts, such as Kodiak, Homer and Hoonah.

For example, Oceania Cruises’ 12-day Glacial Wilderness voyages, between Anchorage and Vancouver, sail directly to Anchorage, affording spectacular scenery and convenience. The line’s 10-day Frontiers and Glaciers cruises, roundtrip from Vancouver, not only offer guests the best of the Inside Passage, but also a taste of the Gulf of Alaska with a visit to remote Kodiak. Majestic Alaska cruises, which operate round-trip from San Francisco, present a comprehensive Alaska experience in 14 days. Oceania Cruises’ 12-day Alaskan Grandeur sailings between San Francisco and Vancouver combine the Inside Passage with the charm of coastal towns in the Pacific Northwest.

“We offer the most in-depth experience possible on each and every cruise,” added Binder. “Our mid-size ships and extended voyages are the perfect way to explore Alaska.” 

Choose From Four Intriguing Itineraries

• Majestic Alaska – 14 days roundtrip from San Francisco, a maiden port for Oceania Cruises, visiting Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia; Sitka, Hoonah, Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan, Alaska; and Astoria, Ore. Departures: May 12, Aug. 26.
• Alaskan Grandeur – 12 days between San Francisco and Vancouver. Ports include Astoria and Victoria, as well as Wrangell, Juneau, Hoonah, Sitka and Ketchikan. Departures: May 26, Aug. 14.
• Frontiers and Glaciers – 10 days roundtrip from Vancouver, calling at Sitka, Hoonah, Kodiak, Wrangell and Ketchikan. Departures: June 7, Aug. 4.
• Glacial Wilderness – 12 days between Vancouver and Anchorage, with visits to Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, Hoonah, Skagway, Sitka, Seward and Homer. Departures: June 17 and 29, July 11 and 23.

Enjoy Gourmet Pacific Northwest Specialties

Travellers will discover Alaska aboard Oceania Cruises’ 684-passenger Regatta – an intimate ship known for her cuisine, luxurious public rooms and accommodations, and attentive service. As a special highlight, Pacific Northwest specialties will be featured during lunch in the casual Terrace Café and in the ship’s elegant Grand Dining Room. Regional specialties will also be showcased in all four of the ship’s open-seating restaurants; all of which are available with no surcharge.

When provisioning locally, the ship’s executive chef seeks the freshest catch and shellfish, making on-the-spot decisions. Consequently, not all selections will always be available and there may be surprise menu additions. Depending on the voyage and venue, appetizers might include Fresh Halibut Velouté – a creamy fish soup with saffron rice and julienne leeks – or Alaskan King Crab Legs, sure to be a passenger favourite.

For reservations or to order a brochure, contact Dian Lang, with 38 years Alaska experience at The Cruise People 1-800-961-5536 Ext 24

Atlantic Crossings

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Cunard Line has now been sailing for over 170 years and RMS Queen Mary 2 has almost completed seven seasons on the North Atlantic, very often running full. Meanwhile,  Queen Victoria has done the occasional voyage, as will the new Queen Elizabeth next year. These are usually January crossings in conjunction with world cruises.

As the season of positioning voyages has just started, it is worth having a look at just how many such voyages are now available. According to the Official Steamship Guide, which includes voyages to North America and the Caribbean, there will be twenty-five Transatlantic voyages in October, nineteen in November and three in December.
Norwegian Cruise Line will provide four of the October voyages, with three voyages each by Celebrity, Holland America, NCL, P&O and Star Clippers, and single crossings by Princess, Royal Caribbean, SeaDream and Silversea.

Cunard will also do three crossings in November, joined by two each from Royal Caribbean, Seabourn and Windstar and single voyages from Azamara, Celebrity, Holland America, Oceania, Regent, SeaDream, Silversea and Voyages of Discovery. Single December sailings will also be provided by each of Crystal, Princess and Seabourn.

Among these positioning voyages, to take just one example, Norwegian Sun will leave Dover next week, on October 4, for a 12-night crossing to Port Canaveral. This is quite a bargain as fares are being quoted as low as US$399 per person for an inside cabin, $499 for an outside or $1,299 for a verandah, plus taxes and fees.
Such crossings, other than Queen Mary 2, are only seasonal, however, and those who wish to cross at other times, if they can’t find a suitable date for  Queen Mary 2, have to fall back on the weekly container ships of Independent Container Line or MSC or the twice-monthly bulk carriers of the Polish Steamship Company that run from Amsterdam into the Great Lakes. All of these carry about half a dozen passengers on their regular crossings of the Atlantic.

New Years HAL OOSTERDAM 26 Dec 10

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Our group space aboard this Holland America New Years cruise gone.  If interested in a New Years cruise for 2011-12 let us know and we will set up a group.

Voyages of Discovery New Brochure

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We now have a supply of brochures for programmes in Northern Europe, The Med., and The Black Sea for the time frame Apr-Nov 11.

HAL NOORDAM Christmas Group

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Special pricing and shipboard credit for our group on HAL’s NOORDAM 23 Dec. Christmas sailing now gone.

If interested in Christmas and/or New Years 2011-12 please advise us now for best pricing and selection.

LiveJournal Tags: Christmas cruise,New Years cruise

Blount Small Ship Adventures – Brochures

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Go where the big ships cannot.

Cruise Catalogue 2011 –United States, Canada and Caribbean.

Call The Cruise People, Ltd. to receive your free copy.

Fortnum & Mason Goes To Sea

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by Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"

People used to be able to shop at Harrod’s only shop at sea when RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 was in service, but now another luxury retail name, Fortnum & Mason, will be going to sea aboard the new Queen Elizabeth when she enters service in less than a month’s time. Founded in 1707, Fortnum & Mason, is to-day owned by the Weston family, different branches of which also control the high-end department store Selfridges and low-cost fashion outlet Primark and Loblaws and No Frills in Canada.

The shipboard Fortnum & Mason will offer a selection of teas, preserves, biscuits and gifts. Its main shop, in London’s Piccadilly, has held royal warrants since 1863 (hence its nickname as "the queen’s grocer"), and it has two branches in Japan. The Weston family, meanwhile, made its fortune in bakeries and biscuits in Canada, where Samuel Cunard had been born a century earlier in Halifax. It is not yet known whether one particular Fortnum & Mason gift, a pair of skull and crossbones cuff links that sells for £110, will be stocked on board Queen Elizabeth.

BuzzNet Tags: Queen Elizabeth,Fortnum & Mason,Loblaws,No Frills,Samuel Cunard,shipboard Shops

Cruise West Closes its Doors

After operating as a family business since 1947, Cruise West finally closed its doors after a summer-long struggle for survival. With the exception of its October 22 Danube cruise, which is operated by Lüftner Cruises, all Cruise West operations have now finished. And like the Danube operation, Canodrus, Cruise West’s Galapagos partner, says it will come up with alternatives for 2011 and Cruise West clients should contact them directly.
Down under, meanwhile, Orion Expedition Cruises is offering between 20% and 50% off various departures as a gesture towards Cruise West passengers who have definite future bookings but have been disappointed by the withdrawal of Spirit of Oceanus.

The latter ship’s new owners are TN Cruise K/S of Denmark, who have taken delivery at Freeport, Bahamas. This deal was put together by International Shipping Partners of Miami, who already operate sister ship Constellation II for Travel Dynamics, and manage a number of other small-to-medium-size cruise ships for Clipper Group, also of Denmark.

Passengers who have been stranded by Cruise West’s demise have been advised to claim against their travel insurers or their credit card companies first. For people who paid by cash or cheque, for departures from US ports Cruise West maintained a Federal Maritime Commission bond with Wells Fargo Disability Management in Abingdon, Virginia, and for departures from non-US ports a $1 million bond with the US Tour Operators Association in New York, which will only pay out pro rata over the total number and amount of claims received.

If you are affected, full details of what to do are given at the former cruise line’s web site at www.cruisewest.com

 

No clients of The Cruise People, Ltd. are effected.

New Official Portrait of HM The Queen Unveiled

 

Cunard Line has commissioned an official portrait of The Queen for the new Queen Elizabeth, due to be named by Her Majesty next month.

This new official portrait was unveiled by the artist at a private event at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The portrait, which shows The Queen in the Yellow Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, was painted by 31-year-old Lancashire-born Isobel Peachey. Although an accomplished award-winning portrait artist, she had never before been commissioned to paint a royal portrait.

She says:

“At my interview with Cunard, I answered many questions about how I would approach an important commission – but it was only at the end of the interview that the subject was revealed as The Queen. This was both a shock and a marvellous surprise”, said Ms Peachey.

Commenting on how the artist was chosen, Cunard’s President and Managing Director, Peter Shanks, said, “Apart from being impressed by the quality of Isobel’s work, which we originally saw on display in the National Portrait Gallery, we were keen to offer the commission to a young artist who had never before had such an opportunity. Isobel is, in fact, the youngest female artist ever to paint the monarch, and the quality of the finished work is such that our confidence has been greatly rewarded. It is a truly wonderful picture of Her Majesty. It is even more remarkable when you consider that, lacking a private studio, she executed this magnificent painting in her mum’s attic!”

The Queen granted three sittings for the portrait, a three-quarter length painting which shows her dressed in blue and wearing Queen Victoria’s collet necklace and earrings, which she also wore for her Coronation in 1953.

The Queen will see the finished portrait for the first time on 11 October when she visits Southampton to name the new liner Queen Elizabeth. The portrait will hang in a prominent position in the ship’s Grand Lobby.

Joe Farcus Changes His Focus

by kind permission of Mark Tre’ – "The Cruise Examiner"
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Joe Farcus, Carnival Cruise Line’s chief interior designer architect since 1977, seems to be slowing down a bit these days and recently it was announced that Carnival Magic would be the last Carnival ship on which he would be the lead architect. At the age of 66, he is not yet ready to retire but will evidently be concentrating more on new ships for Costa.

Partner Ship Design of Germany will meanwhile take the lead on Carnival Breeze, while Mr. Farcus does the theatre and casino. His last two ships were Carnival Dream and Costa Deliziosa.

And Costa still has Costa Favolosa and Costa Fascinosa to come in 2011 and 2012 and may yet order more. Partner Ship Design, meanwhile, has already worked on other Carnival Group ships such as several Aida ships, including Aidablu and Aidasol and the next of that class, and  Ventura and Azura for P&O, the two Ocean Village ships, and previous Carnival work on Carnival Fantasy during her refurbishment in 2007.

Mr. Farcus first worked with Morris Lapidus, designer of many famous Miami Beach hotels, culminating in the Fontainebleau and the Eden Roc. While there, he worked on Carnivale, Carnival’s second acquisition, and later branched out to work for his own account on Festivale, Carnival’s third ship, in 1977. Since that time he has headed up the interior design work on 40 Carnival ships, as well as worked on early Holland America newbuildings after that fleet became part of the Carnival Group, and more recently all the new Costa ships.

But his best-known work is the Carnival ships, where every ship has its own theme and no two are the same. It is these that will remain his legacy. His works have ranged from statues of Marilyn Monroe sitting at a bar on  Fascination to Egyptian mummies, buses or cars parked in the promenade decks and strobe lights in Carnival dining rooms to accompany the dancing waiters, another Carnival tradition that has also now moved to Costa.

Let’s take just two ships as recent examples. For Carnival Conquest,  Mr. Farcus used the idea of the impressionist paintings as the launch pad to decorate this ship. There are impressionist reproductions and impressions thereof, for instance in Murano lighting fixtures, throughout the ship, and the ship’s main show lounge takes its name from the contemporary Moulin Rouge of Toulouse Lautrec fame.

The ship’s dining rooms are equally named for Monet and Renoir and the casino for Tahiti, the latter day home of Paul Gauguin, while the ship also has a Matisse piano bar. Such works have been the man’s trademark.

For Carnival Legend, he used the idea of great legends, featuring the Colossus of Rhodes in its entry decoration, and a main restaurant called Truffles, named after the legendary food, with walls decorated with samples of china.

Her casual restaurant is named for the legendary Unicorn (which also happened to be the name of the first Cunard ship to cross the Atlantic).

Further lounges on the Legend take their cue from the legend of the Golden Fleece, the name of its supper club, and the Merlin Casino, following the legendary court of King Arthur and the Round Table. The jazz club is called Satchmo’s, after the musical legend Louis Armstrong, while another music venue is named for Billie Holliday.

Many are surprised by this move but Joe Farcus is now 66 and might like to slow down a bit from the pace of being involved with so many ships at the same time. Nevertheless, there is a feeling in the background that since Gerry Cahill took over as Carnival president from Bob Dickinson, he has been trying to move Carnival in a slightly different, more sophisticated direction – his own "Evolutions of Fun" as it were.

And while Partner Ship Design have done previous work for Carnival lines, they have also worked on more high end ships such as Sea Cloud and River Cloud as well as Peter Deilmann’s Deutschland. From here on in, it is pretty certain that Carnival ships will change from their more exuberant (some even say crazy) themes of earlier years, and away from what has come to be known as "Farchitecture."