Cruise Holidays Irish Cruise Blog

Halloween Special with Norwegian Cruise Lines

Norwegian Cruise Line’s fleet of 11 Freestyle Cruising ships will offer guests a spooktacular cruise experience for Halloween. Festive decorations will be adorned throughout the ship and guests can participate in special activities to celebrate the light-hearted holiday, from masquerade balls and costume contests to spooky scavenger hunts and scary movie trivia.

Those looking to experience the mystery and thrills of the season can attend Murder Mystery lunches performed by The Second City Comedy Troupe on board Norwegian Dawn; Epic; Gem; Pearl; Spirit; Star and Pride of America.

As guests set sail to the Bahamas & Florida, Bermuda, Caribbean, Europe and Hawaii, the celebration continues with themed desserts in the ship’s action-station restaurants. Decadent treats may include Pecan Caramel Spiders made with dark chocolate, caramel and pecans or Halloween cupcakes decorated with bewitching confections and made with chocolate, cream cheese and topped with a peanut butter frosting. To add to the festivities of the evening, adults can enjoy themed cocktail specialties such as a Blackbeard’s Ghost.

 

Celebrity Cruises Embraces Healthy Eating

Celebrity Cruises has launched a new series of interactive activities themed around healthy eating choices, in collaboration with Rodale Inc. -"the world's leading authority on health and wellness"

The line says the new activities will draw on Rodale's expertise in health and wellness; the first of these activities are themed around Rodale's New York Times best-selling "Eat This, Not That!" series.

Celebrity's version of "Eat This, Not That!" is an interactive trivia game that challenges guests' knowledge of healthy eating and promotes ways to make smart, healthy choices when dining out.

"Cook This, Not That!" is a cooking demonstration that highlights ways to get the most flavor and nutrition for fewer calories when cooking at home.

"Drink This, Not That!" is a mixology demonstration that presents tips for serving up tasty, libations while avoiding unnecessary calories.

Celebrity and Prevention Magazine, one of Rodale's longest-running publications, are in the midst of developing additional wellness-focused activities, including enrichment talks led by a host of health and wellness experts from the title.

"Our guests have told us how fulfilling our wellness activities are, particularly in a world where schedules are hectic and vacation time is so precious," said Dominique Bonavita, Director, Product Development. "The collaboration with Rodale is a new evolution of programming that enriches our guests' lives long after their cruise, and we couldn't be more excited about all that we're offering and all that is yet to come."

David Marchi, Senior Vice President of Rodale Integrated Marketing, commented, "Partnering with Celebrity Cruises is a smart and entertaining way to extend Rodale's health and wellness mission-- now guests can enjoy our passion for wellness while relaxing and enjoying the best Celebrity Cruises has to offer."

Cunard to offer weddings at sea

For the first time in its 171-year history, Cunard Line will be offering passengers an opportunity to get married at sea.

The cruise line says its new shipboard "Weddings" program will begin next spring on all three of its ships – Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth.

In order to allow the weddings, Cunard is re-flagging the entire fleet, moving registration from Southampton to Bermuda because English law does not permit weddings at sea, but Bermuda has no such restriction.

Hamilton will replace Southampton on the hull of the Queen Elizabeth by the end of the month and on the other ships in November. The Red Ensign flag will continue to fly on the ships since Bermuda is a British territory.

Cunard president Peter Shanks said there's pent-up demand from passengers for weddings at sea, with couples particularly looking to tie the knot in the middle of the Atlantic on sailings of the flagship Queen Mary 2.

Shipboard weddings have become "increasingly popular and lucrative" for cruise lines, he said.

The Cunard program will go on sale in December. A variety of wedding packages will be available, including the option of having the ship's captain perform the ceremony.

Sister lines Princess and P&O Cruises have tapped into the weddings at sea market for years, as have other lines including Celebrity.

 

New Celebrity European Food & Wines Cruises

Celebrity Cruises have just announced that they'll be operating a series of scrumptious food and wine-themed sailings from Southampton next year.

From September 7 to November 18, 2012, Celebrity Constellation will present an entirely new "Immersive Europe Wine Cruises" from Southampton.

Designed to offer guests rich experiences in the classic wine countries of France, Spain and Portugal, the new itineraries feature overnight stays in Le Havre (for Paris/Normandy) and Le Verdon (for Bordeaux), France, as well as Bilbao, Spain, allowing passengers ample time to sip Champagne in the "City of Light," taste robust Bordeaux in the land that bears its name, and relish fine Rioja wines.

Guests also will have the opportunity to enjoy tours and tastings at some of the region's most renowned wineries, grape harvesting experiences, and gain in-person insight into how Port wine is blended and aged in Porto, Portugal.

Celebrity's onboard experience will reflect the flair and flavour of the region, too, with activities developed in partnership with local wineries, including Rioja tastings, Champagne brunches, Bordeaux samplings featuring up to five wines from well-known Chateaus, Port and food pairing dinners and more, including special events in the ship's Cellar Masters bar, complete with its "Enomatic" by-the-glass wine serving system. A seasonal wine package featuring special selections from the region also will be added to Celebrity's already popular package offerings.

"This new series of modern luxury holidays represents a perfect blend of Celebrity's innovation and expertise in food and wine with the regions of Europe that have long been recognized for both," said Celebrity's President & CEO Dan Hanrahan.

"It's a truly one-of-a-kind vacation. No other cruise line offers such an enormous breadth and depth of experiences in this highly-rated region during harvest season, and no other line can deliver it like Celebrity can, with our exceptional wine programme, expertly trained sommeliers, Cellar Masters wine bars, and up to 500 selections of wine on every ship."

Celebrity Cruises to attract kids with Nerdel!

Celebrity Cruises is attempting to attract more families to its cruise holidays with the introduction of a new puppet show for children’s entertainment.

Nerdel is set to feature on Celebrity Cruises from October 15th, offering kids the chance to enjoy puppet shows and puppet making workshops.

The interactive programme has been created to get across a message about the importance of healthy eating to kids.

As Celebrity Cruises senior vice president of hotel operations Lisa Lutoff-Perlo explains, "Nerdel has been designed to instil wellness-focused values in children"

"We offer our adult guests a number of ways to include wellness in their vacation experience, and now we are looking to do the same for our younger guests," she said.

"Children will learn more about the importance of nutritional choice alongside physical fitness with classes including a healthy pizza-making session."

The World of Nerdel was created by a team of doctors, nutritionists and entertainers keen to provide parents with more value in onboard childrens entertainment.

Nerdel will make his Celebrity Cruise debut next Saturday performing for children aged three to eight.

NCL commissions famous artist to paint next ship

 
NCL has commissioned New York based artist Peter Max to paint their next cruise ship.

It's the first time the line has asked a popular artist to paint the hull artwork on one of its ships, and it’ll be Peter Max’s first effort at painting a ship.

Although the New York artist is no stranger to painting large objects, his achievements include a Boeing 777 jumbo jet as well as a 600ft stage for Woodstock. He's also well-known for his paintings of various heads of states, including six American presidents and his artwork is on exhibition in hundreds of galleries and museums worldwide.

Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian Cruise Line’s chief executive officer had the following to say “Since Norwegian Breakaway will be making her home in New York, we felt it was fitting to ask the artist best associated with New York, Mr. Peter Max, to paint the ship’s hull. I am a huge fan of his work and know that the art he creates for Norwegian Breakaway will make the ship instantly recognizable.”

Peter Max is simply thrilled at the opportunity “I’ve painted a plane and a stage for Woodstock, but never a ship. I love ships and have travelled on them many times in my life. To see my artwork floating on Norwegian Breakaway out at sea will be a dream come true.”

The Norwegian Breakaway is scheduled for delivery in April 2013. She will weigh in at an impressive 144,017 gross tons and has been reported to have berths for 4,000 passengers. Breakaway’s sister ship Norwegian Getaway is scheduled for a April 2014 delivery.

MSC Cruises collects €1 million for Unicef

MSC Cruises is proud to announce that a grand total of 1 million euros has been collected so far for the Get on Board for Children initiative in support of a project promoting quality education development in Brazil.

The initiative, which relies on donations generously made by cruise holiday guests cruising aboard all 11 passenger liners in the MSC Cruises’ fleet, was introduced in 2009 as part of a three-year partnership agreement with UNICEF and the UNICEF Urban Platform Initiative project in Brazil. The project aims to help address the structural and social inequalities in 94 favelas in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Itaquaquecetuba.

The project is currently on the homestretch of the initiative’s first cycle, in which governments, non-governmental organizations, communities, families and adolescents have pulled together to give an even stronger boost to reaching the goals initially established by municipalities and communities at the beginning of the project.

In terms of education for instance, municipal schools from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have launched a monitoring process to assess the implementation of Law 10639/03 which requires the inclusion of Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous history and culture in all official school curriculums. The objective is to expand the number of schools implementing the law in order to foster racial equality and in so doing provide children and adolescents with quality education.

“1 million euros represents a major milestone in our fund raising effort and we are honoured, together with our valued passengers who have so generously supported this initiative, to actively participate in providing quality education to children and adolescents in the most destitute of Brazilian favelas.

I am proud of the significant achievements reached so far. While I appreciate that we must progress one step at a time to succeed in our endeavour to drastically help improve access to quality education in Brazil, I am confident that our objectives will be achieved”, said MSC Cruises CEO Pierfrancesco Vago.

Carnival Cruise's new fleet bars

Carnival Cruises has revealed a massive fleetwide overhaul.

The line revealed plans for five new branded drinking venues that will roll out on multiple Carnival ships over the next four years as part of $500 million in upgrades.

Among the new venues is a sports bar branded around video game manufacturer EA Sports and a tequila bar to be called BlueIguana. The line also plans a branded rum bar and two branded cocktail lounges.

 

Artist's drawings of the new concepts are here for your critique. Carnival says the EA Sports venue is designed to be the "ultimate hangout for sports fanatics" and will offer the chance to play EA Sports videogames and watch live sports on a video wall behind the bar made up of 16 big screens. Real-time sports scores will be displayed around-the-clock on an electronic ticker.

The RedFrog Rum Bar, a poolside version of the Caribbean-themed RedFrog Pub that debuted earlier this year on the Carnival Magic (becoming the first pub on a Carnival ship). It'll serve rum-based frozen drinks and beers, including Carnival's new private label ThirstyFrog Red.

The BlueIguana Tequila Bar, which Carnival says will offer a laid-back Mexican-themed atmosphere and specialize in tequila-based frozen drinks and Mexican beers.

The Alchemy Bar will serve cocktails and the line says Carnival mixologists, as it is dubbing bartenders, will "prescribe" unusual concoctions at the outlet.

 

The Library Bar, designed as a quieter retreat for cruisers will offer wine out of automatic wine dispensers.

In addition to the five new bars, Carnival on Monday also announced plans for a new Mexican taqueria and burrito station to be called the BlueIguana Cantina. It'll be located on ships near the new BlueIguana Tequila Bars.

The new venues are in addition to a new burger joint branded around Food Network star Guy Fieri that the line on Monday said will be rolling out across its fleet.

 

New York beats Venice as top cruise port

According to the PSA (Passenger Shipping Association) in the UK, New York has knocked Venice off the top for best cruising destinations!

 

Nearly one-fifth of those who took part in the YouGov British survey voted it number one for a port destination, with Venice receiving 13 per cent, dropping to second place.

Barcelona, Rome and Singapore shared third position with 7 per cent of cruisers saying they were their favourite stop-offs.

The survey which marked the start of National Cruise Week showed that a whopping 1.7 million Britons will go on a cruise holiday this year.

The cruise sector has been growing in recent years, bucking the downward trend experienced by the rest of the travel market.

In 2010, cruising accounted for 4.5 per cent of the foreign travel market for Britain and 11.5 per cent of the package holiday market.

Director of the PSA Bill Gibbons said: ‘The survey highlights why more cruise holidays are being taken by Brits than ever before – it’s an effortlessly way to visit many great destinations across the world while only unpacking once.’