2007 will bring the return of Celebrity’s Summit, Infinity, and Mercury to Alaska. In addition Celebrity will also offer two new West Coast cruises.
Once again Infinity will offer weekly Hubbard Glacier cruises departing from Vancouver BC. The itineraries will offer Sunday departures with stops in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Icy Straight Point. The ship’s Alaska schedule will kick off with a 13 night repositioning cruise from San Francisco to Vancouver, and the season will end for Infinity with a similar cruise back south.
Summit will once again offer an alternating series of northbound and southbound cruises. Northbound cruises will depart from Vancouver with southbound cruises departing from Seward, departures will be on alternating Fridays. No matter which direction you choose to sail on Summit you’ll get to visit Juneau, Skagway, Icy Straight Point, and Ketchikan as well as some scenic cruising around Hubbard Glacier. The season will start for Summit with a 13 night repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver BC, and the ship will finish out it’s Alaska season with a 14 night trip from Vancouver to San Diego.
Meanwhile, Mercury will kick off it’s season with a West Coast cruise calling at several West Coast winemaking areas. Sailing from San Francisco, the ship will offer a seven night cruise to Vancouver via Monterey, Astoria, Seattle, and Victoria. That cruise will be followed by a seven night cruise that will end in Seattle which will be the ship’s homeport during the Alaska cruise season. From Seattle Mercury will offer a season of weekly cruises to Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and Hubbard Glacier. Mercury will end it’s Alaska season with a November 2 departure from Vancouver on a 10 night sailing to San Diego. This trip will call on Victoria, Seattle, Astoria, Catalina Island and also an overnight in San Francisco.
For more information about these or any of the itineraries offered by Celebrity Cruises visit Cruise Planners, or call us at 888-286-9827 to book you Celebrity Cruise vacation.
(0) Comments (Leave a Comment)Filed under: Celebrity Cruises Posted by Michael on 04/28/06
Democratic Political Commentator James Carville and wife Republican Commentator Mary Matalan will set sail on the Crystal Symphony on August 19. The couple will host lectures on board during this sailing from Civitavecchia to Dover. In addition Carville will talk about the film “All The King’s Men” which he was the executive producer of. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name, the film will make it’s debut at the Venice Film Festival immediately following the voyage.
(0) Comments (Leave a Comment)Filed under: Crystal Cruises Posted by Patricia on 04/26/06
The following is a statement put out by WindStar Cruises. These smaller ships can go to ports the larger ships can not and they smaller passenger load means no waiting for tenders and more personal service. Windstar is know for their great itineraries and their committment to their pledge to be “180 degrees from ordinary.”
(more…) (0) Comments (Leave a Comment)Filed under: Windstar Cruises Posted by Michael on 04/25/06
Today, NCL Corporation announced the Honorable Daniel K. Inouye, senior United States Senator from Hawaii, will give the keynote address and officially name NCL America’s newest U.S.-flag ship at her christening on May 20th in Los Angeles, California. Pride of Hawaii is the third in a series of U.S.-flag cruise ships sailing under the NCL America brand and built for the Hawaii market in furtherance of the “Hawaii Cruise Ship Initiative,” legislation sponsored by Senator Inouye and passed by the United States Congress in February 2003.
At just over 93,500 gross registered tons, carrying more than 2,400 passengers, and costing over half a billion dollars, Pride of Hawai`i is by far the largest and most expensive U.S. flagged passenger ship ever built. It will employ a crew of over 1000, bringing the total seagoing workforce of NCL’s U.S. flagged fleet to approximately 4000, making NCL America the largest private employer of American seafarers in the world. The economic impact of the three ship fleet has been estimated by PriceWaterhouse Coopers to be nearly $830 million a year and an additional 20,000 jobs, including over a quarter of that impact occurring in other parts of the U.S. outside of Hawai`i.
NCL’s U.S. flag fleet, the first ship of which began service in July 2004, and its one international ship, will boost Hawai`i cruise passenger carryings to in excess of 650,000 a year by 2007. At these levels, Hawai`i as a cruise destination will be comparable in size and importance to Alaska and, together with Alaska, will be one of the top two domestic cruise destinations in North America.
Recent studies by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the North American cruise industry’s marketing and travel agent association, have revealed that travel agents believe Hawai`i will overtake Europe as the third most in-demand worldwide destination for American cruise passengers (after Caribbean and Alaska).
Daniel K. Inouye is the third most senior member of the U.S. Senate, and, with Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, co-chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The panel’s responsibilities include U.S. maritime commerce, which Senator Inouye continues to support. Senator Inouye was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962, and is now serving his eighth consecutive term. When Hawaii joined the Union in 1959, he was elected the first Congressman from the new state, and was re-elected to a full term in 1960.
(0) Comments (Leave a Comment)Filed under: NCL America Posted by Michael on 04/25/06
Today Princess Cruises issued the statement below regarding the fire onbard Star Princess last month. It doesn’t really add any new information, but we wanted to make sure that the word got out…
We are aware of the safety notice recently distributed to cruise lines by ICCL, and we fully intend to implement the recommendations contained in that notice.We continue to believe the fire was an isolated incident, and would like to stress that our company has been safely operating ships with large numbers of balconies for over ten years. This is the first such incident that has occurred.
Nevertheless, after the fire we immediately put in place on all our ships precautions designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event of a similar situation, we would be able to quickly detect and extinguish the fire.
To that end, we implemented a 24-hour fire watch of our balconies, introduced specific training and fire response procedures for our crew in handling fires on balconies, enhanced communication to passengers regarding fire safety, and changed certain crew housekeeping procedures on balconies.
We want to assure our passengers that with these measures in place, they should not be concerned, and can feel confident that their safety and well being aboard our ships is not compromised.
Further to the immediate precautionary measures already in place, we are moving quickly to provide long-term and permanent measures to improve fire safety on our balconies. We are well advanced with the development of these permanent measures and, naturally, will be taking fully into account the requirements of the regulatory authorities in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
We will provide additional information as it becomes available.
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