Lobster golf balls!

And the award for most pointless improvement goes to......

I came across this story earlier today and thought to myself that I just had to share it with you.
Now we all know cruise lines will go to extreme lengths to keep guests happy onboard, paying attention to the smallest details of your cruise holiday. Indeed, I think I've said it before here that it tends to be the silly little small details that can really make a holiday. But have they finally gone one step too far.......?

Star Clippers - What are they like?

This cruise line is rapidly becoming a bit of an obsession of mine. I really, really want to go on a cruise with Star Clippers!
The problem is my wife isn't a huge cruise fan, (she loves the holidays, she's just got a bit of a phobia of being out at sea). She's happy on the big cruise ships but something like Star Clippers puts her off a little. The thing is these ships really are amazing. I thought it might help others in the same sort of position as myself, either wondering whether to go or trying to convince others to go with them, if I posted a bit of info about them for you today.

QM2 vs Independence of the Seas

I've been watching a show recently, (I think it was originally on Bravo), called Deadliest Warrior. It's a semi historical show where two groups of 'practical' historians will represent a warrior from the past ie a Ninja vs a Samurai. They test all the different weapons/armour that these warriors had to offer, (normally on an un-suspecting crash test dummy), and then at the end of the show all the data is collected and loaded into a computer which then determines who would of won in a fight, had they ever of met in real life.

It's actually quite fun and at they end they get two actors to enact the final result, it's definitely worth a watch.

The point of all this is that it's given me an idea for a series of blogs based on the same principal. I'm going to pitch two different ships together in a head to head 'fight' to see who comes out on top. The first match will be between.........

Did you know..........

You all know how much I love weird facts and figures, or you should do by know, so when I came across this little statistic I had to share it with you.
A countries Naval power is measured in one of two ways. You can measure it in terms of its deployment power, which measures it's ability to deploy it's troops to a war zone, ie most aircraft carriers etc. In these terms America has the largest Navy followed by the UK.
The second way normally used to measure a counties Naval power is in terms of gross tonnage, ie who has the largest, most powerful ships. Again using this technique America come out top, again followed by the UK.

A first hand review of ...........Hurtigruten

One of my past passengers recentley just came back from a cruise on Hurtigruten, (a cruise line specalising in cruises above the Northern circle for anyone who hasn't read my previous blogs on this cruise line), and they wrote this review when they returned which they have asked me to share with you.
If anyone else has ever sailed with Hurtigruten you'll have to let me know if their comments match up with your experiences. Do you agree with them? Or have you anything further to add for anyone thinking of booking a Hurtigruten cruise?
If you wish to read the other posts I have written about Hurtigruten, you will find the word Hurtigruten highlighted in blue at the botton of this post. If you click this it will load up all the old posts about them.

Is Sorrento a city or a town?

Help me settle an argument. This was bouncing around the office yesterday and we're fairly divided on the answer.......
Is Sorrento a town or a city?

Your regular cruise crossword

Has it been two weeks already? Well not to worry your regular cruise themed crossword is here again. This weeks edition has been themed on Cruise ship names.

Enjoy

Top ten reasons to book a .............River Cruise

I've been looking at a lot of 'niche' market cruises for passengers lately. People looking to try something completely different to what they are used to. River cruises used to be considered 'niche' but to be honest more and more people seem to be trying them. And quite rightly, they offer some amazing opportunities that you just don't get with ocean going cruises.....

Update about Kosher dining at sea

Don't worry I'm not going to be getting up on my soapbox today about the standards of Halal and Kosher food at sea again. For a change it's actually some good news I'm sharing regarding this little pet hate of mine.
We had a rep in from Crystal Cruises  the other day talking to us about Crystal cruises, (duh). Just chatting to him it turns out Crystal have been doing Kosher food at sea for awhile now, and unlike most other cruise lines doing it well.

How to avoid the Norovirus on a cruise ship

This is one of those subjects that tends to gain and lose prominence in the media and the public consciousness depending on what else is going on. However for some reason I’ve had a lot of passengers calling me lately worried about it on their cruise ship. They have been, quite rightly, worried about catching this and not being able to enjoy the cruise. The funny thing is with just a few simple precautions there really isn’t any reason for this to spoil your cruise holiday.

What would you like from these blogs?

I was looking through some old blog posts today when I realised I'd been writing this blog for nearly a year. I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. For todays post I'm looking for a bit of feedback to try and find out just how much you've enjoyed it.
It's fairly easy to keep a track of how many people have been reading my posts but the question I wanted to ask you all today was why.

Which of my posts have you enjoyed the most.
The descriptions of the ships?
The advice for first time cruisers?
The jokes?
The games?
Is there anything you'd like to see me add going forward? Or change? Or see more of? As I've said I'm glad you've all enjoyed things up till now but I'd love to get some feedback on what you've thought so far and what you'd like to see added. (Fingers crossed you vote for more ship reviews as it'll mean work will have to send me down to Southampton more).

So let me know what you think and I'll see what I can do.

And as always, happy cruising

Top ten reasons to book with...........Hurtigruten

You may have read a few posts I've written about Hurtigruten before. They're very much a 'niche' market cruise line, sailing people up beyond the Northern Circle.
To learn more about them you can click here, here or here to read my old posts. In them I've tried to describe who Hurtigruten are and what they have offer. Today I'm going to really try and hammer it home with a top ten list of activities/excursion you can enjoy whilst cruising with Hurtigruten.

Win a free World Cruise for P&Os 175th anniversary!

Did you know P&O is 175 years old next year? I know they're part of the Carnival corporation now but they're still British run and there's not many other companies that can claim a record that long.
As you'd expect for their cruises 2012 they've got a lot of plans with new cruises, destinations and deals planned.
The bit I'm most interested in for 2012 though has to be the date of their anniversary, 03rd July 2012!

Name your own cruise ship.........

It's a busy time at the moment in the cruising world. We're all getting ready for the cruises 2012 release, there's new ships being launched this summer, with the gossip being there's going to be even more for 2013 and 2014. All the new ships for 2011 have been named now;
The Seabourn Quest,
The Celebrity Silhouette,
And the Costa Favolosa just to name a few. Most of the ships for 2012, 2013 and 2014 though have yet to be named, so.......

What are you giving up for lent?

I don't know if any of you read my blog the other day on whether you should cruise with MSC or not. If you missed it you can read it by clicking here.
Someone reading it obviously wasn't too keen on MSC and said my recommendation of them sounded like a used car salesmans!
A little unfair I thought as I'd made a conscious effort to give the good and bad points of the cruise. I suppose I may have come across enthusiastic but that's just how I talk about cruising in general, it's not just MSC. I'm a big cruising fan and I'm on the hunt right now for my next cruise.

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

How many cruises do/should you book a year?

I suppose the easy answer to that is: 'As many as I can!'
Which is really the point of todays blog. Which is it better to do do you think? Book one 6 star cruise a year? Or several 4/5 star cruises for a cheaper price? One luxury cruise? Or several 'normal' cruises?
It's a difficult question to answer because it's so subjective, it really does depend on the person/persons. But there are a few pointers that might help you make up your mind.

Your regular cruise crossword - Cruise Lines

Sorry everyone, I know you haven't had your cruise crossword for the last couple of weeks but as you're all probably aware I've been off on Paternity leave for the last couple of weeks. I hope you haven't missed your fix of cruise related cruise clues too badly; hopefully todays puzzle will make up for it.
This weeks cruise clues are all made up from cruise line names.
Have fun.

Calling all Gingers

I'd like to take the opportunity today to talk to you all about a subject that is very dear to my heart. I hope you'll all read this and take it seriously, perhaps even forward it on to your friends/family. It's an emotive issue with an entire population of people at risk of extinction.
If you only do one thing today, do this!

Should I book a cruise with MSC?

We've had a lot of fantastic deals with MSC recently, with a range of free flights, onboard credit and cheap cruise prices, so as you can imagine I've been recommending MSC lately to a lot of people. The problem is that MSC has somehow gotten itself a bit of a bad name with the British public so that a lot of people weren't too happy with the idea of cruising with them.
But why is that?

Did you know...........?

Anyone that's been following my blog for awhile now will know that I love weird and wacky facts and figures. The more outlandish the better!
I was talking to a client yesterday, booking him a transatlantic cruise when he mentioned offhand a comment about New York and London. I wasn't sure how true it was but after a littler bit of research, (Yahoo answers I'm afraid), It turns out he was right.

Top ten .......Worst things to happen in the morning.

I was reading the paper this morning when I came across this survey conducted by Gregs about the things people most hate to happen to them first thing in the morning.
It made me smile because so many things I hate about early mornings was on there so I thought I'd share the list with you today to see if you agree with it or if you could add any more to the it.

How to book a cruise to imaginary places….

One question I get asked a lot from more experienced cruisers is how they can make their cruise holiday 'extra special'.
Obviously all cruise holidays are special, especially if it's your first cruise, but once you've sailed the Med a couple of times you can be left with a feeling of.....
'What should I do next?'
It's at this stage that most cruisers start to look further afield, the Caribbean, the Far East, Alaska, Australia etc. But again they're faced with the same problems of once they've done them, where do they go next?