Cruise Lines

Science was never my strong subject at school so imagine my glee when I was able to answer the question "what is ice?" posed by Steffen Biersack, the geologist and lecturer onboard this Fram cruise in Greenland.

No trick. The answer is frozen water - and I did get it right! - but I have to admit some of the rest of his lecture on ice went straight over my head. Still fascinating though.

And it's what this Hurtigruten expedition cruising is all about. No shows with didn't-quite-make-it dancers and singers, no napkin-folding or wine-tasting classes; just a nice ship - Fram holds 318 passengers and was launched last year - with big windows so you can always see the view, which at the moment happens to be icebergs. In fact it has been icebergs of varying sizes for the past two days.

There are all sorts on board, young and old, mainly Danish and Norwegian but also a smattering of Brits, Americans and Australians, all here for the excitement of seeing somewhere really different rather than wanting a luxury cruise with crew racing around to cater for their every wish and whim.

No one dresses for dinner and you are expected to clear away your plates and cups if you have tea and cakes in the little self-service.

I can't see cruise traditionalists enjoying this, but I I've never seen so many happy, excited faces, and certainly not on a cruise. Just proves what they always say. There is a cruise for everyone. Get it right and you have one satisfied customer.

Delighted to see agents are getting behind my campaign for a better deal for singles through Cruisepricescompared.com, the deals at sea website just launched by Harley Van Straten.

Check out the Telegraph website and travel pages this weekend for more about singles and why cruising makes such a great holiday for lone travellers.

Who knows. We might just start to break down the walls of Jericho.

Delighted to see Cruiseprices is doing so well, by the way. Really seems to have taken off thanks to agents' support.

I am flying to Greenland tomorrow, joining a Hurtigruten cruise around the coast.

It seemed strange to be packing gloves and thick socks when it's warm but I know from experience that icebergs and glaciers are very cold places!

I'm told there is internet - and wifi - on board but not necessarily all the time. So I'll be blogging when I can, detailing my progress, in between the hikes and glacier watching.

Keep looking.

Just my luck. I'm on Ventura for two weeks and just when I get off there is a drama at sea.

The Cruise Critic website reports that the P&O Cruises' ship went to the rescue of an injured yachtsman on Sunday as it was sailing from Southampton to Malaga at the start of another two-week cruise.

OK, so the yachtsman probably didn't think it was fun but it must have been a great spectacle for the passengers after nearly two days of seeing nothing but well, sea, in the English Channel and Bay of Biscay.

He was landed and Malaga by the way and is said to be fine.

Thanks to Sean Halliday for getting in touch about his website featuring true stories about his life on a cruise ship. Have a look. It'll cheer up the day.

I can just see the poster now. Adam Goldstein, CEO and president of Royal Caribbean International, in the part of Kitchener, pointing a finger at agents and saying "Your cruiseline needs you".

Over dramatic? Maybe. But then the impending opening of bookings for Royal's 220,000-ton Oasis of the Seas promises to be dramatic too - especially for agents, whom associate vice-president and general manager UK and Ireland Jo Rzymowska expects to be snowed under with bookings.

The level of interest to date is phenomenal and we are anticipating a record-breaking day of bookings when the ship goes on sale for the first time on September 3.

Just to make sure things go according to plan, Royal is producing a stack of sales tools for agents, including window displays and A4 and A5 brochures showing cut-away images of the ship and pictures of Central Park, the Loft suites and Boardwalk.

These they will be with agents by September 3 - hopefully a bit before, so they have time to get them on display before it starts to snow - but a selection of marketing tools will also be available at the line's Cruising Power trade website.

I guess it was inevitable. Transocean Tours is introducing a fuel surcharge on all Marco Polo bookings.

The good news is that it doesn't come into effect until August 30 - so clients have an incentive to book now and save money - and it only applies to summer 2009 cruises on Marco Polo. This summer and winter 08/09 remain are supplement free.

Also, it is only £6 per person per night - that's £42 for a one-week cruise and £84 for two weeks, I know, but gratuities on Marco Polo are included in the cruise price so it's not as if passengers have to fork out twice.

I don't think anyone has too much to moan about, especially as six-night cruise prices start at just £499. That's quite a bargain by any standard.

Seatrade Insider reports that SeaDream Yacht Club is giving passengers the chance to buy the deck on selected cruises in 2009.

The cruiseline is one of the most aggressive in the industry when it comes to whole-ship charters and apparently very successful at getting individuals and companies with deep pockets to book out an entire vessel (they are small, each with room for 110 passengers).

I wonder if this is a sign of the economic times? Can't afford the whole ship for your birthday, anniversary or incentive? The why not have a deck instead?

Anyone who bites gets 21 staterooms on deck 3 and the Owners' Suite for free, which seems a fair exchange.

High waves are as difficult to video as skiing if this snippet on YouTube is anything to go by. There is a lot of spray but personally I find the sound more alarming than the waves.

Not that I am belittling what the passengers went through on P&O Cruises Australia's Pacific Sun when it hit bad weather on the way to New Zealand. It sounds like my idea of hell.

I thought I had it bad going over Drake's Passage to Antarctica last year. I couldn't stand but the bottle of water by my bed stood bolt upright throughout the whole two days!

P&O Cruises has really fired up the nation's cruisers with its latest smoking policy if the comments that have been flooding into the Cruise.co.uk website are anything to go by.

As from October, smoking will be banned on all inside public areas on Ventura, Oceana and Artemis. Smokers will still be able to light up on selected areas of open deck and on their balconies.

Smokers are shouting "not fair"; non-smokers are rejoicing with a holier-than-thou attitude which has then also irritated the smokers....and so it goes round and round.

Having been in cabins just vacated by smokers. I am all for banning smoking in staterooms, and personally I don't like it when people smoke on the balcony next to mine, but otherwise I have to say I'm with the smokers on this one (and I write as an ex-smoker of many years now).

It seems very unfair not to provide a lounge/pub, call it what you will, where smokers can puff away in the company of like-minded puffers. Non-smokers don't have to go in and always have plenty of other lounge areas to ang out in so they can't really compain.

It's called let and let live - although that's probably not the best expression where cigarettes are concerned!

I reckon what really matters is that people who don't like smoke can get away from it (so I wonder therefore whether the balcony and open deck is the best place, given the wind carries smoke, the smell, etc, but guess time will tell).

There's just three weeks to go before the September 7 start of National Cruise Week, the campaign organised by the Association of Cruise Experts to get Brits thinking cruise.

This is being billed as the world's largest-ever cruise campaign, with 2,000 agencies up and down the country signed up and planning events during the week to try to persuade that sector of great British public that still thinks cruising is for rich old people - ie the majority - that they are a little behind the times.

Event ideas from ACE include a spa night, captain's dinner or poker school - all things that are associated with cruising.

If all goes according to plan it should be a great time for agents to be involved in raising the profile of the industry and hopefully making a few bookings along the way.

Free promo packs have been provided by the Spanish National Tourist Office and if you sign up with ACE, your event will be promoted by the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph.

easyCruise has bowed to popular demand and for 2009 will be including half-board accommodation and daily housekeeping in the price.

It's a far cry from the budget line Stelios set up, where everything was an extra once you had paid for your bed, but then he has had to backtrack on quite a lot - reopening inside cabins so passsengers have a window, cutting back on the orange, providing proper food on board, now including it in the price and cleaning cabins to boot. How very mainstream it has become.

Personally I find it reassuring that the bright young things he wants to attract want their rooms cleaned. Seven nights is a long time to wallow in your own muck, especially in Greece in high summer.

History doesn't relate whether sheets and towels will be changed over that time. I hope so. At least once - even if we are supposed to be environmentally friendly.

I remember a seven-night cruise in the Maldives many moons ago when neither was changed. They were so filthy could have walked off with us at the end of the week. I noticed the tour operator I booked with never offered the cruise again.

I see Trista and Ryan Sutter are to christen Ruby Princess in Fort Lauderdale on November 6.

OK I admit it. I'd never heard of them either, but according to the news release, the Sutters are one of the best-known romantic duos in broadcast history (maybe that should be US broadcast history?), having shot to fame after meeting and marrying on The Bachelorette, a reality TV programme that I guess doesn't need much explaining.

Princess Cruises senior vice-president Jan Swartz says the decision to invite the duo - who will be celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary - to do the deed is in keeping with the cruiseline's reputation for romance and reconnection (no I don't understand that last bit either).

If you're still bewildered, it's all to do with Love Boat, the long-running 1970's TV series that starred a Princess' ship. I don't remember it but plenty in the US do and it is almost a cult, I discovered, on a Seabourn cruise earlier this year. No wonder Princess keeps the link alive.

My cruise column on the Telegraph website this week touches on how expensive it is on board Fram. I compared it with Ventura, where you could get a 33cl bottle for £1.95, while here 40cl draft beer is more than £3.50. Not the end of the world but worth bearing in mind.

But the one thing that is really cheap is the internet - six hours for £20. And it works - as anyone reading my blogs will have realised.

I paid a hefty £40 for four hours on Ventura, which was all the more galling when ashore in Rome, Florence, et al, you could have an hour for one euro (about 80p). If you wanted longer the price came down!

Here in Greenland I haven't seen an internet café and if there was one I dread to think how much it would cost. Yesterday, ashore at our first big town (with tarmac roads, a supermarket and a pub), a bottle of beer was £6.

I hastened back to Fram!

I never really knew the correct time on Ventura. Reason? Every clock was wrong, some by five minutes, some by an hour, others by more still.

The problem was that passengers waiting by the lifts thought it a good joke to move the hands forwards or backwards. And yes, you could do that, I am reliably informed by someone close to me who shall remain nameless!

Not sure why the ones that were out of reach were so wrong.

But full marks to Hurtigruten. Fram, launched a year earlier has digital clocks on each deck that all show the correct time. Not so much fun, of course, but as my watch is invariably wrong at least I now know whether I am coming or going.

I see Ideal Cruising is selling a nine-night Canary Islands cruise from Barcelona on Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Jade this winter for just £510 per person - and that includes return flights from Gatwick.

I appreciate that this will be NCL's first winter cruising in the Med and Atlantic so they are testing the waters, so to speak, but it's hard to believe anyone can be making anything from that giveaway price.

Except the customer, of course, who is getting an absolute steal - especially as they can bag an outside cabin for just £92 per person more.

It's for a cruise departing December 12, which just happens to be my favourite day of the year (and not because it's when Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas is scheduled to set off on its maiden voyage) but is probably not a good time to try to get people thinking about a cruise given most minds are focused on turkey and tinsel.

Either that, or people are planning to escape the big day, in which case they won't want to be away just before as well.

Costa and MSC have made it work, so really there's no reason why NCL shouldn't - except, of course that the former appeal to the European market while NCL depends heavily on the Americans.

And why would Americans want to cruise over here in a warm-ish, if they're lucky, winter when they have sun, sea and sand on their Caribbean doorstep - and without forking out a fortune in airline fuel supplements.

Pre-Xmas blues or a deeper malaise? Only time will tell.

A report in Florida Today says sales for cruising remain strong in the US as Americans disillusioned with flying latch onto the idea of driving to a port to join a ship.

Terry Thornton, Carnival's vice president for marketing planning, said there is no end in sight for demand for Caribbean cruises, which the company bolsters through locating its ships at drive-to ports around the state of Florida. "The cruise industry is doing well because people are driving to their ports."

Many Brits have already discovered the joys of being able to pack the car and drive to Southampton, Dover or wherever to start their cruise. No airport security hassles, no delays. Just board the ship and you're on holiday.

The Passenger Shipping Association says a record 591,000 passengers cruised from the UK last year. As more people discover the benefits of sailing from the UK - and more ex-UK cruises are offered - that figure can only grow. I expect more records for 2008 and beyond.

My inbox is still being flooded by past passengers concerned about Discovery, the cruise ship operated by Voyages of Discovery, which has been suffering engine problems since March this year.

In a story I wrote for the Telegraph last week, managing director David Yellow admitted there had been problems but said they would be fixed by Friday (August 22).

A statement yesterday from Voyages of Discovery also seemed to show all was finally well with the ship - even if she was going a little slow!

'The MV Discovery is operating its published Baltic Explorer itinerary and is currently in Korsor, as scheduled. The vessel did transit the Kiel Canal yesterday (Monday 25 August) en route to Korsor. During its journey from Harwich to Korsor, MV Discovery averaged its planned speed of 14.5 knots and has made no changes to its designated ports of call.'

But I have also been sent a letter from one of the passengers on the cruise, received on boarding and signed by David Yellow, informing them a new part was delivered last week but the engineers have still not managed to fix the problem. Apparently another new part now needs to be manufactured.

This does mean Discovery will be operating on 3 engines during your cruise which is perfectly permissible and the ship can do so safely. However it does mean that Discovery will be operating at a slightly slower speed than when the itinerary was originally planned.

It might be permissible and safe, but the letter also says Discovery will be skipping Tallinn, which will be a great disappointment to many.

David Yellow told me the part delivered last week also had to be specially manufactured. If that hasn't worked, maybe it's time to either take the ship out of service until it is fixed or replace the current cruise programme with slow, short hops over to the continent, sold on the basis of being one engine short, until everything is up and running again.

Or maybe Voyages just needs to splash out on a new engine. Discovery is an old lady, does some sterling work each year in Antarctica and is obviously feeling a little tired.

Whichever option, it would be a lot fairer to the passengers.

At roughly the moment as I was writing a note to Elaine at RBI's search2cruise.com website, explaining that Orient Lines is effectively no more because it has no ship - Star Cruises sold its one ship, Marco Polo, to a Greek company and it is now operating cruises from Tilbury for Transocean Tours - Cruise Critic runs a story that the line is back in business.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the Orient Lines' brand was recently acquired by Wayne Heller, the American founder of Orlando-based travel agency Cruises Only, and he has now bought a ship and is back in business.

The ship is the Maxim Gorki, a 40-year-old 24,981-ton vessel with capacity for 650 passengers that is currently operating for Phoenix Seereisen, a Germany-based tour company.

It leaves Phoenix in November for a major refit so it can meet tough new SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) standards effective from 2010 and will then be renamed Marco Polo II and start sailing again in spring 2009, starting with Med cruises from Barcelona before the ship sails north for itineraries visiting London and Scotland.

That doesn't sound too exploration-like - the style of cruising for which the original Orient Lines was famed - but apparently more out of the way places, Antarctica included, will follow.

Travel Weekly US reports that Carnival Cruise Lines is reclassifying cabins on all its ships so they are not just priced depending whether they are inside, outside, have a balcony and according to deck, but also whether they are mid-ships, at the fore or aft end of the ship or near a public room.

Whether you get a discount or pay more for being near a public room, history does not relate.

The changes have already been made on Carnival Valor and will be rolled out across the fleet by the end of the year.

Lynn Torrent, Carnival's senior vice-president sales and guest services, says the change will allow passenger to pick a cabin that exactly meets their needs while giving agents a better chance to upgrade clients because the price gap between the categories is much smaller.

For the sake of the trade, I just hope this reclassification doesn't catch on. Royal Caribbean International  released prices for its giant Oasis of the Seas last week, as the ship went on sale to Crown and Anchor loyalty club members, with 37 different cabin categories. That's quite enough for any agents - and actually consumers - to get their heads around.

Just as it was getting a real taste for flycruising, Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has more than halved its flycruise programme for the next two years.

Instead of enjoying the Med sun in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, next summer, Braemar will be in Dover, cruising to the Norwegian fjords, the Baltic and the Med. And instead of living it up in Miami, when it goes back to the Caribbean for winter 2009/10, it will be based back in Barbados.

Boudicca's 2009/1010 Caribbean season has also been cancelled. Instead the ship will be operating an extended pre-Christmas selection of cruises out of Portsmouth before relocating all the way to Southampton, for cruises to the Canary Islands, Med and a mammoth 28-night voyage to the Caribbean.

Marketing director Nigel Lingard blames the changes on the rising costs of fuel - rather unfortunate timing as prices have started to fall, and why then put in a costly (in fuel at least) cruise to the Caribbean? - but reading between the lines I wonder if there isn't also a feeling at Fred that they were going too far too fast in their bid to widen their client base beyond their traditional 65-plus market.

With the dramatic increase in fuel prices we have taken the decision to offer a more cost effective programme. This also gives us the opportunity to further widen the choice of ex-UK cruises for our traditional clientele.

MSC Cruises reports its most successful week for bookings. On Saturday, there were 25% more calls to the call centre than on an average Saturday, while Monday recorded 48% more calls than the daily average and the conversion rate was up 60%.

Is MSC reaping the benefits of its amazing deals or is this yet more proof that credit crunch or no, cruisers are not yet ready to give up on their holiday at sea.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports that a proposed law change that would reduce the amount of time foreign-flagged ships can spend in Hawai'i has been thrown out by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

It's bad news for NCL America, the US-flagged arm of Norwegian Cruise Line, which prompted the attempt to change the law.

NCL America was set up specifically to operate in Hawai'i waters - under US cabotage laws, as a US-flagged operation it is allowed to cruise just in the islands, instead of having to make the long voyage to the islands from the American west coast (four days in each direction) - but it has been struggling to make the venture work.

From operating three ships in the region, it now just has one.

NCL America said it sent the other two ships away because it couldn't compete with rival foreign-flagged ships. ...Norwegian Cruise Lines hasn't backed down from its position that something needs to be done to protect its US-flagged operation in Hawai'i. NCL America's US-flagged ships are at a competitive disadvantage because they're subject to US taxes and labor laws.

Travel Weekly US reports NCL is unhappy with the decision, arguing that its one remaining ship should be protected because it provides significant economic benefits for the islands.

Pride of America provides more than 4,600 jobs, $496 million in total economic impact and $142 million in total earnings impact, "which is almost 3.3 times more than the economic impact attributable to the entire foreign-flag fleet that calls on Hawaii", NCL said.

I have feared the writing is on the wall for NCL America ever since their offer of a cruise in Hawai'i to see the operation was quietly withdrawn.

It is a shame as it would be great to cruise Hawai'i without all those sea days at the start and end of the holiday, which add so much to the time you are away.I wonder, though, why NCL didn't sort this matter out before they went in to the Big 50 with all guns blazing - well three ships anyway - lost money and rather a lot of face.

Hawai'i loss is our gain, of course. Pride of Hawai'i has become Norwegian Jade and is now sailing from Southampton and will be cruising in Europe this winter. Not quite Hawai'i I know, but with all the Hawai'i-themed decor and public area names at least you can dream of bronzed surf dudes and leis!

Cruise.co.uk put out an email this week asking cruisers for their favourite shore excursions.

Some answers are a bit obvious - catamaran in St Kitts, Dunn's River in Jamaica, swimming with dolphins, the Colosseum in Rome - but a few are quite adventurous and a bit different.

But my favourite has to be from Matt, who counted up the replies and then asked, "why are you asking this question".

Can Seabourn Odyssey be the luckiest ship about to launch?

As the ship sets off on its maiden voyage from Venice on June 24 next year, all 450 passengers on board will be named godparents (guess it can't be a traditional godmother because some will be men!). Birthdays are going to be like, well, Christmas.

I'm sure the passengers will consider themselves ultra-lucky as their names will be inscribed on a plaque for all to see. Quite an honour and definitely worth the few thousand dollars they have probably spent.

Wonder if they will be eligible for the occasional free cruise, just like traditional godmothers?

Just as everyone was thinking the new ship building boom was over - I refer you to a report on Tripso by Anita Dunham-Potter - sharp-eyed cruise watchers spot news on Aker Yards website saying MSC Cruises has ordered two more Musica-class ships.

Sisters to MSC Poesia, the ships will weigh 89,600 tons and carry 2,550 passengers and be delivered in Febrary 2011 and February 2012.

MSC notwithstanding, Dunham-Potter is surely right in predicted the end of the new ship boom As she points out, all the cruiseships on the shipyards' books bar the MSC duo - she estimates 35 vessels at a cost of $22 billion - were ordered before the price of fuel shot up and world economies shot down.

But does it matter that the boom is over, for a couple of years at least? We all love new ship launches, but I can't help thinking it will be a good thing to give the new capacity coming into the market time to settle - there are still 35 ships to come, after all, and two of those are Royal Caribbean's giant 5,400-passenger vessels.

Simple supply-and-demand economics also tells me that a shortfall in capacity means prices will go up. And higher prices surely are better for cruiselines and agents. Given that, I wonder whether MSC wouldn't be better to watch and wait until it starts to command higher fares.

Do we need more cruise ships? Let me know what you think.

This is me, at my sartorial best, about to set off on a RIB boat ride in the Stockholm archipelago.

I've been wanting to do this for years - well since 2004, when I first saw it - so my thanks to Tina Brännström at the Stockholm Visitors Board for getting it booked for me and making my dream come true.

I'm always amazed how few people know what a great city Stockholm is - pretty and with the amazing Vasa Museum to see. And then there are the sightseeing boats that have running commentary as they chug along under the bridges that connect this city's island.

Interesting, but not nearly as much fun as the RIB. And as the boats hit 40-45 knots at high speed, bouncing over waves, banking around nothing in particular (just for the fun of it), you'll forget how daft you look and be very grateful for the wind and waterproofs and silly hat!

What better message for agents to take into Cruise Week than that cruising is cheaper than 10 years ago? Especially now that everyone is reportedly looking a little closer at the pennies.

According to P&O Cruises, a two-week cruise in an ocean-view cabin this summer would have cost £1,579 per person. Ten years ago it would have cost £2,520.

But there's more. P&O's managing director Nigel Esdale has been doing some tantalising number crunching.

"The cumulative inflation rate between May 1998 and May 2008 is 32% [Office of National Statistics], so if cruise holidays had increased accordingly, then our prices should be more than double those in this summer's brochure. In actual fact, this year's prices are more than £900 cheaper per person, almost £2,000 cheaper for a couple than 10 years ago."

Everyone loves a deal and no one wants to miss out on having a holiday - especially in the UK's wet new world of global warming. With bargains like that, cruises should be flying off the shelves next week.

Another week, another cruise, this time on Princess Cruises' Crown Princess in the Baltic. It's a bit of déjà vu really as this is the ship on which P&O Cruises' Ventura was modelled and on which I cruised in July. One or two rooms are in different places, the speciality restaurants are different, things are charged in dollars and this ship has Movies under the Stars, but otherwise it's a home from home.

Tomorrow's Movie under the Stars is Narnia, which my daughter Ilana has already decided we'll watch. At 9.30pm. In the Baltic. I fear a sudden heatwave is out of the question so I've already earmarked my blankets. Lots of them!

I was thrilled to discover that our Captain is Andy Proctor, who married me (to my husband, that is) on Grand Princess back in 2004. That was in the Baltic too, on a day at sea sailing between Copenhagen and Stockholm, so it's quite a nostalgic trip for Ilana and I. Wonder if he'll remember me...?

Voyages of Discovery has been in touch after an earlier blog and asked me to point out that Discovery's call to Tallinn was not pulled and that the ship did stop there yesterday, as scheduled.

The letter from managing director David Yellow to the passengers said that the itinerary in Tallinn had been changed - the ship was in port for a couple of hours less than originally scheduled - not that the Tallinn stop had been cancelled.

I'm delighted to hear that was the case and my thanks to them for putting me right.

This guy is Daniel Hochsteiner, from Germany, one of a band of entertainers who juggles three or so times a day in the piazza on Princess Cruises' Crown Princess.

The piazza, but the way, is the ship's atrium by another name because it is a place where you can buy coffees, teas or something stronger, snack on salads, cookies or cakes from the International Cafe - free in the day, charged in the evening (I'm not entirely sure why as the daytime food is so much nicer) - or just meet others and watch the entertainers. Much like an Italian piazza.
 
Oh - and it's also one of the best places for us laptop junkies to pick up wireless internet, which is why I'm spending a lot of time there.

Daniel was getting off the ship just after I took this picture. He's been on for a week, juggling hoops and tennis rackets, and now he's off to do the same on another cruise ship.

Rest assured, I'll be back down there to see who takes his place.