Cruise Lines

I'm not one to gossip but I think Azamara Club Cruises, the upmarket two-ship brand owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises, could be close to ordering a new ship.

Larry Pimentel, their CEO, was in London last week to talk about how the cruise line has been faring since he made some seismic changes last year.

The word Club was added to the name, wine with dinner and gratuities were included in the price, English-trained butlers were provided for suite people and they started keeping the ships late or overnight in ports so passengers could see more of  the places they are visiting.

And then he said he would like to end his career building small ships. Azamara's two ships each hold 694 passengers. And he mentioned the second quarter next year.

I think that means watch this space.

More imminent, it would seem, is a new ship order from Royal Caribbean International.

Richard Fain, Royal Caribbean's chairman, confirmed they would ordering more ships when I was on Allure of the Seas last year but he gave the strongest hint yet that something was happening during a recent earnings call.

"We have been working intensively on developing a design that reflects our innovative spirit, but in an efficient package and we think that we are near to an acceptable outcome."

The rumour is they are developing a new series of ships, smaller than the Oasis-class monsters they have just launched, and that the order will go to Meyer-Werft, the German shipyard in Papenburg that built Disney Dream and the Celebrity Solstice-class ships.

I suspect Fred Olsen is regretting starting to charge their fuel supplement as a percentage of the price people pay for their cruise, penalising the high-spending suite folk they want to attract.

A press release late yesterday sought to "clarify" their position on the fuel supplement.

I would classify it as an attempt again to blame outside forces for the decision.

As we know, from January 19 they are charging 5.5% on top of what you pay for your cruise to cover the rising cost of fuel.

The exception is Black Watch's 2012 world cruise and Balmoral's 2012 long cruise around South America. If you book these, either the full cruises or one of the sectors, you won't pay any fuel supplement.

No I don't know why they are exempt either, but strikes me there could be rush for those cruises.

But they are also imposing a 4.5% retro-charge on bookings taken before December 23 2010 for departures from April 1 2011. So booking early, as I advised before, wouldn't have worked.

The words "shooting yourself in the foot" spring to mind.

Fred blames the switch away from the per person per night supplement to charging a surcharge as a percentage of the fare on the EU Package Travel Directive and ABTA requirements. It says that's what they require.

Maybe so. That doesn't make it any less unfair. And guess what? No one else is doing it. All the other cruise lines that are charging fuel supplements are sticking with the per person per night formula.

The only hope Fred passengers can have is that the price of Brent crude falls back to £45 a barrel, in which case they'll get the fuel supplement back in the form of on-board credit.

I wouldn't advise they hold their breath.

SeaDream Yacht Club, celebrating its 10th birthday this year, will be visiting the UK for the first time next year either side of a second Baltic season.

The small-ship brand is venturing north for the first time this summer, and will be popping into London at the end of its transatlantic crossing in May so journalists and travel agents can have a look-see, but in 2012 it's the real McCoy.

They are using Dover as a turnaround port for two departures - a 13-night cruise to Stockholm on May 12 and an 11-night voyage to Lisbon on August 14.

Cruising to Dover, there's a 14-night transatlantic voyage departing San Juan on April 28 2012 and an eight-night cruise from Copenhagen on July 16, which costs from $6,887 (£4,370) per person.

I make that an eye-watering £546 a day - and you have to pay for the flight to Copenhagen as well.

Time to start saving!

Voyages to Antiquity is looking for past Orient Lines' passengers for an August 26 round-Sicily reunion cruise on Aegean Odyssey from Piraeus, the port for Athens, to Civitavecchia, the port for Rome.

It's all to do with the cruise lines' shared pasts. Orient Lines was started in 1993 by Gerry Herrod, right, and sold in 1998 to Norwegian Cruise Line.

Herrod also started Voyages to Antiquity, the cruise line launched last May to seek out historical and cultural highlights around the Eastern Mediterranean. I was lucky enough to cruise with Voyages to Antiquity at the end of last year. You can read my report here and about some of the amazing places I visited here and here.

Orient Lines didn't survive under NCL. The cruise line was closed down in 2008 after NCL sold its ship, Marco Polo, which incidentally now sails out of Tilbury for UK-based Cruise & Maritime Voyages.

Voyages to Antiquity managing director David Yellow tells me past Orient Lines passengers have already clocked up mileage on the Aegean Odyssey so the reunion cruise will be like a gathering of one big happy family.

Yellow, incidentally, used to be MD at Voyages of Discovery, which was launched by Gerry Herrod under the name Discovery World Cruises (are you beginning to see a pattern here?).

The 14-night reunion cruise, featuring a reunion cocktail party, visits six ports in Sicily and costs from £2,195 per person including flights, transfers, shore excursions, wine with dinner and gratuities.

Voyages to Antiquity has also started an Odyssey Club for its small but already growing band of past passengers. Apparently some took three cruise in its first nine months of operation!

Club members will get 5%-10% discounts on future bookings as well as special activities on selected cruises, gifts and incentives yet to be announced.

If you always though ultra-luxury cruising was out of your league, think again. There are some amazing six-star offers around right now that make top-end cruise lines uber-affordable.

Crystal Cruises (020 7287 9040) has cut fares on its autumn cruises, so prices now start from an incredible £2,249 per person.

That's for a seven-night Mexican Riviera (great place, just don't mention Top Gear!) cruise on November 20 or 27 and - here's the best bit - it includes free return flights, soft drinks including water, gratuities and $500 per person on-board spending money that can be used to buy alcoholic drinks, in the spa, on shore excursions. In fact whatever you want.

(Maybe that's why the promotion is called All Inclusive-As You Wish - Ed?)

Crystal has autumn cruises in and around the Mediterranean, along the east coast of the North America, visiting New England and Canada, in the Caribbean and the Mexican Riviera, so there's bound to be a cruise and price to suit.

Many of Crystal's cruises come with $1,000 per person on-board cruise credit and new for 2011, they are offering open dining so you can eat when you want.

As I am no fan of fixed dining, that's especially great news but want my advice? Try the Asian and Italian speciality restaurants. They are the best and all they ask in payment is a suggested $7 per person gratuity.

It's a bargain. And with all that cruise credit, it won't actually cost you anything anyway!

Silversea has extended its onboard credit, offering $1,000 per couple to another 25 cruises in Northern Europe and the Med, and $500 per couple to 38 voyages worldwide. To qualify, you need to book by June 30 2011.

Windstar (020 7292 2369) isn't quite in the six-star league, but it's a top-end brand and it has a great onboard credit offer so I reckon it deserves to be listed here.

They are offering up to $1,000 per couple onboard credit on selected 2011 European voyages on their three ships - Wind Surf, Wind Star and Wind Spirit - booked by March 15 2011.

The amount is determined by the cabin category. Book a B or A level cabin and you'll get $600 per couple, book a suite (Wind Surf only) and you'll get $1,000 per couple.

I've only cruised on Wind Surf, their biggest ship, and I had a ball. Good food, fabulous service and nice other passengers. You can read about it here.

Windstar's 2011 European cruises cost from £1,603 per person cruise-only. That's for a  five-night voyage from Cannes to May onboard Wind Surf departing May 30.

I'll be heading off to Heathrow shortly, to catch a flight to Miami, where Oceania's new ship Marina is being named tomorrow by Mary Hart, presenter of US TV's Entertainment Tonight.

I'm promised a gala ceremony and a 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar of Champagne, custom-made by Armand de Brignac, has been lined up, ready to smash against the hull.

Then it's all aboard for a mini cruise to Nassau in the Bahamas so I can get a real feel for the ship - its facilities, crew and food.

I've only ever visited Oceania's ships while they are on a turnaround day in Dover, so I'm looking forward to finding out if they are as good as the company claims (call me a cynic, but I never quite trust the cruise lines' judgement of their product!).

Marina is quite a step up for Oceania, as it's twice as big as their three other ships. Nautica, Regatta and Insignia each holds 684 passengers (all three are former Renaissance Cruises ships and therefore sisters of the Azamara duo and Princess Cruises' Royal, Pacific and Ocean Princesses). Marina holds 1,250 passengers.

They've devoted much of the extra space to food and drink. How wise! There's a new French bistro, Jacques, and Red Ginger, for Asian cuisine. The Polo Grill steak house and Toscana, for Italian specialities, are on the three smaller ships.

I'll be eating in most of them during the cruise, which should be a treat given Oceania prides themselves highly on their food.

Bon Appetit is a new venue for hands-on cookery lessons, La Reserve is new for wine tastings and food pairings.

There's a Lalique Grand Stairway, Canyon Ranch in the Spa and Owners' Suites that are so big it sounds like you could get lost in them. Unless I'm down for an upgrade, I don't think I'll be in one, but hopefully they've left one empty for viewing so I can nip inside and dream.

See you on board (time and internet willing, of course).

How ironic that I watched pirates prancing around the stage during the naming ceremony for Disney Dream, but we were treated to the stirring theme track from the Pirates of the Caribbean films at the christening of Oceania's new ship Marina.

It was brought to us by the Violin Divas, who opened proceedings along with flamenco guitarist Alex Fox, right, who thrilled the audience when he started playing his guitar behind his head, and singer Tony Fernandez.

And then it was on with the ceremony, which was a bit like the Oscars without the tears as everyone thanked everyone else for making the ship a reality.

Bob Binder, Oceania's president, thanked Frank del Rio, founder of Oceania Cruises and now chairman and CEO of Prestige Cruise Holdings, which operates the cruise line. Steve Martinez of Apollo Management, the parent company of Prestige, thanked Frank for his vision in building the ship.

Frank thanked US immigration for letting his family into America when they fled Cuba in the 1960s, and also Bob, Steve, travel agents and generally anyone sitting there in the crowd.

An über-tanned Rabbi broke ranks and thanked the Lord - and added a personal prayer that he might one day cruise on Marina. Surely not angling for a free cruise? Frank advised him to see his travel agent!

Mary Hart, Marina's Godmother and presenter of America's Entertainment Tonight, thanked everyone for "My Marina". She's been taking lessons from Twiggy, who welcomed everyone to "My Yacht" when she named Seabourn Sojourn in the Thames last June.

A 15-litre Nebuchadnezzar of champagne was on a table in the terminal as we checked in for Marina, so everyone could sign it before it was smashed against the hull. 

Maybe it was because I was so close but I've never heard a bottle smash with such a thud.

Marina definitely had a name.

I've never quite understood why cruising folk are so fascinated by cooking - surely what they go on holiday to escape? - so I felt duty-bound to try to find out by joining a class in Bon Appetit yesterday.

It's the first real culinary centre at sea, with enough stations, each equipped with a hot plate, sink and cooking utensils, for up to 24 people, in teams of two, to learn to cook.

So the sun is shining and I'm inside listening to Kathryn Kelly, an instructor from the Culinary Institute of America in New York, telling me how to cut cucumbers and tomatoes.

Make sense of that.

Over the course of two hours - longer than it usually takes to cook and eat food at home! - we made a gazpachio soup, which was totally tasteless and had the consistency of a brick, a feta salad and fried up some lamb mince into burgers.

Our class cost $49 per person, and there are a few others at that price, but there's also a two-class Southwestern Sizzle for $99 and a marathon three classes to teach you how to make pasta for $149.

We were cooking feta cheese burgers (do the Americans ever eat anything without cheese?) so that ruled me, a non-dairy eater, out of tasting them (I was rather pleased actually as I'd just had a wonderful lunch at Red Ginger, the Asian speciality restaurant, and would not have wanted to spoil it but my culinary partner Mike, a journalist from Fort Worth, declared them OK).

"You've all done so well," Kathryn bellowed above the noise of chatter and frying fat. More than once she lost control of the class as we all got fed up with being treated like naughty children.

(She came around to see how the burgers were cooking and pronounced mine "still rare" after putting a thermometer in it. Call me smart, but the uncooked red meat around the edges gave it away for me!)

"So you see how easy it is to make a salad and lamb burgers," she announced as class was dismissed.

Er, yes. We put some veg in one bowl and whizzed it up in a blender, put some more veg in another bowl and put cheese on top of it and fried up some meat.

And to think I could have been out enjoying the Caribbean sun!

Red Ginger, the new Asian restaurant on Oceania's Marina, has been voted the ship's number one place to eat by passengers so far.

I'm really not surprised. I was expecting it to be a highlight of my cruise, but seems I was alone.

"We thought it would be the fourth most popular restaurant," Frank Del Rio told me over lunch there yesterday.

Frank founded Oceania and is now chairman and CEO of Prestige Cruise Holdings, which operates Oceania's ships for their owner Apollo Management (which incidentally also owns Regent Seven Seas Cruises).

"We expected Jacques to be number one because it is new and was created by Jacques Pépin, followed by Toscana, the Italian. After that, everyone is ready for a good steak [that's the Polo Grill], with Red Ginger last."

I dined in the Polo Grill the first night and the steak was beautiful; cooked to perfection. Tonight I'm eating in Jacques, and really looking forward to it, so I'll let you know how that goes in a future post.

My Red Ginger lunch started with a duck salad followed by Thai vegetarian curry, both bursting with taste, both beautifully presented and served in perfect quantities (actually I lie; the duck was so good I could have eaten another but when you're sitting next to the boss a bit of decorum is called for!).

Before the food, one waiter brought a tea menu and another came with a box of chopsticks so you can personally choose your preferred weapon.

I had a white pair and they did the job OK, but someone across the table asked for an "easy" pair and got red ones.

A bit of a gimmick I suspect, but it all adds to the restaurant's charm. As does the fabulous décor.

There no charge to eat in Red Ginger, or in any of the speciality restaurants on Marina (or Oceania's other ships), but they only guarantee you a table for one night of your cruise. If you want to dine there again, or in any of the other speciality restaurants, there's still no charge but you have to hope there's space.

So I should be telling you all how good Toscana is.

Red Ginger? Nah. You'll hate it!

My thanks to good friends David and Jo, who I met on a Silversea cruise around India a couple of years ago, for this picture of one day in St Maarten in the Caribbean.

On the right, there's Celebrity Solstice, the first ship to have a real grass lawn on its top deck, and Royal Caribbean International's Oasis of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship (a title it holds jointly with sister Allure of the Seas).

On the left there's Carnival Dream, two Princess ships (I think one is Sea Princess but I can't see the name of the other) and a very dwarfed P&O's Aurora.

By my rough reckoning they brought about 20,000 cruise passengers to the island.

What a great day for taxi drivers and t-shirt sellers!

A survey by website Cruisecompare has found almost one-fifth of cruising Brits never go ashore on port days.

What an adventurous lot we are.

Some 28% said it was because there were so many things to do on the ship, which is a fair excuse assuming they are on the likes of Allure of the Seas or Norwegian Epic but pretty pathetic if they're cruising with Fred Olsen.

However, 32% said they don't get off because of the cost. What a waste. They might as well stay at home.

Even worse, 9% said they don't go ashore because they don't like the food. Because of course you have to eat whenever you step ashore!

Reminds me of a woman I met on my Voyages to Antiquity cruise last year. On the way back to the ship from Baalbek in Lebanon, we were taken to a restaurant for lunch. A fabulous feast of local food - vegetables in various guises, hummous to die for, grilled meats and more.

She sat across from me with a face like thunder and pronounced she couldn't eat any of it because "she didn't like foreign food". I suggested she surely could try the vegetables, to be told "I don't eat vegetables".

Just as I was on the brink of suggesting she sounded like a stroppy teenager and asking why she bothered to travel, she anounced she did eat vegetables, "but only at home".

How did we ever win an Empire?

... if you're all alone, does Uniworld have a deal for you!

 St Valentine's Day is not really the best one to be reminded you are alone, but if you are then you might as well make the most of it.

By which I mean save money.

River cruise company Uniworld (0845 678 8558) is offering no single supplements on 14 European voyages - in France, Portugal, on the Danube and the Rhine - if you book before February 28.

The violins will be out in force on P&O ships today as 14 couples are married by their captains and another six renew their wedding vows.

And you thought captains only had to steer their ship and host gala dinners!

P&O points to all the romantic things couples can do on their ships today. Apart from the obvious, of course.

A Valentine dinner in Gary Rhodes restaurant on Arcadia, dinner under the Caribbean stars in Marco Pierre White's eatery on Ventura. On Azura, they can have a classic date of old and go to the flicks (the ship has a big poolside screen).

Call me finicky, but somehow "kissin' and a huggin in the back row of the movies" doesn't sound so romantic when you're outside, on plastic sunloungers and everyone around can see what you're doing.

It's been nearly a week since I got back from Marina so high time for some final thoughts on Oceania's new baby.

I'll start with the food, because it's what they think they are rather good at.

And I have to say I rather agree. The food was consistently good, from the burgers in the al-fresco grill to the steak in Polo and the cassoulet in Jacques. I have already told you how much I enjoyed Red Ginger.

Even the food in the dining room was good, although the meal was marred somewhat by the Super Bowl, which they were showing on a big screen and which the Americans are mad about.

We were dining to one side and so the picture didn't disturb us but you could hear the constant prattle and cheering in the background.

What had been an elegant-looking room when I looked in earlier - it reminded me of the dining rooms on Celebrity's Solstice-class ships because they have used a lot of white to make it a glamorous space - became the dining equivalent of the sports bar.

Overall, on Marina I definitely enjoyed some of the best food I've ever eaten on a cruise ship, served hot and always tasty, which was a welcome change from the bland stuff so many cruise lines produce.

I should add that a friend had a very poor experience in Jacques, both in terms of the food and service. I hope he was just unlucky, not that I was lucky.

The ship is more than twice the size of Oceania's three other vessels, but they have cleverly carried a lot of their features over to Marina so past passengers will find a lot they are familiar with.

Speciality restaurants Polo and Toscana are in the same location, just on a higher deck, likewise the covered al-fresco grill; design-wise, the panel between the lift doors showing what is on each deck is on the small ships and now on Marina.

Oceania president Bob Binder said past passengers were invited on the ship when it was being built in Genoa and they advised about everything from bed comfort to food. "If people like our other ships, they will love Marina."

I suspect he is right.

Interestingly, I got chatting to a few passengers who were coming on as I was getting off. They were all Crystal lovers, but were interested enough in what they had read about Marina to give it a go. I don't think they will be disappointed.

Oceania certainly didn't spare the pennies when it comes to the décor. There's the stunning Lalique staircase (cost not disclosed but rumoured to be about $300,000) and a custom-built Steinway piano in the Martini Bar that cost about $25,000.

Then there's the beautiful oak floor in Jacques - they've gone for a rustic French look there and it really works - the real teak decking and some superb artwork.

Frank Del Rio, who founded Oceania and is now chairman of Prestige Cruise Holdings, which operates the ship for Apollo Management, its owners, told me he chose all the artwork himself and that it caused more sleepless nights than anything else.

At least he can look at the finished product and know the tossing and turning was all worthwhile. Well almost. When I dined with him in Red Ginger he was still looking around, seeing places that needed more artwork.

La Reserve, the new wine tasting venue, wasn't open when I was on board, so all I can tell you is the room looks lovely, with this big wooden table, left, and that is that a seven-course tasting dinner costs $89 including gratuity.

Privee, the new private dining room for up to 10 people was also standing empty. Guess they knew none of us journos would splash out the $1,000 needed to hire the room, but I'm told it was full each night on the maiden crossing from Barcelona to Miami.

Personally I don't know why. It's an elegant room, and exclusive, and you do get to choose the menu (within reason; it has to be using food stuffs they have on board) but the food in the other restaurants is so good I'd be happy to stick with them.

I did get to experience the entertainment. Oh dear. I stuck it for 10 minutes one evening - most other people had the sense to stay away - but as a penance they then made us sit through about half an hour of it the next day during what was supposed to be a Q&A session with the bosses.

It was dire. Poor singing, poor dancing. As a friend said, "it's like watching a school production".

I appreciate they only have a show lounge with a small stage, but given that they should work within their means. And get some talented performers. A comedian, a good soloist, a solo guitarists like the one who played during the naming ceremony.

Or dare to be different and forget the entertainment. As Oceania's Tim Rubacky said : "Dining is the star of the show on Oceania. It's a two or three-hour experience, gentile, leisurely, very social."

I'll go with that.

Yes I know I said the last post would be my final thoughts on Marina but I just have to tell you about the library.

Imagine a corridor lined on one side with book cases and alcoves furnished with leather armchairs, even a fire place (well, OK not a real one), and you'll roughly get the picture.

It's such a clever design as each alcove is like a private space.

Even better, they operate an honesty system so all the bookcases are open. You just come and help yourself to some reading matter and, hopefully, put the book back when you have finished.

So civilised.

And I must also mention the Owners' Suites, furnished by Ralph Lauren Home. They are amazing. Big (the whole width of the ship), elegant, with a very small exercise room and a very big piano in the entrance hall. Now that's definitely something to brag about.

As you walk in you turn left for the bedroom and bathroom and right for the sitting area, pictured left.

If that's a little out of your price range, there's always the Oceania suite, a new category. It's no way as big as the Owners' Suites but it was my favourite for the chic furnishings (bottom picture).

And the Vista Suites, below, are pretty good too. They also have an exercise room - and it's bigger than the one in the Owners' Suites with a cycle and another instrument of torture that none of the great brains from Oceania could identify.

I just know it looked hard work.

In case I've whetted your appetite for a cruise on Marina, Oceania's new ship, I'd better tell you where it will be cruising this summer.

Marina sails from Miami to Europe in March and will be offering various 10 and 16-day cruises from Barcelona, Civitavecchia (Rome), Venice and Piraeus (Athens), before repositioning to Copenhagen for a couple of Baltic cruises.

In July, Marina visits London and there's a round-Britain cruise and another no-fly cruise to Spain.

It returns to the Mediterranean in August and repositions to Miami at the end of November for a winter series of Caribbean cruises, returning to the Mediterranean in March 2012.

Prices start from £999 per person - including soft drinks and bottled water - for a 12-night no-fly cruise from Dover to Santander in Spain on July 29, visiting Amsterdam, Bruges, St Peter Port in Guernsey, and Honfleur, St Malo, Pont-Aven, La Rochelle, Le Verdon and St Jean de Luz, all in France.

Did you know that people who turned 21 in 1981 will be turning 50 this year. Well of course you did, if it was something you bothered to think about.

I admit I didn't until Saga reminded me at a gathering in London the other evening.

Age is important to Saga, and especially the second coming of age, as they like to call hitting 50, because that's when you can start to travel with them.

Now before all you over-50s out there switch off, swearing blind you are not old enough to cruise with Saga, I'll let you into a secret.

That's what I thought until last year, when I cruised on Saga Pearl II, an old ship they bought and spent on a fortune on (and actually it's true, I wasn't old enough to cruise with Saga, but they gave me special dispensation, all in the interests of research).

You can read my report about the cruise, published in the Daily Telegraph, here, but suffice to say I am going back on Pearl in a couple of days.

But more on that later. For now, back to the 1980s.

In a fun film, we were reminded how many similarities there were between then and now. The country was an economic basketcase, unemployment was rising and people were going on Saga holidays.

But boy, have attitudes changed.

In the 1980s, the over-50s were prepared to do without a holiday if they couldn't afford it, according to research group Populus. Today no one wants to give up on holidays, financial crisis or not.

In the 1980s, the over-50s went on holiday in the UK and Europe; now they want to go to the US, Australia, Nepal, Africa and Bolivia.

No wonder Saga has dropped coach holidays to Brighton in favour of tours in Borneo.

Susan Hooper, Saga's boss, admitted their problem is trying to persuade Saga sceptics that the company is not all about old people on holiday.

It's what that great TV ad they had on recently was all about and, I guess, why they chose to wine and dine us at the Sanctum Soho Hotel (which is not actually in Soho but is very trendy).

It must have so upset their chef that instead of some pretentious-sounding dish with "jus", Saga wanted them to serve cheese-and-pineapple on sticks and yummy sausage rolls. The food of the '80s, Susan reminded us.

If so, bring back the '80s. Not for the cheese. But those sausage rolls went like hot cakes - and were still being talked about at a Celebrity Cruises gathering the next day!

I mentioned in a previous blog I enjoyed my cruise so much on Saga Pearl II, the ship that joined Saga Cruises last year, that I am off on her again.

But see where I am going this time?

Cuba!

Saga is one of the few cruise lines that can visit because of America's long-running ban on anything to do with the island, the biggest in the Caribbean.

So the big US cruise lines look on wistfully and say "one day", while the British ones make the most of being able to visit before things change, as they surely will when Fidel Castro goes, and the ubiquitous t-shirt and jewellery emporiums move in and spoilt it.

Fred Olsen Cruise Lines also goes there, while Thomson is visiting regularly this winter with Thomson Dream. Voyages of Discovery will be there in March and April.

I'm flying out today, spending a couple of days in Havana and joining the ship when it arrives on Wednesday.

Saga Pearl stays overnight, not departing until nearly midnight on the second day, so I get another two full days in the capital.

We then sail to Cienfuegos in the south of the island, which is not far from the Bay of Pigs, where CIA-trained Cuban exiles, backed by the US government, tried - and failed - in 1961 to invade and overthrow Castro. Santa Clara, where Che Guevara is buried, is not that far away either.

Then it's on to Santiago de Cuba, the island's second-largest city, where Castro declared the revolution a success. Nearby is the US base at Guantanamo Bay, but I suspect there won't be any tours going that way.

So it's a real Cuba immersion.

We'll also be visiting Port Antonio in Jamaica, Willemstad in Curacao, La Guaira in Venezuela, Catalina Island in Dominican Republic and finally Santo Domingo, also in the Dom Rep, where we arrive one day and I fly out the next day.

As long as the internet plays ball, I'll be reporting back on these amazing places, and also on any other news, either from the ship or the world of cruising, so don't forget to keep looking in.

I've never had a hankering to go to Japan - actually I've always thought I'd starve given their habit of eating so much raw (and cooked) fish and my habit of not touching anything that comes out of the sea.

But visiting on a cruise ship and not having to worry about the food? Now that starts to have some appeal.

So I was interested to spot two new cruises to the Land of the Rising Sun this year and next.

In July, there are three 10-night Inland Sea of Japan cruises on Orion II, the ship now sailing as Clelia II and joining Australia's Orion Expedition Cruises in May after its cabins and public areas have been spruced up.

The Inland Sea is on the west coast of Japan. The ship sails from Aomori in the north of the country to Kobe on July 8 and 28 (vice-versa on the July 18 voyage), the port for Osaka, which is on the east coast.

En route it visits nine places including Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and Busan in South Korea.

Prices start from £4,770 per person including all meals, Zodiac excursions and entertainment but excluding flights.

The other cruise line making a Japan debut is Voyages of Discovery, on a fascinating 21-day Empires of the Sun cruise from Hong Kong to Manila in the Philippines in January 2012.

Their ship, Discovery, will be visiting Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagoya, and spending three nights in Osaka, all in Japan. It also spends three night in Hong Kong, two days in Shanghai and visits Xiamen Island in China and Keelung in Taiwan.

Prices start from £2,575 per person including flights, transfers and gratuities.

Moving to the other sdie of the world, I see Voyages is also offering a walking cruise in Norway, much like the ones its sister company Hebridean Island Cruises does in Scotland.

The Footloose Norwegian Explorer, sailing roundtrip from Harwich from July 31 to August 11, will have hikes on the excursion menu at each of the eight ports in Norway and the Shetland Islands being visited, giving keen walkers a chance to indulge their passion and get to places inaccessible by road.

Details of all the walks are on the website. Prices start from £1,199 per person cruise-only.

The auto-gratuity will be included in the cost of drinks on Celebrity Eclipse when it returns for a second season of cruises from the UK in April.

The move is one of several changes Celebrity Cruises is making to appeal to British cruisers, who will make up more than 80% of the ship's passengers on its summer sailings from Southampton.

However, they have stopped short of including the end-of-cruise gratuities in the cost of the holiday and instead are trying to encourage passengers to pay them before they go.

It's a concept I've never understood because you don't tip for good service in a restaurant before you have eaten, but I am told 60% of Brits are now going for this option.

Other changes being made this summer on Eclipse for us fussy Brits include:

* Coffee sachets in the cabins. They put kettles and tea bags in last year, the ship's first ex-UK season, and everyone moaned there was no coffee.

* More British beers, including including Fuller's London Pride, Old Speckled Hen, Boddingtons, Guinness, Murphy's Stout and Newcastle Brown Ale.

* More entertainers and speakers from the UK.

* The Daily Mail available to download onto iPads. (In a fleet-wide move, Celebrity is to stop printing daily news sheets, instead allowing passengers to download selected newspapers and magazines onto a rented iPad. It'll cost about $10 per cruise for the service.)

If you're going on Eclipse this summer, you'll also be able to have a new Champagne High Tea on at least one of the sea days.

For $25 per person, Tea Forte loose teas will be served on Wedgwood Bone China by white-gloved waiters to the sound of a string quartet, and there'll be savouries and pastries to nibble at as well.

The Champagne Tea was launched on Eclipse this winter, so is not just there for the Brits, and will be rolled out across the fleet over this year.

My few days in Cuba before joining Saga Pearl II didn't start well.

The Melia Havana, where I was supposed to be staying for three nights, had no record of my reservation and was full to bursting.

The receptionists shrugged, but Tania, the Saga rep, stepped in and sorted it for me to stay in the Melia Cohiba, which turned out to be a nicer hotel and closer to Old Havana.

Be in the lobby at 9am for your city tour I was told. At 9.40am I finally found my guide - a very apologetic Rayselis, who was even more apologetic when, by 11am, we were still at the hotel because our "luxury" car had not arrived. I think it had broken down, which seems a normal state of affairs for cars in this country.

No matter. Rayselis used the time to give me a fascinating history lesson of Cuba. I never knew the Brits used to own the place - for all of 11 months in 1762. We gave it to Spain in return for Florida.

Not one of our better deals.

She told me about Old Havana, Batista, the former president, the corruption, the Mafia, the revolution, the Cuban Missile Crisis (50 years ago next year).

Three hundred years of history later the "luxury" car had still not arrived. "We're new to tourism; please forgive us," she said.

"So why don't we go in one of those," I asked, pointing to what looked like the tuk-tuks you find in India.

They are much the same except in Cuba they call them Coco taxis because they resemble coconuts (use your imagination) and the drivers' wear crash helmets and don't take their lives in their hands whenever they hit the road.

So that's what we did.

It cost eight convertible pesos, which is about £5, so was a bit of a bargain and much more fun than the luxury car - riddled with rust! - that finally came to pick us up later.

I was there for four days so became a bit of an expert, pounding the old city streets and imbibing a mohito or two at Hemingway's favourite watering holes.

Hemingway and mint (for the mohitos) are the heros of Cuba. Oh and rum, of course - also for the mohitos. At the Hotel Nacional, where I went for pre-dinner drinks the last evening, everyone in the al-fresco bar was knocking them back. And they were mostly locals too.

The city is packed with amazingly ornate buildings; many crumbling, an awful lot done up and looking very beautiful (I never managed to find out exactly where the money came from). There are some gorgeous boutique hotels and restaurants - although the latter don't always have what's listed on the menu.

I'll download some pictures of the place when I am back in the land of the internet - there's nothing resembling an internet cafe in Cuba and the system on Saga Pearl II is so slow you have to start it up and go and make a cup of tea while it's loading.

I saw the Granma, the boat that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara used to get to Cuba in 1956, the stunning cathedral, the even-more stunning theatre, the Capital building, modelled after the one in Washington - except the one in Havana is bigger by all of a few inches.

I also went to a rum factory - "in Cuba all roads lead to rum," I was told - and a cigar factory, where some people separate the leaves into piles (for flavour, aroma and combustibility) and others roll the cigars. In the one I saw they churn out a mind-boggling 25,000 a day in between puffing away on them.

Havana was also a strange mix of communism and creeping capitalism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the Cuban economy went into freefall and government realised they had to do something. Namely allow a bit of free enterprise.

So now you get people selling pizzas in the streets, people earning a peso or two by allowing tourists to have their picture taken in one of the ubiquitos classic American cars that roam the streets, private museums where you learn, for instance, about beer then stop for a drink or three.

All these enterprises have to be licensed by the state but it's a giant step in the let's-make-money direction.

Sugar was the top export in the days of the Soviet Union, my guide Reyselis told me. Now tourism is the big money-earner. They get just over two million visitors a year - many from Canada, a lot from the UK.

Happily the growth of tourism has not affected the locals too much yet. There were a few hanging around outside the Capitol and the port trying to get you to take a horse-and-cart ride or taxi but it's all very laid back; for the most part they just want to talk and show you their city.

So refreshing, but I fear it won't last once the place opens to the Americans - as I am sure it will when Castro goes - and the big cruise ships start to come.

As I am sure they will.

Bay of Pigs t-shirt anyone?

I still find it odd that author Ernest Hemingway is one of Cuba's national heros.

Not just because his books are hard going (I had the misfortune to read For Whom the Bell Tolls recently, about the Spanish Civil War, and really had to push myself to finish it) but because he was American. The enemy state.

He left Cuba just after the revolution so never hung around to experience the hardships that the locals went through.

No matter. The Hemingway trail is one of the must-dos in Havana - drinking mohitos and daiquiris at Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio, his two favourite watering holes in the city, and visiting his house, Finca Vigia, now a museum, about 25 minutes drive from Old Havana.

The house is just as he left it because no one is allowed inside in case they breath, causing too much humidity, or nick some of the books. All a bit crazy given other museums cope all right. And you only find out you can't get in when you have paid the three pesos to get in.

So you have to take it in turns to peek in through the windows. Unless you have Saga rep Nadia with you. She twisted a few arms and got my and my friends in. Actually we didn't see much more, but it felt like a small triumph and it was great to hear the director talking with such passion about the place and the man.

She said he didn't like visitors, but put up with visits from rich and famous film stars.

How good of him.

Welsh-born diva Dame Shirley Bassey is to name Adonia when the ship joins the P&O Cruises' fleet on May 21.

The 710-passenger vessel is moving across from Carnival UK sister brand Princess Cruises, where it is sailing as Royal Princess. Before that it was Minerva II, sailing for Swan Hellenic, and started life as R8 for the now-failed Renaissance Cruises.

It's a lovely ship - I should know as I've been on it in all its reincarnations - so am looking forward to the next one.

I trust the invitation is in the post.

Some cruise lines entertain passengers with rock-climbing walls and water slides; Saga Cruises does it by finding things floating in the water.

Namely the bow of what looked like a speedboat sticking out of the water somewhere off the western tip of Cuba.

Thank goodness the watch on the bridge did spot it, mind, as Saga Pearl II could have had a Titanic moment if we'd hit it, just without the iceberg.

The captain turned around to have a closer look, used the bow thrusters to lift the nose out of the water a bit and after about 15 minutes decided it came from Florida (the FL on the bow gave it away) and there wasn't much he could do.

So much to my disappointment - I so wanted him to lift it out of the water to see what was on board; a body maybe, or drugs? - he announced he had he alerted the coast guard, put Saga Pearl II into gear and sailed off.

The excitement of the day was over. Time to go back to the book.

You know something is wrong when the captain comes on the loudspeaker in your cabin at 9am and asks everyone for their attention please.

And so started Sunday morning on Saga Pearl II, a day at sea as we sailed to Santiago de Cuba.

When I heard Alistair McLundie, master of SPII, sounding very grave I feared for Santiago.

In fact, Saga's insurers had said we were not allowed to call at La Guaira in Venezuela, from where I was going to visit Caracas, so we are visiting Aruba instead.

As we are already scheduled to go to Curacao, it means we are doing A and C of the so-called Dutch ABC islands (B is for Bonaire).

I joined this cruise for the Cuba calls so didn't mind too much but of course people complained. "But I only came on this cruise for Caracas."

Yeah right. Only when they realised a bit of compensation might be in the offing. They must think Saga is carac-as.

It meant the captain felt the need to make another announcement at lunchtime, basically repeating everything he had already said but not adding anything because, he claimed, he is not allowed to divulge why the insurers have a downer on Venezuela.

Still it gave us something to talk about over the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Yes really. Well it was Sunday lunchtime and this is an all-British Saga ship!