Cruise/Island Vacations

Posted by Sue Bryant

Who goes on a transatlantic cruise? The answer is, absolutely anybody. The day's programme is packed with activity from step aerobics to acting classes but to me, the most fascinating pastime is without doubt people-watching.

Queen Mary 2 is a complete city at sea, a society in microcosm. Most passengers are American or British but in less than 24 hours I've heard Spanish, Italian, German and French spoken as well and that excludes the crew, whose nationalities range from South African to Indian to Filipino. It's true that the majority of people here are of a certain age but there are young couples as well, and families with small children (the ship has an excellent and little-publicised children's club). There are multi-generational groups with grannies and babies, and parties of friends, as well as several very glamorous looking gay couples, one pair with a spectacular giant poodle sporting a Harley Davidson denim doggie outfit. The poodle is currently ensconced in the kennels on Deck 12.

And just when you think you've seen it all... at lifeboat drill, one couple turned up in swimwear and towelling robes (there is a force 7 wind blowing outside) and another lady in a floor-length mink. There are women whose hair and faces don't move, even on the gusty open decks, couples in matching his 'n' hers velour tracksuits and an entire family with multiple facial piercings, teenagers included. Then there are the gym babes who practically live in the massive Canyon Ranch Spa, sporting toned muscles and skinny Canyon Ranch T shirts with diamante logos.

Sartorially speaking, daytimes may not be a parade of style and beauty, especially on a stormy day like this with heavy seas, when it's all you can do to stay upright moving around the ship, let alone worry about wearing heels. But on the three formal nights of a transatlantic cruise, the tracky pants are exchanged for tuxedos, glittering evening dresses, serious bling and big hair.

It's the glamour of nights like these that unite everybody on board with a sense of occasion - the very reason many people choose this most elegant and traditional way to travel.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Jewel River Cruise Line, a new, luxury, river cruise brand, will debut in 2008 with its first ship, Jewel Imperial Blue. The vessel will depart Paris on April 5 and sail along the Seine. The new company, founded by former Silversea Cruises CEO Albert Peter, also incorporates Emerald River Journeys, a premium line; and, the contemporary Princess River Journeys.

There are several exciting features about the new, all-suites vessel, which accommodates just 90 passengers. According to Peter, some of its distinguishing characteristics will include "a superior dining experience, intriguing and engaging shore experiences providing an exceptional level of exclusivity and access, a dedicated wellness spa, unrivalled hospitality and service and co-branding with internationally renowned luxury partners offering unique opportunities for guests." In other words, a river-going version of Silversea, which will no doubt delight the high-spending river cruise passenger.

Peter is aiming high with the new company and aims to become a 'dominant force' in river cruising. The first vessel, currently in service for another operator, is being converted into a luxurious floating hotel at a cost of $3.5 million. Typical clients are expected to be affluent, active, aged 45-60 (so considerably younger than most river cruise passengers) and in search of cultural 'experiences' rather than ordinary shore excursions.

Bookings for the new venture open on January 1, 2008.

Posted by Sue Bryant

The sinking of the Explorer expedition vessel in Antarctica has raised some scathing comments about the excesses of tourism in the region.

Although the Antarctic peninsula is enormous, expedition vessels tend to focus on a few 'hotspots' where they can land passengers by Zodiac inflatable. Environmentalists are concerned that the constant landing of sightseers between November and March is chipping away at this pristine region's integrity. Although most cruise operators behave responsibly and don't leave anything behind, some pollution is inevitable. By bringing in larger and larger vessels, the greater number of tourists is inevitably going to affect the wildlife and with the best will in the world, cruise operators cannot control the ignorant behaviour of visitors who pursue penguins and seals in the hope of getting the best shot for their photo album.

What's worse is that some enormous ships are now sailing in the region. These vessels cannot land passengers as the numbers are too great to make it feasible. But would you even want to be on one? Huge ships do not have ice-strengthened hulls like true expedition vessels. If one were to scrape an iceberg and start leaking fuel, the environmental impact would be unthinkable. Mounting a rescue operation for 3,000 passengers and up to 2,000 crew would be practically impossible. Ships sailing in Antarctica are supposed to be self-sufficient but there are no rules as such, merely guidelines.

It is not our automatic right to visit places like this. An expedition cruise to Antarctica is a special event and should be treated as such. It is expensive for a reason. While cruising may be making the world a smaller place, there are some areas that we must accept are only ever going to be appropriate for small ships and small numbers of visitors, however elitist that may seem.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Do you want to know how to lay a table in rough weather, or how to get a glass sparkling clean? Then the Ship Steward’s Handbook by E. C. Plumb and J. J. Traynor could be for you.



This charming little book, recently reissued by Conway, a division of Anova Books, was first published in the 1950s as an aid to ship stewards in the British Merchant Navy. With an emphasis on pride in one’s work, and a thoroughness and dedication to the highest level of service, it sets out precise instructions on a steward’s duties from table etiquette to cabin service and is packed with all sorts of fascinating facts, tips and hints.



Evoking the heyday of the passenger liner and the emerging cruise industry, there are authentic examples of breakfast and dinner menus from first class and tourist class, definitions of French culinary terms, sauces to accompany meat dishes, basic cocktails and lots of homilies. In Personal Appearance and Behaviour, for example, wannabe stewards are advised: Remember, tattoos do not make you a sailor!



Some of the household tips are useful still today. Glasses should be washed in warm water, rinsed and dried with a linen cloth, as linen does not leave fluff on the glass. If water jugs have a ‘waterline’, clean it off with potato peelings.



What’s interesting about this book is that the foreword is written by the Right Hon John Prescott MP, Britain’s former transport secretary under Tony Blair. Yes, Mr Prescott started life as... a ship’s steward.

Posted by Sue Bryant

I thought my lucky day had come yesterday when a van arrived with a huge bunch of red roses and a card sticking out of the top saying 'Marry me'. Sadly (or happily, as the roses are beautiful), it was a promotion from Princess Cruises advertising the company's new wedding brochure.

Tie the Knot with Princess Cruises is actually a handy little guide, with prices for the various wedding packages on board and a countdown from 12 months to the actual day, as well as a chart of the many ports the cruise line visits, detailing the wedding options, prices, legalities and locations. I was especially taken with the idea of a glacier in Alaska or a winery in Santorini.

What really caught my eye, though, was the idea of a sole charter of a Princess ship. For around £10 million ($20 million), you can have the whole vessel, just you, your beloved and 3,000 of your closest friends, attended by 1,200 staff. As this many wouldn't fit into the intimate wedding chapel that's a feature of Princess ships, the ceremony, which is conducted by the Captain, can be broadcast on the giant Movies Under the Stars screen by the ship's pool on six of the vessels in the fleet.

It's a nice idea, particularly if you want to avoid paparazzi, although personally I wouldn't fancy having 3,000 people who knew me tagging along on my honeymoon.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Royal Caribbean was the first cruise line to announce a new generation of mega-ships with its ambitious Project Genesis, already under construction at the Aker Yard in Finland. Genesis will launch in 2009 and will carry a whopping total of 5,400 guests.

Others were quick to follow. Carnival Cruise Line, then MSC, with two ships, each measuring 133,500 tons with a passenger capacity of 3,900.

Now NCL has joined the fray with its own announcement of two new megaships with the working title of F3. The steel cutting has already taken place. Each F3 will measure 150,000 tons and will carry 4,200 passengers.

The argument for this enormous size is that it presents more choice on board for passengers. NCL says that 100% of outside cabins will have a private balcony, although it is keeping F3's other features under wraps. Similarly, Royal Caribbean is yet to release much detail about what will be on Project Genesis, although some elements have been revealed, including a surf simulator, climbing wall and the ice rink.

The question is, how much is too much? These giant ships can without doubt absorb the number of passengers; you can be sailing on a big Royal Caribbean or NCL ship now at 100% capacity and not feel especially crowded. The biggest logistical problem is likely to be in port. NCL has already said that its F3 class ships will not be able to use tender ports as it's too difficult to tender that many passengers ashore. Who knows the impact a couple of these massive vessels arriving simultaneously will have on small ports in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean?

Until more detail is revealed, the cruising public is likely to remain only cautiously excited about these giant ships.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Last week I was cruising on the very fine Emerald Princess to research a feature for a newspaper on staying fit during a cruise.

The spa on board is spectacular and the gym enormous. The menus are enticing and varied, with a lotus flower image by each dish that is considered extra healthy. The salad bar groans with 30 different types of vegetable.

Yet one thing had diminished noticeably: the exercise classes. Every day, there was just one free class and you could pay extra for yoga, pilates and spinning. I noticed at the beginning of the week that the lists for these were full, but when I joined a spinning class, there were only seven of us.

I asked Peter Shine, one of the ship's personal fitness trainers what was going on and his simple answer was that there are so few classes now because nobody comes to them, not even to the ones they've paid for. I pointed out that there were 3,000 people on board so surely the classes ought to be fuller? What are all these people doing? Peter's answer was one word: Eating. And how people ate! Huge mounds of fries for lunch and burgers as hors d'oeuvres before a five-course dinner, followed by a hefty midnight snack of pizza and cakes.

The next day, Peter held a seminar in the gym, promoted as The Faster Way to a Flatter Stomach. There must have been 70 people there, with standing room only. Even Peter looked amazed. He later told me he had taken about 16 appointments from the seminar for nutrition advice. I couldn't help thinking, though, that a fairly obvious way to a flatter stomach on a food-filled cruise would be to eat a little less and exercise a little more - no seminar required.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Cunard Line has announced that Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, will attend the naming ceremony in Southampton on December 10, 2007, to mark the introduction of Cunard's new 90,000-ton liner Queen Victoria.

At this ceremony, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla) will perform the naming of the ship. Let’s hope it’s as magical as the naming of Queen Mary 2 was in 2004, when the ship was dramatically unveiled in a hugely patriotic moment and named by the Queen, with rousing music, fireworks and a spectacular party to follow, despite the cold, dark British January.

This naming, Cunard says, will be a milestone in both Cunard and British maritime history, and will be a major event of worldwide interest, with over 2,000 VIP guests from around the globe in attendance at the ceremony.

Every one of the Cunard Queens has been named by a member of the Royal Family and this particular ceremony will mark the beginning of what the line calls ‘a new era’, as it will be the first time in its 168-year history that three Cunard Queens will be in service at the same time.

This era is short-lived, though, as the Queen Elizabeth 2 only has a year of service left before it is retired to Dubai.

If you want to get a look at Queen Victoria, the ship will be in Southampton for four days, during which time over 7,000 guests from around the world will visit. It will depart on its maiden voyage on Tuesday 11 December, 2007.

Posted by Sue Bryant

The chances of spotting a Yangtze river dolphin on a cruise of the Yangtze Gorges was always extremely slim, but now it’s thought to be gone forever. Although a sighting was practically unheard of, it added to the exoticism of the Yangtze river, knowing that somewhere in the swirling depths was thriving a species of eight-foot, freshwater dolphin.

Sadly, the most recent acoustic surveys of the river, conducted late in 2006, have failed to find a single animal and the river dolphin, locally known as a baiji, has been declared ‘probably extinct’. In the late 1970s there were around 400 dolphins in the river and its channels, but numbers have declined depressingly fast. The last individual in captivity died in 2002.

Cruising has contributed to the dolphin’s demise, although only in a minor way, collisions with boats being one factor in the animal's extinction. Massive over-fishing of the baiji’s food source, poaching, accidental catching of the dolphins in nets, the construction of the gorges and pollution have all played their part. The river is dense with fishing boats, trying to feed the 10% of the world’s population that lives in the region, and these have posed far greater a threat than the cruise ships.

An ambitious plan was hatched a couple of years ago to capture some baiji and raise them in a well-stocked lake, reintroducing them to the river in years to come, but this has been abandoned. Scientists now fear for the future of a rare subspecies of finless porpoise that also lives in the river.

So if your cruise travels take you to China and you’re gazing at the river from the comfort of your private balcony, do keep an eye out for these incredibly rare creatures. You never know, you might spot one, and play your part in bringing the dolphin back from the brink of extinction.

Posted by Sue Bryant

Cruising as a single parent should, in theory, be stress-free. There are kids’ clubs on board ships, you don’t have to shop, cook or do the washing up and you can see a string of exciting new places without having to drive anywhere or unpack more than once. A cruise ship is an easy environment in which to sit on your own with a cocktail, too, without attracting unwanted attention.

Ocean Village, part of Carnival Corporation, is one of the few cruise lines to promote itself to single parent families. A number of cabins have three berths and are sold to lone parent families, representing good savings over a land-based holiday.

There are, however, still challenges that you just don’t anticipate. This is no reflection on the cruise line, particularly – just the hassles faced by a single parent generally. I found meal times particularly stressful as Ocean Village’s two main restaurants are buffets. Balancing three full plates on a small tray with two children in tow, battling through a crowd of hungry Brits whose only thought is getting to the bacon, and then finding there’s nowhere to sit is not my idea of a good start to the day.

I ended up finding a seat first and then running backwards and forwards like a waiter for the entire meal. We got around this in the evenings by paying a supplement to eat in La Luna, a very pleasant waiter service restaurant with outdoor seating.

There were obviously other lone parents on board but it would have been nice to have some kind of social event to break the ice. I was quite happy in the company of my children, who are old enough to stay up to see the ship’s excellent shows, but I spoke to one mother whose teenage daughter had quickly become immersed in the ship’s social scene, which is great, but leaves you a bit lonely if you’re travelling alone.

The other problem for single parents on vacation anywhere is keeping both children happy. If one wants to do one thing and the other doesn’t, you have to bribe, lay down the law or compromise. I ended up doing all the scary rides in the French and Italian water parks we visited (and loving it, or course) but had to lure my kids round Portofino with chocolate chip ice cream. It’s when you’re sitting on the dock playing Harry Potter Top Trumps instead of browsing the port’s designer boutiques that an adult travelling companion would come in handy!