As U.S. law currently stands, foreign-flagged cruise ships — meaning practically every cruise ship, aside from NCL’s Pride of America and a bunch of small coastal ships — cannot sail itineraries comprised solely of U.S. ports. The law, which dates from the 19th century, was intended to give a boost to U.S. passenger shipping companies against foreign competition, but these days — when U.S. passenger shipping companies register their ships abroad for tax and regulatory purposes — the law seems a bit archaic, giving its boost instead to the handful of “near the U.S.” ports that cruise ships regularly visit to skirt the rules: Nassau, Vancouver, Halifax, and Ensenada among them.

So here we have several new itineraries from Celebrity Cruises, announced just today. Departing from San Diego aboard Celebrity Century, each sails almost entirely within the U.S., but adds on that obligatory foreign port in order to stay within the letter of the law. Check ‘em out:

• 4-night California Coastal: Sailing April 18, 2013, with port calls at Santa Barbara, Catalina Island, and Ensenada, Mexico.
• 5-night California Coastal: Sailing April 22, with port calls at Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Ensenada, plus a day at sea.
• 8-night Pacific Coast Wine Cruise: Sailing April 27, with port calls at Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Francisco (overnight), Astoria (Oregon), and Victoria (British Columbia), ending in Vancouver.

Bookings made by October 28 will receive the guaranteed lowest rate for inside, oceanview, and veranda staterooms. For bookings made between October 15 and November 15, an onboard credit of $75 per stateroom will be offered members of Celebrity’s Captain’s Club loyalty program.  Also from October 15 to November 15, guests booking a standard veranda category stateroom on any of the new sailings have the option to upgrade to ConciergeClass accommodations for $49 per person, based on availability — a good deal, if you like pampering.

At an onboard ceremony yesterday, Celebrity Cruises’ new Celebrity Reflection was officially handed over to the line by Meyer Werft, the shipbuilder responsible not only for Reflection but for her four Solstice-class sisters and older fleetmate Celebrity Century. And in case you’ve ever wondered what a ship handover looks like, it looks something like this:

That’s (left to right) Reflection’s captain, Nicholas Pagonis; Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO of Celebrity parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.; Bernard Meyer, managing partner of Meyer Werft; and Michael Bayley, Celebrity’s newly anointed president and CEO, all sitting at a very incongruous makeshift boardroom table out on the Lawn Club, the half-acre of real grass that grows up on the ship's top deck.

Following the ceremony, Reflection embarked on a two-night promotional cruise for European media and travel agents, which ends Friday in Amsterdam. From there, the ship will sail a series of Mediterranean cruises before sailing transatlantic to begin her first Caribbean season. Celebrity Reflection will be officially named on December 1 in Miami, with four women drawn from the ranks of Celebrity’s employees sharing godmother duty. I’ll be aboard then, reporting back on whether Reflection, which is a slightly enlarged version of the already large and lovely Solstice-class, really measures up. If I were a betting man, I’d lay money on it.

Golfers, start your engines. Next August, Windstar Cruises will be offering a 7-night "Gaelic Voyager" cruise that sails from Edinburgh to Dublin, along the way stopping for play at five of the world’s most legendary golf courses.

Departing August 24, 2013, the cruise visits the ports of Peterhead, Invergordon, and Stromness (Scotland), Portrush (Ireland), and the Isle of Man. Passengers who purchase the extra-cost "Legendary Links" package will get a Welcome Dinner and two-night stay at the Fairmont St. Andrews in Edinburgh, the services of an onboard golf pro during their cruise, inclusive shore excursions at two non-golf ports, a Gala Farewell and Awards Dinner, transfers, and green fees and golf trolleys at:

•     St. Andrews Jubilee course: The Home of Golf, in Edinburgh.
•     Cruden Bay; An historic course in Peterhead, Scotland, open since 1791.
•     Struie at Royal Dornoch: A beautiful course in Invergordan, Scotland, offering a white sandy beach and gorgeous views.
•     Dunluce at Royal Portush: Laid out among giant sand dunes, along the tops of cliffs, and through valleys in Portrush, Ireland, Dunluce is overlooked by Dunlunce Castle.
•     Castletown: Laid out by respected golf course architect Mackenzie Ross in the late 1920s and early 1930s in Isle of Man.

Fares for the Gaelic Explorers voyage start at $3,899 per person, double occupancy. The optional Legendary Links package starts at $2,995 per person.

You gotta kinda love this: Last Friday, an organization called the Reputation Institute named the western Canada port city of Vancouver, British Columbia, as the world’s most reputable city — the one place in all the globe that the greatest number of people "trust, admire, respect, and have an affinity for." Adding a double-dose of mojo, Canada also nabbed the title of "most reputable country."

The ranking is based on the results of a survey of 18,000 people from the G8 countries, conducted in April and May of this year. Participants were asked their opinions on 100 nominated cities, which made the list through a combination of population size, GDP, and level of tourism. Top-line questions delved into three dimensions that, according to the Reputation Institute, "are what drive a destination’s reputation and stakeholder support." Viz: How advanced is the city’s economy? How appealing is its environment. How effective is its administration? These three dimensions were then broken down and defined by 13 "reputation attributes" that include perceived beauty, safety, cultural offerings, infrastructure, business environment, schools, communications, and progressive social/economic/environmental policies, plus the more ephemeral "I'd like to live/work there" -- a category Vancouver perennially wins in the various "livable cities" rankings.

When the results were tallied up, Vancouver came out on top. Along with Sydney, Australia (which came in third), it was the only city to finish in the top 10 in all three top-line categories, scoring highest in administration and recommended by respondents as the best city in which to live/work.

"Being ranked number one is a fantastic nod to the people of Vancouver, who make this city such a vibrant, diverse and welcoming place," said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson. "We're blessed with a beautiful city that our citizens are committed to taking good care of, and it's inspiring to see that the rest of the world believes in Vancouver just as strongly as we do."

FYI, here's the whole top 10:

1. Vancouver, BC, Canada
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Sydney, Australia
4. Copenhagen, Denmark
5. Oslo, Norway
6. Barcelona, Spain
7. Florence, Italy
8. Venice, Italy
9. Stockholm, Sweden
10. Melbourne, Australia

The highest ranking U.S. city on the list is San Francisco, which came in at #15. Thirteen other U.S. cities made the list farther down: Orlando (36), Seattle (37), New York (39), Houston (40), New Orleans (43), Washington, DC (44), Monterrey (46), Boston (50), LA (51), Miami (52), Atlanta (53), Chicago (55), and Las Vegas (63).

As for Vancouver, it's shut down for the winter, cruise-wise, but is open for business in every other way -- and hotels are lots cheaper in the off-cruise-season too.

Get ready for a new look: In a little over a week, Silversea's ultra-luxe but 18-year-old Silver Cloud will enter the Fincantieri shipyard in Palermo, Italy, for a three-week dry dock designed to bring her already handsome, classy interiors up to date. 

Silver Cloud at sea (photo: Silversea)

On deck (so to speak) are:

• A new look for her public spaces: From her lobby on out, Silver Cloud's public areas will be reclad in a warm, earth-tone color palette, reflected in new carpets, wall treatments, and artwork. By contrast, The Bar, the ship’s central saloon, will be decorated in cooler shades of teal mixed with neutral tones of brown and beige.
• New fancy for Le Champagne: The only Relais & Châteaux restaurant at sea will be transformed via an upgraded entrance design, a redesigned seating layout, new backlit wine displays, and new wood flooring, fabrics, and window treatments. Two other onboard restaurants, La Terrazza and The Restaurant, will also get new flooring, fabrics, and window treatments, plus other upgrades.
• A new Grill: Already in place aboard Cloud's Silversea fleetmates, The Grill is a specialty dining concept that appears by the pool after dark, like magic. Designed as an intimate al fresco experience, it features "hot rock" dining, in which diners cook their own steak, veal, pork, lamb, salmon, fish, or prawns on a preheated volcanic rock that sits right at their table.
• New suite decor: All suites will get new sofas, chairs, carpets, headboards, curtains, and veranda furniture, plus a new custom-made mattress featuring an individual spring system with a soft and firm side that can be reversed to suit each guest's preference. The new beds will be outfitted with Pratesi sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers.
• Enhanced suite bathrooms: All bathrooms will be enhanced with new flooring, marble appointments, and either a new bath-and-shower combination or a new walk-in, glass-enclosed rainforest shower with sitting area — a nice treat that will replace the existing bath-and-shower combination in nearly 90% of the ship’s Veranda and Vista Suites. Owner's and Grand Suites will be outfitted with a modern “wet room” bath configuration featuring a new rainforest shower that’s separate from the bathtub.
• Upgraded outdoor spaces: The jogging track will be resurfaced with new synthetic turf and the pool area will be outfitted with new deck furniture.
• Ship-shape decks: All teak decks and woodwork will be reconditioned and polished.
• Ship-shape horsepower: Cloud will also get a thorough once-over of her mechanical and propulsion systems.

Silver Cloud will return to service November 1, sailing a 12-night transatlantic cruise from Las Palmas (Canary Islands) to Barbados, where she'll begin a season of Caribbean and South America cruises.

Now here’s a handy gadget.

That’s the CruiseWise Crowd Calculator, an online tool that tells you which ships will be in any world port on any given day, and estimates the total number of cruise ship passengers that you’ll have to rub elbows with if you're there too.

Developed by online cruise seller CruiseWise, the tool lets you search by port and date or by itinerary, the latter allowing you to see how crowded all the ports will be on a particular ship’s particular sailing date and itinerary.

The tool only uses six cruise lines as the basis for its estimates, but they're six biggies: Carnival, Celebrity, Holland America, Norwegian, Princess, and Royal Caribbean. In most destinations, the information from those lines will be a good indicator of a port's relative crowdedness, though estimates for European ports will suffer by the lack of data from Costa and MSC, two of the region's biggest cruise players.

Still, a useful tool, both for the confirmed agoraphobe and the casual misanthrope.

Princess Cruises' next ship, the 141,000-ton, 3,600-passenger Royal Princess, is in the long home-stretch of her construction at Fincantieri’s Monfalcone shipyard, near Trieste, Italy, with her debut planned for June 2013. Princess has been dribbling out information about the ship’s highlights, and this week’s dribble is in video form, touting the activities and attractions that will be available on her top decks. Check it out:

The new Royal Princess will be a new-generation ship for Princess, extending and modernizing many of the features of the line's most recent ships while adding new features like private poolside cabanas that appear to float on the water, a pastry shop, and a private dining experience called Chef’s Table Lumiere, in which diners are surrounded by a curtain of light. Another new feature, shown in animation in the video, is the over-water SeaWalk, a glass-bottomed walkway that extends more than 28 feet beyond the ship's edge and 128 feet above the water.

Following her debut, Royal Princess will sail a summer of Mediterranean itineraries, then sail transatlantic in the fall to begin a winter season of Eastern Caribbean voyages.

Soul’s apparently got legs. After the promoters of the 2013 Soul Train Cruise sold out their scheduled February 2013 voyage in just 75 days, they did the smart thing and scheduled another, which is now set to depart on October 5, 2013.

Themed on the long-running TV musical variety show of the same name, the fall iteration of the Soul Train Cruise will feature artists like Earth, Wind & Fire, Gladys Knight, Jeffrey Osborne, The Whispers, Freddie Jackson, and Sugarfoot's Ohio Players, Jennifer Holliday, Billy Paul, ConFunkShun, Jody Watley, Regina Belle, The Bar-Kays, The Dazz Band, The Mary Jane Girls, The Original Lakeside, A Taste of Honey featuring Janice Marie, DW3, comedian Alonzo Bodden, and DJ Biz Markie.

The cruise will depart San Diego aboard Holland America's Westerdam, sailing a Mexican Riviera route that will take it to Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta (the latter for two days) and include cruising time in Bahia Magdalena, a bay known for its whale watching.

Held in memory of longtime Soul Train host Don Cornelius, who died in February 2012, the cruise will offers performances, meet-and-greets with the acts, “Soul By The Sea” beach parties, retro games, a Solid Gold Theme Ball featuring the original Soul Train Dancers, DJ Biz Markie spinning the hits on deck, and other special events.

Cabins went on sale today, September 27. More info here.

Seven months out from the launch of its new 144,017-ton, 4,000 passenger Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Cruise Line continues to put meat on the ship’s bones. Today’s news: The ship’s two-level Mandara Spa and fitness center will offer several first-in-the-cruise-biz features, including:

• The first-ever salt room at sea. According to NCL, “Salt room therapy has been proven to alleviate respiratory and skin ailments, strengthen the immune system, promote better sleep and have a long-term positive impact on overall lung function.” The room will be designed in what the line is calling “a dramatic grotto setting.”
• A Thermal Suite offering guests unobstructed ocean views, plus 13 heated loungers, a “vitality pool,” whirlpools, a sauna, a solarium, and a steam room.
• More than 50 spa treatments for men and women, including the “24 Karat Gold Facial”; massages such as the Thai Herbal Poultice Massage, the Bamboo Massage and the Freestyle Massage; plus a mysterious something called “bliss® fatgirlslim.”
• Acupuncture, teeth whitening, and cosmetic medical treatments performed by a licensed medi-spa doctor.
• A full-service salon offering hair, nail, and waxing services, plus special kid-friendly services.
• A just-for-men barber shop offering haircuts and traditional warm shaves.
• The first-ever Nexersys interactive fight-training modules at sea, offering guests the opportunity to engage in high-intensity, interval training against an avatar, through the use of a simulator. The new “Freestyle Fight Klub” will combine Nexersys training with a cardio boxing class, utilizing the fitness center’s 12 heavy bags.
• The first-ever “Black Light Spinning” class at sea, held in a room lit entirely by black lights and neon graffiti art.
• Low-impact classes such as “Spirals” (a Pilates-inspired class that utilizes weighted balls for added resistance) and “Chi Balls” (a group class inspired by traditional Chinese medicine, combining elements of yoga, tai chi and meditation).

Additional fitness offerings will include TRX, kettle bell training, yoga, Pilates, and body sculpting boot-camp-style classes.Breakaway’s combined spa and fitness areas will spread out over more than 23,000 square feet.

Breakaway’s christening ceremony will take place in New York on May 8, 2013. On May 12, the ship will begin her summer schedule of 7-night Bermuda cruises. Beginning in October 2013, she’ll switch to a winter schedule of Florida/Bahamas and Southern Caribbean voyages.

 

In the latest round of self-imposed safety upgrades flowing from January’s Costa Concordia disaster, cruise industry trade groups Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the European Cruise Council (ECC) have just promulgated a new safety policy designed to improve lifeboat operations training for crewmembers.

Effective immediately, the new “Life Boat Loading for Training Purposes” policy requires that ships conduct a full loading and launching of at least one lifeboat every six months for crew training purposes. During the training, the lifeboat must be filled to capacity with crewmembers and maneuvered in the water to facilitate familiarization with lifeboat operations. All crewmembers whose duties include the loading and/or operation of lifeboats are required to participate in the drill. The rules apply to all member companies of the two trade groups, which in practical terms means all operators of large cruise ships. Ships that carry fewer than 300 crewmembers will conduct similar training “as appropriate.”

The new policy is part of an industry-wide Operational Safety Review begun in response to the Concordia disaster. Commenting on the policy, ECC Chairman Manfredi Lefebvre said, “The Cruise industry’s Operational Safety Review demonstrates our on-going determination to ensure that cruise ships remain the safest vacation option and the safest part of the shipping industry. This policy, like all the policies that have already been developed by the Operational Safety Review, exceeds current international regulatory requirements and has been externally verified by world renowned independent experts.”

Click here to read a full version of the "Life Boat Loading for Training Purposes" policy.