September 9, 2004 -- In this week's roundup, the high seas go high tech with digital photo downloads and virtual tours. Also in this issue, a cruise line that takes the sting out of hosting a family reunion, plus details on who's building new ships, who's delaying bankruptcy and who's been grounded.
HAL, Feeling in a Family Way, Debuts Reunion Program
Family reunions can be a pain in the butt. Who's going to host them? Who's going to make all the arrangements? Who's going to make all that potato salad? Getting out of those duties is one big plus of having your reunion on a ship -- that and the fact that there's always places aboard to hide, if you're feeling a little bit too familial.
This month, Holland America Line (877-724-5425; www.hollandamerica.com) introduced its new Family Reunion Program, which offers various amenities to families booking at least five staterooms.
Families booking five to nine cabins get special group pricing, a fountain soda package for every member of the family (unlimited soft drinks throughout the voyage), one family photo per stateroom, and either family dinner in the line's alternative Pinnacle Grill Restaurant or (on Caribbean cruises) free rentals of snorkel gear and swim mats or banana boat rides for all on Half Moon Cay, HAL's private island.
Families booking ten or more cabins also get a Head-of-the-Family reward: one complimentary upgrade from an outside stateroom to a veranda. (Family groups booking five or more cabins are also eligible for the one-cabin upgrade on holiday cruises in 2004.)
Get the Popcorn: Cruise West Offers Virtual Cruise Nights on Website
Small-ship cruises can be a hard sell. True, you almost always see more wildlife and scenery, and have a more intimate experience of your destination (for proof, see article on Cruise West's Bering Sea cruise in this newsletter), but they're expensive -- much more so than your average mainstream cruise.
So how do you sell them? Cruise West (800-888-9378; www.cruisewest.com) is thinking high-tech.
Beginning September 21 and running till December 2 (with show times at 6:00 and 9:00pm), Cruise West's online Virtual Cruise Nights allow interested travelers to test drive a cruise via a web-based conference call, with no obligations. Hosted by a Cruise West expert, each hour-long presentation features photos of scenery and wildlife taken by Cruise West passengers and crew, plus detailed maps, photos of each ship's facilities, and an interactive capacity that lets viewers ask questions throughout.
The current line-up offers presentations on the British Columbia Coastal Wilderness Cruise (Sept. 21), Costa Rica and Panama (Oct. 5), Exploring Alaska's Inside Passage (Oct. 21), the Columbia & Snake Rivers/Lewis and Clark (Oct. 28), Alaska's Grand Voyages (Nov. 4), Alaska Daylight Yacht Touring (Nov. 16), and Discovering Prince William Sound (Dec. 2). Future sessions, posted on the company's website, will include additional Alaska itineraries and the California Wine Country.
Details on how to log on are available at www.cruisewest.com. Click on the "Attend Live Presentations" link on the window's right-hand side.
Carnival Introduces Onboard Digital Photo Kiosks
Regardless of whether you call it a great way to share your photos with new friends or just another way for cruise lines to boost their onboard revenue, this month Carnival (800-CARNIVAL, www.carnival.com) announced the introduction of self-serve kiosks that allow passengers to print their digital photos while memories are still fresh.
Called Pixel Magic's iStation 150s, the kiosks are located near the ships' photo galleries. To print photos, guests simply insert their camera's memory card; select photo size, quantity, and border or background (if any), then pay for the works using their onboard charge card. The images are printed in a few seconds on digital photo paper.
Other upgrades to Carnival's onboard photo program include arming their official photographers with professional Olympus E-1 digital cameras, stocking ScanDisk digital memory cards in the onboard shops, and (most interesting of all), testing a new photo-retrieval kiosk that uses facial recognition technology: stand in front of it, look at the birdie, and the machine scans its database to find photos in which you appear. No more walking along a wall of 8x10s, looking for that one of you and Barbara on formal night. Shazam.
The new digital printing system is currently on several ships and expected to go fleetwide by the end of the year. The facial-recognition system is being beta-tested on Carnival Pride's 7-night cruises from Long Beach, California.
MSC Plans an MSC (Mainstream Sports Cruise)
For a cruise line that started life as Mediterranean Shipping Cruises, then called itself MSC Italian Cruises, and whose ships have names like Lirica and Opera, MSC Cruises (800-666-9333, www.msccruises.com) is sure trying to look American these days. Case in point: the baseball theme cruise they've scheduled for December 11, sailing from Ft. Lauderdale and calling at Key West, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Roatan Island (Honduras).
Offered aboard the brand-new 58,600-ton Opera, the cruise will feature Hall-of-Famers Bob Feller and Earl Weaver as well as greats like Vida Blue, Tommy Davis, Bert Campaneris, Graig Nettles, Darrell Evans, Stan Bahnsen, and Dave Campbell. Activities will include pitching, hitting, and defensive strategy clinics; question-and-answer sessions; player-hosted baseball trivia games; and autograph sessions.
Built at France's Chantiers de l'Antlantique shipyard, Opera is MSC's newest ship, launched in late June. In mid-November she'll transfer along with sister ship Lirica to Fort Lauderdale for the winter Caribbean season, marking the first time MSC has operated two ships simultaneously in that market.
Along with the Baseball Greats Cruise, Opera will offer several other themed cruises during her inaugural season:
- Dec. 4, 2004: 7-night Eastern Caribbean comedy cruise
- Dec. 18, 2004: 10-night Panama Canal holiday cruise
- Dec. 28, 2004: 11-night Deep Caribbean "Classic Rock & Comedy New Year Blast"
- March 19, 2005: 7-night Western Caribbean classical music cruise
MSC Lirica will also be hosting a series of theme cruises on its 11-night Deep Caribbean and 11-night Panama Canal sailings, all in 2005:
- Jan. 13 and 24, March 31 and April 11: Big Band
- Feb. 4 and 15: Good-Time Oldies '50s & '60s Festival
- Feb. 26: "Branson Country Festival" of classic country
- March 9 and 20: Jazz Festival
Cruise-only prices for the December 11 Baseball Greats start at $495 per person, double occupancy. Best-available ocean view staterooms start at $995 per person.
Royal Olympic Cruise Lines Not Dead Yet
Sure, it lost its newest, most desirable ships to bankruptcy auctions earlier this year, but the Rasputin of cruise lines refuses to die just yet.
According to an official statement on August 31, the ailing Greek line announced that "the Greek court administrating the Section 45 proceeding regarding its subsidiaries has issued a decision to extend the period of time for the company to present a restructuring plan consented to by 51% of its creditors until November 27, 2004."
In late December 2003, the Royal Olympic subsidiaries that operated the 836-passenger, 25,000-ton Olympia Voyager and Olympia Explorer -- the only two ships the line had operating in the American market -- filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. In March, both ships were bought at auction by the company's German creditors, Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau bank (KfW). In June, Olympia Explorer began her new life as a floating college for the Semester at Sea program (800/854-0195, www.semesteratsea.com). Olympia Voyager has been chartered by Spanish tour operator Iberojet and renamed Grand Voyager.
In January, the vessel Olympia Countess was also sold at auction, leaving Royal Olympic operating two older ships in Europe under the protection of Article 45 of the Greek Courts. According to its statement, "Discussions with creditors and lenders continue and the company continues to seek capital needed to continue operations of the company."
Celebrity Summit Sent to Drydock for Repairs
Celebrity Cruises (800/437-3111, www.celebrity.com) is canceling the September 10 Alaska sailing of the 91,000-ton, 1,950-passenger Summit and sending her to a San Francisco dry-dock for repairs. She's expected to return to service for her September 20 Vancouver-to-San Diego cruise.
Summit is currently operating safely, but the worn bearing means her speed is reduced from 23 to 18 knots.
Guests booked on the September 10 sailing should contact their travel agent or call 877-200-2897. Affected guests will receive a full refund for their cruise, plus a free future Celebrity cruise in North America, of up to seven nights, departing on or before December 31, 2005 (excluding holiday sailings).
Royal Caribbean Says Yea to Ultra-Voyager II
Yesterday, Royal Caribbean Cruises exercised its option with Finnish shipbuilders Kvaerner Masa-Yards to construct a second Ultra-Voyager ship, a supersized version of the line's popular Voyager class, Voyager, Explorer, Adventure, Navigator, and Mariner of the Seas.
Scheduled for delivery in the spring of 2007, the 3,600-passenger, 160,000-ton vessel will be the second of its type, following the spring 2006 debut of Ultra-Voyager I. Together, the Ultra-Voyagers will reclaim the "world's biggest" title Royal Caribbean lost to Cunard earlier this year with the debut of the 150,000-ton Queen Mary 2.