With fearful stories and tales of incompetence relayed through the world’s media of the disaster that ensued on that friday night in the Mediterranean on board the Concordia ship, cruise bookings have obviously been affected.
Travel agents who are the main purveyors of cruise holidays worldwide are fearing that this season (the industry’s busiest) is almost a lost cause with sales figures falling 30% in places, but despite that they hope this will not be a long term issue. Read more
In light of the fatal sinking of the Costa Concordia, UNESCO are urging the Italian Government to prohibit large cruise ships from travelling too close to Italian shore lines, and curb the routes of many of the vessels around the nation.
The international scientific body is pressing the southern european government to restrict ships from travelling near “Culturally and ecologically important areas”. Read more
Crystal Crusies has just announced what it will be offering next year and has published its new brochures with details in them. It plans to include 20 new ports of call as well a dozen new trips and an increase in overnight stays. They have decided that it is a good idea that they give their customers better value for money and a better experience. Read more
A new report has stated that we are not going to increase our spend on holidaying for at leasst 4 year.
Consumer spending on holidays is unlikely to return to pre-recession levels until 2014-2015 in line with a pick-up in the economy, according to Mintel’s 2011 British Lifestyles survey.
Last year total expenditure on domestic and overseas holidays, excluding transport on trips abroad such as flights, dropped to a five-year low of £33.4 billion.
Domestic holidays accounted for 60% of 2010 holidays, the same as 2009, but overseas holidays made up more than 60% of total expenditure with £12 billion spent on UK trips and £21.3 billion on holidays abroad. Read more
All Leisure Holidays is to announce an expansion strategy, including plans for its newest ship and investment in its cruise brands.
The group’s trade facet – All Discovery Cruising has yet to reveal any plans for the Alexander von Humboldt cruise ship, which it successful tendered for in November 2009.
However, an announcement is now expected to be made on September 1, when the group will reveal a raft of investment and development plans for its brands.
Currently the company has three cruise ship brands: Voyages of Discovery, Swan Hellenic and Hebridean Island Cruises.
Voyages of Discovery managing director Alan Murray, who will be at the briefing, would not be drawn on which brand the new ship would form part of but revealed there were plans to refurbish Voyages’ ship Discovery. Read more
There is a growing trend for cruise ships to offer family holidays. Cruises used to be very much thought of as something the couples did, perhaps when they retired. However, there is now a recognition that people want to do a cruise but with their family and so there are now a selection of cruise ships which are aimed more to a family market. Read more
A retired couple from Tyneside told today how they fought off machine-gun toting Somali pirates by throwing deckchairs from their Cruise Ship the MSC Melody.
John and Barbara Jeffrey, both in their 60s were travelling from South Africa to the Mediterranean when bullets were sprayed around the deck of the Cruise liner injuring Mr Jeffrey with two separate hits. It was late at night and the couple were socialising with other passengers when they spotted a small outboard motored boat come behind then alongside the liner. Read more
SAGA have been advertising their cruises substantially on TV lately and we thought we’d have a look to see what all the fuss is about.
To be honest we have to say they look pretty good. We took a virtual tour – as shown on their website to, to have a look at their ship – Saga Pearl II. It looks pretty comfortable and has a capacity for just over 440 cruisers. Read more
Fares are up significantly for Alaska Cruises from a year ago say top Cruise company to USA today.
That’s the word this week from top executives at industry giant Carnival Corp., which dominates cruising in the state through North America-based subsidiaries Princess Cruises and Holland America.
Carnival Corp. owns several other North America-based lines as well as lines based in the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia.