Why are cruise ships always named after women?

Who's her you ask, the cats mother?
But it's a good point I think; why are cruise ships always named after women, or refereed to as a her? Off the top of my head, and I'm prepared to stand corrected here, I could only think of one cruise ship currently in service named after a man and that's the Paul Gauguin, named after the French impressionist of the same name. So why is this; how did this situation arise?
Well as always there's no easy answer to the question, however there are a couple of pretty good theories to explain it........

The dark side of cruise lines

I received a really interesting email today from a lady that writes an educational blog in America. She wrote a blog back in March about the darker side of the cruise industry and I thought I'd share it all with you.
For instance, did you know.....
Since 2006 Carnival corporation has made $11.3 billion in cumulative profits, but has only paid 1.1% of that out in taxes or that quite often ships are registered in foreign countries to deliberately avoid U.S and U.K labour laws?

For these and even more interesting facts feel free to click the link below.

Did you know........Inside secrets of the cruise lines. 

Happy cruising

Only 9 days now!

Well its finally here, our Christmas countdown has finally reached single figures; there’s only 9 shopping days left till Christmas! Let's hope you're all ready, you don't want to be out shopping on Christmas eve like I always am.
As always click below for todays Christmas advent treat.

16 days left till Xmas

Merry Christmas everyone. For todays advent treat read on to find out how we very nearly lost Christmas altogether.

My 100th Blog Post!

I know it's only another number. I know if you start counting from one you'll eventually reach it, but still, one hundred is a bit of a milestone. It's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, from ash clouds to ship launches; B.A strikes to world cup wins and defeats.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you constant readers out there who have followed my blog for the last few months; I appreciate you all coming back to check out my latest post and wanted to say how much I appreciate all of your comments/questions/musings. Thank you all.
I thought it would be fun to take this opportunity to look back over the last few months and list my personal top ten favourite posts. I might also have a word with one of our I.T gremlins to see what the most popular posts were by numbers and see how they compare.

What the Canary Islands are really named after............Part Two.

Whoops!
I recently wrote a blog about where the Canary Islands got their name from, turns out, after several angry emails, that the situation isn’t quite as cut and dry as I made it seem. Accepted history is, as I blogged, that the Canary Islands are named after the dogs, (see my previous blog), whist the birds are named after the Canary Islands from which they come, rather than the other way around.

Sounds confusing?

What animal are the Canary Islands named after?

Wrong, sorry. Anyone you just said canarys can go to the back of the class. The little yellow birds that Tweety Pie is based on are called Canarys because they come from the Canary Islands, not the other way around.
The archipelago actually gets its name from dogs.
The Romans, upon first discovering the islands called them the Isle of Dogs, so their modern name is derived from the old Latin Insula Canaria, after the large number of both wild and domesticated dogs they found there.
Dogs have been important in the Canary Islands in all known history, going right back to the ancient, Guanche, inhabitants. Archaeological excavations in several burial caves in Tenerife have shown that the dog was buried with his master, so it could "guide the soul to the region of the dead".
The importance of dogs to the islands continues right through to today, with dogs even being a main feature on the official coat of arms for the islands.

Happy Cruising

How many of you have ever cruised to Bangkok?

Wrong, sorry.

The answer is no one, strange as it sounds there’s no such place and hasn’t been for centuries.