Cruise Lines

After a fortnight on dry land since seeing Oasis of the Seas, it was nice to be back on a ship last week, even if it wasn't going anywhere.

I was on Cunard's Queen Victoria while it was tied up at the Ocean Terminal at Southampton, for the Carnival UK agent awards - an annual event when P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises, Ocean Village and Cunard thank all the travel agents who have supported them through the year, hand out a few plaques to the top performers and treat everyone to some well-earned bubbly and a nice lunch.

It was also a moment for Cunard's president and managing director Peter Shanks to remind everyone that there were only 306 days until Queen Elizabeth's naming ceremony in October 2010. As of today - Monday - that's 301 days. Not that anyone is counting

It was also a moment for P&O Cruises managing director Carol Marlow to give a quick plug to Azura, launching in April 2010, and announce the news that Royal Princess is to become a P&O ship in May 2011, sailing under the name Adonia.

It must seem like deja vu for Carol. It seems only yesterday I was having lunch with her on Swan Hellenic's Minerva, while it was on a visit to London, discussing the impending launch of Swan's new ship Minerva II, formerly Renaissance Cruises' prosaically-named R8.

When Carnival sold Swan, they kept the ship, sent it to Princess Cruises and named it, yes, you've guessed it, Royal Princess. Now it is to be Adonia.

If ships were human, this one would definitely be having counselling by now.

But back to the awards. There were lots of familiar names among the winners including Virgin Holidays Cruises, Gill's Cruise Centre, Cruise.co.uk, Iglu.com, Cruise Thomas Cook, Get Cruising and Hays Retail, but just two agents walked off with the top four awards.

Bolsover Cruise Club was named top independent agent for P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises. Here's general manager Derek Wilson and director Julie Straw being presented with their awards by Carnival UK chief executive officer David Dingle.

Reader Offers was named top independent agent for Cunard and Ocean Village. The company's Angela Frost and Sara Wikevand collected one award each from Complete Cruise Solution's head of sales Mark Pilkington.

Other winners:

Top multiple agent - Thomas Cook.

Cruise sales person of the year - Joanna Rigby.

Complete Cruise Solution sales person of the year -  Lucy Guy.

Waves of Wisdom agent of the year - Estelle Pitman, Wayfarers World Travel.