Cruise line Godmothers - What do they actually do?

At the risk of committing blasphemy to certain cruisers this question has been bugging me for awhile now........
What do the Godmothers of cruise ships actually do?
As far as I can see they turn up for the launch party, maybe the inaugural cruise and then that's it.
Then they're never heard from again!

MSC Opera - I'm in love with Italian style cruising!

In case you didn't already know I spent all of Tuesday just gone down in Southampton visiting the MSC Opera. As is the case every time I visit a new cruise ship I've put together a bit of a virtual 'pictorial' tour of the ship for you. Before you have a look at them however let me tell you a bit about my impressions of her.

I was so impressed!

If I'm going to be quite honest with you I was a little apprehensive traveling down to Southampton. Whilst I have spoken to plenty of people who have loved sailing on her I was also aware she wasn't to everyones taste. She is after all an Italian cruise ship and the Italians have a unique way of doing things which not everyone will enjoy. I also knew there were bigger, newer, 'better' MSC ships in the fleet like the Fantasia.

Well all I have to say to that now is lets have three cheers for the Italian way of doing things and if there are better MSC ships out there I for one can't wait to see them!

E-Tickets; the whats, whys and wherefores.....

Cruise E-tickets. Always a controversial subject and one of the most common complaints for modern cruisers, but why do they annoy so many people? After all airlines have been using e-tickets for years.
I think the problem stems from the perception ,(quite rightly), that many people have about cruising.
Cruising is stylish, sophisticated, elegant and luxurious so turning up at the port with a piece of paper you've printed out yourself just doesn't sit right with some people. Especially as it was only a few years ago when all the cruise lines where sending out ticket 'packs' to people that included luggage labels, excursion information and their tickets. Indeed some cruise lines even went so far as to send this information in a nice leather wallet that people could bring with them. But no more I'm afraid.

Cryptic clues cruise crossword -

Thanks again to Pete from our forums at www.cruises.co.uk for supplying the clues to todays cryptic clues cruise crossword, (now there's a tounge twister for you)!
All of this weeks clues are based on occupations you might find on a typical cruise ship.

Happy cruising

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Why does it always rain at the weekend?

Why does it always rain at the weekend?
Or does it?
Looking back at my childhood it always seemed that whenever we had a family trip or holiday planned it would rain non-stop at the weekend. At the time I just chalked it up to sods law, (I didn't call it sods law as a child obviously), and made the best of it but it turns out my child self might not of just been unlucky. It really does rain more at the weekend.........

Have you ever cruised in a staff cabin?

One of the questions I get asked a lot about cruising is 'where do the crew sleep at night?'
On one memorable occasion I remember one person asked me if the crew went home at night!
The easy answer is that staff and crew cabins tend to be below the water line at the bottom of the ship; well out of the way of the guests.
The staff quarters tend to be a lot smaller and more crammed in than guests cabins but can be quite nice still.
A lot of guests sometimes show an interest in crew cabins and want to see them but they're normally told that the cruise line won't allow this.
However after a phone call to a cruise line this morning I've found out not only can you view some crew cabins you could book a cruise in one if you wanted!

Does the nationality of your cruise staff matter?

Unusually for me I actually feel a little awkward talking about this, (I never normally feel awkward talking about anything), but a lot of my passengers spend a lot of time either talking or thinking about this when they are planning their next cruise.
Does the nationality of your cabin crew and waiting staff on your cruise ship make a difference to you?

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

I was talking to a past passenger recently about an Alaskan cruise he wanted to book. He wanted to cruise in 2012 but also had several strict requirements that the cruise had to include. After adding a couple of nights to his cruise in a hotel at the start and end of the holiday we managed to include everything that he wanted.
It was whilst researching his requirements however that I came across some interesting facts and figures about Alaska that, (being the geek I am), I couldn't resist sharing with you........

P&Os big ships - Are there too many cabins?

The rumour mills have been buzzing recently with the news of P&Os new superliner due for launch in 2015 and speculation has been rife as to what extras P&O will be adding onboard to make this ship 'extra special'.
Anyone who regularly reads my blog will know that I absolutely love the big cruise ships; Oasis of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, the Celebrity Eclipse and their like. One of, if not the only reason I love these ships so much is that there is always so much to do onboard, with loads of features that you just don't see on the smaller cruise ships.

Which do you prefer...........?

I was chatting with a past passenger of mine last week who happened to be looking at a 36 night cruise. We had a bit of a laugh and a joke about how jealous of her I was as I've always wanted to book a really long cruise. Not necessarily a world cruise but something like cruising to the Caribbean and back from Southampton, about a month or so long.
I've never done it though as I just can't afford to take that long off work or spend that long away from home; but it did get me thinking about which option is better, one really long cruise a year or two or three short ones? (Obviously the best option would be two or three long cruises but you'd need a lot of money for that)!

30th Birthday blues

Just a quick one today guys and gals. I'm going to be out of the office for the next week or so so you won't hear from me for a bit. I'm down to Southampton on Friday for a day visit to the Fred Olsen Balmoral, (You can read my review of her next week, so make sure you check back), then I turn 30 on the weekend.
I'm just going away for a few days with the family to celebrate the fact that I'm getting really old now.
In the meantime if you need anything you can contact my colleauges on 0800 408 6200 or you can check out this link here for your daily blog fix.

Happy cruising

The secrets of Royal Caribbean - A round up

This is just going to be a quick round up post for you all today.
recentley Ive been writing about some of the hidden gems available onboard Royal Caribbeans ships. Just little known facts about them that you may not have realised before. However I've noticed that the different posts are all scattered over the last couple of months so I thought it might be helpful for you to collate them all in one place for ease of use.....

Let's hope they're insured

Does anyone know if the Captain of P&Os Oriana is female?
Ok, Ok before all the hate mail starts I'm just joking but have you seen the pictures of her after her little accident?

Royal Caribbeans cow room

No I'm not going mad there really is a room on the Independence of the Seas called the cow room.
Once again continuing with my series of posts I'm writing about the little known features of some Royal Caribbean ships.......... did you know the Independence of the Seas has a cow room?

Disembarking from a Cunard ship.

For anyone who's ever booked a cruise through me, (or cruise.co.uk), you'll know we pride ourselves on our customer service. Part of this service is calling people back after the end of their cruise to make sure everything went according to plan and that they enjoyed the cruise. The service doesn't stop with us collecting your money like with some companies, we like to make sure you enjoyed the cruise we booked for you.
Following on from these calls though I've been noticing a trend with the disembarkation process from Cunard and I was wondering how many others had experienced this......

Glass bottomed cruise ships

We were talking in the office today about the new P&O ship that has just been announced to be built and launched exclusively for the UK market in 2015. It's going to be the biggest and apparently, the most innovative of all the P&O ships currently in service.

With all the new ships either out at the moment or to be released soon we were wondering what P&O could do to make her stand out from the crowd.

As you've probably guessed from the title of this post we think we've come up with an idea that might help them.......

An ash cloud follow up

Now that the dust, (or ash), is finally settling, (pun intended), from the latest series of eruptions from Iceland I thought I'd just give you a quick round up of the news, what's happened, where we're going from here in the short term and what's likely to happen in the future.