Cruising news

Most in the cruise industry believe that 2010 should be a better year.  Nine new ships are slated to go into service including a new Queen Elizabeth from Cunard.   The QE is slated for its first voyage on October 12 and the ship is already sold out. Other cruise ships slated for their inaugural cruises [...]

Hurricanes  According to an article I saw on Cruise Critic, September 10 is the height of the Hurricane Season. The season runs until December first. So one might ask, is September then a good time to sail in the Caribbean? Cruise companies spend half-a-billion dollars or more on their massive cruise ships. The last thing [...]

One of the newest and easiest ways to stay on top of what’s going on in the cruise industry is to see what they’re doing on their Ttwitter sites. However based on my most recent check, cruise companies are missing a great opportunity to tie in with their customers.   If you’ve signed up on Twitter [...]

By: John Hinnen Dec 9, 2008   We may be in an economic downturn, but it certainly looks like cruise ships will be well occupied over the Christmas holiday period. Checking online I could only find a few ships that still have space left.  MSC’s Lirica has some inside and outside rooms available starting at [...]

By John Hinnen Finally, Carnival Cruise lines which operates Carnival, Costa, Holland America, Cunard, Princess and Seabourn cruise lines has decided to drop the $9 per day fuel surcharge. The move takes effect on any cruise that departs on or after December 17th.   The company says the refund will take the form of a shipboard [...]

By John Hinnen – I have just completed my seventh, or from my perspective eighth, cruise on Holland America. This time my wife and I sailed on the “Ryndam” from Vancouver to Alaska.  For photos, click here. For me this was a very special cruise. See, in 1960 my family immigrated to Canada from Holland. We [...]

By John Hinnen Recently I booked an Alaskan cruise on Holland America.   When I went online to get my boarding pass I was informed that now HAL has a “hold back” payment.   That is, they’re now going to charge you $60 per day, per passenger.  That “hold back” is then applied to your credit card [...]

By John Hinnen Even with oil prices skyrocketing the last few months, cruise lines seem to be holding their own.  Certainly it would appear that right now for cruise lines the worst seems to be over. Their share prices which hit 52-week lows in mid July have staged significant rebounds since then.  One of the [...]