Sapphire Princess
People, are you ready for…the Titanic? You should be, because over the next three weeks, it'll be harder to miss than an iceberg in the fog (okay, bad joke). This is Titanic Time. In case you haven't heard, the 100th anniversary of the big ship's sinking, off the coast of Newfoundland (just over 200 [...]
It’s finally happened. All 16 Princess ships have piazza and pizza, and it’s a good thing the cruise line has competent proof readers. The Sapphire Princess is now out of dry-dock and on a Hawaiian vacation. It has a new Piazza Atrium, and it also has Alfredo’s Pizzeria. Anybody who has ever been on a [...]
During the weekend, a close friend who regularly keeps track of Cruising Done Right alerted us to more never-ending tourism fears about Mexico. In digging a little further, we found what we always seem to find — the fear factor is being blown out of proportion. It started with Mazatlan, a year or so ago, [...]
The Right Price………………………………………………………….$329 Ship: Carnival Fantasy, Eastern Caribbean, 6 nights Departure: December 3, 2011, from Charleston, SC Ports: Nassau, Freeport, Key West Contact: Carnival Cruise * * * Have you ever wondered why ships don’t spend more time in ports, as in overnight?…We always assumed it was an economic issue, that port taxes for doing [...]
The right price…………………………………………………………………….……$1,545 May 23, August 29, September 5 or 12, 2011: 8 days Ship: A Scenic Tours river ship Departure: Budapest to Nuremberg (or the reverse) Bonus: Price is per person but is a 2-for-1; all shore excursions and all gratuities included Contact: WOW Travel Deals * * * Just in case you didn’t [...]
Admittedly, we know Santa Claus better than we know Santa Barbara. Been there once. Had a great dinner, saw a great concert. It seemed like a nice place, and it probably is a nice place, populated with nice people. One of them is getting a little heat from cruisers. On a website called Santa Barbara [...]
The first, and biggest, cruise ship to dock in the Port of Lyttelton this season arrived this week. Lyttelton? It’s in New Zealand, in the region known as Canterbury, which means there must be an archbishop there somewhere. It’s just 10 minutes from Christchurch, 35 from Kaiapoi, 44 from Rangiora. It has 3,100 people, a [...]
THE RIGHT PRICE…………..$419 December 5, 2010: Miami (return) to Western Caribbean 7 days Ship: Carnival Valor Contact: carnival.com * * * Somebody’s standing behind one of us (that would be Bob) when he steps on the scales. A Holland America spokesman, John Primeau, says that the typical cruise passenger gains one pound a day on cruises [...]
Like a ship out of water? How about just…a ship out of water? It happens to cruise ships regularly, when they go into “drydock” for repairs or renovations, or both. When it was time for the Sea Princess to dry out last fall, National Geographic was on the scene to film the whole process. Tomorrow [...]
We call this confusion. On the weekend, the Seattle Times reported that the environmental group Friends of the Earth, in its second annual report card on the cruise industry, downgraded Princess for “its numerous recent violations of Alaska’s strong water pollution laws.” Fair enough? Yesterday, the Port of San Francisco 2009 Cruise Ship Environmental Award’s [...]