Tue Aug 31st Bermuda: Knives & forks!The food onboard is nothing short of superb – and of course wickedly appealing. Tonight after a dinner of Caesar Salad, Boston clam chowder and grilled, well seasoned prawns, three of the many dessert offerings (in Waterside, the ship’s main restaurant) included a Vanilla Tart with Chocolate Flavors, French Apple Tart a la Mode and something called Dream of Raspberry Trifle. (PS: Behind the scenes, that small army of Austrian chefs & bakers are always thoughtful – no portion is too big, too overwhelming. And the presentation is usually on very large plates or canyon-style bowls. But then, with little more than a yum-yum and even a slight smile, the waiter will deliver a 2nd helping! Yes, it can all be downward in deep decay.)
Elegant, beyond thoughtful and almost royally poised at 6 ½ feet in height, Dragan (from Serbia) has been a most splendid server! He has been with Crystal Cruises for 21 years.
Wed Sep 1st Bermuda: We have only 175 passengers aboard (950 is normally top capacity) – so with over 400 crew, the ratio is roughly 2-to-1. A half-dozen waiters crowded round us at lunch and, at dinner, it was three servers & a wine stewardess. A longtime Crystal regular later noted, “The entire ship is like a big yacht. In your lectures, you used to say that on Crystal they all but chew the meat for you! Well, now, they just about swallow it for you as well! Can it get more pampered!” And a lady on her very first Crystal voyage noted: “This is spectacular! I think I really am onboard one of the ‘floating palaces’ you talk about in your lectures.”
Now quite rare – a quartet of those red British phone boxes!
Hear ye, hear ye – Crystal’s back in town!
Berthed in the Dockyard, the former Royal Navy base here in still very British Bermuda, and then ashore for a café lunch with Stephen Card, a dear friend of some 40 years & of course the celebrated, very gifted, quite brilliant maritime artist. His glorious paintings have been covers for many of my books. But time has passed indeed – I still remember having dinner with Stephen here in Bermuda nearly 35 years ago, in June 1988, on a cruise visit, but then on Royal Caribbean’s Nordic Prince. Just two years ago, Stephen came aboard the Viking Sea for another happy dinner (but then docked in Hamilton).
Exotica! Tonight, we dine in Umi Uma, the ship’s superb Asian grill. Umi Uma (which means “seahorse” in Japanese and the symbol of Crystal Cruises) and which offers legendary Nobu’s fusion cuisine Japanese/Asian/Latin American. Alone, there are 35 varieties of sushi. But my choices are much more moderate: Shrimp Tempura (with Nobu’s Dipping Sauce), then Soft Shell Crab Spring Rolls (with Nanban Salsa) followed by Filet of Wagyu Beef (with grilled onions & asparagus and coupled with 3 sauces accompanied by steamed Japanese vegetables & brown rice) and finished off with Vanilla & Coconut Tapioca Soup (really a cross between pudding & ice cream and served with green tea ice cream). The setting alone is stunning, the food & service flawless. (PS: Remember that Crystal Cruises itself was Japanese owned until several years ago, but now comes under the umbrella of the Genting Hong Kong Group, the huge casino, hotel & travel operator.)
Often redecorated & restyled, Umi Uma began on the Company’s first ship, the Crystal Harmony (back in 1990), as Kyoto (and when guests were given ivory chopsticks) and then became Jade Garden and finally Silk Road. It is quite divine & has always been a very “hot ticket” on Crystal ships.
Overnight in beautiful Bermuda … shoreside lights, the ship itself aglow, a few thousand stars overhead & so pleasant dreams!
LIVES OF THE LINERS:CRUISING & CRUISE SHIPS – AUGUST 26, 2021
Above: Cruising in Hawaii on the Independence (Jul 1980)
From Bill Miller
Update: August 2021
Sun Aug 15thReturn! Some 160 cruise ships were back in service by August – operating with new onboard protocols and reduced capacities and masked staff & crew. Most voyages are reportedly full.
Mon Aug 16th Raising the anchor! With more cruise vessels sailing again, premium cruise brands are quickly resuming operations around the world.
MSC Cruises marked a full year of resumed cruising today.
Tue Aug 17th Norwegian Cruise Lines has resumed cruising from Miami & from their brand new, state-of-the-art terminal.
Carnival China: In a huge shipyard near Shanghai, work is progressing on the first of Carnival China’s new mega-cruise liners. The unnamed ship will be approximately 100,000 tons, carrying 2,500-plus passengers and is due late next year.
UK Cruising: David Hutchings reports: The first was on Saturday, August 7th, and the second on Saturday, August 14th, after the UK welcomed the return of the cruise industry. ABP would like to thank all teams who helped make these weekends such a success and who continue to support operations as we gear up to for the return to international cruise over the coming months.
The ships in port on August 7 and their terminals were as follows: Anthem of the Seas at City Cruise Terminal; Marella Explorer at QEII Cruise Terminal; Regal Princess at Mayflower Cruise Terminal; and MSCVirtuosa at the new Horizon Cruise Terminal; with Iona returning from her maiden voyage at Ocean Cruise Terminal.
Marella Explorer, MSC Virtuosa, Iona and Regal Princess all returned to the Port of Southampton on Saturday, August 14, when they were joined by Celebrity Silhouette.
Ultra ultra Luxury! There are few experiences as singularly luxurious as eating caviar in bed. Or returning to your suite to find your butler has cleaned your sunglasses, untangled your charging chords and drawn a post-massage bath. There are far worse ways to spend a vacation.
On Silversea’s new Silver Moon, which was completed in October of 2020, but sat unused until this June due to the coronavirus pandemic, travelers can expect this type of timeless luxury. At the French restaurant La Dame, for example, Dover sole is filleted tableside. All guests have access to a butler, and there are live orchids in the suites and fresh flowers at every turn.
Wed Aug 18th Carnival Cruise Line is temporarily moving to an every-other-day bacon schedule at its Lido Buffet fleetwide.
Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines’ new flagship, the Bolette, set sail from Dover, England on Aug 16th. According to a press release, the Bolette is offering a three-day sailing of the Isles of Scilly’s 140 islets, where guests will be able to explore rock formations, long, sandy beaches, and the coastlines of the Channel Islands. The Bolette is the former Amsterdam of Holland-America.
Fri Aug 20th Royal Caribbean: There’s a milestone moment coming this weekend in the cruise world — one that has been mostly overlooked amidst the flurry of cruising restarts in recent weeks: New York City finally will become home to one of the world’s largest cruise ships. Royal Caribbean‘s famously giant Oasis of the Seas — the groundbreaking vessel that ushered in the current era of 5,000-plus-passenger megaships — will begin, on Sun Aug. 22nd, sailings out of the New York City area’s Cape Liberty Cruise Port. Measuring 226,838 tons, the soaring Oasis of the Seas will be by far the largest cruise vessel ever to sail out of the region. (Photo below from Captain Justin Zizes)
Commissioned in 2009, the Oasis of the Seas is an icon in the world of megaships. At the time of its debut, it was nearly 50% bigger than the next biggest cruise ship, and it was chock full of then-unprecedented features (three separate deck-top pool zones; a boardwalk-like amusement area that mimicked the Jersey Shore; and a tree-lined “Central Park” to name a few — all part of seven distinct “neighborhoods”).
Even today, the Oasis of the Seas remains one of the world’s three biggest and most-amenity-filled passenger vessels. It’s only surpassed in size by two sister ships that have rolled out since 2016, and only by a tad. It can hold up to 6,699 passengers with every berth filled.
PS: Just in case you wanted to know, the ship’s funnels had to be clipped by a few week so as to squeeze under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The Queen Mary 2 just makes it with 14 feet clearance.
Pricing! There are some amazing deals out there – like $54 per person per day on a Royal Caribbean trip and $42 per person on MSC Cruises.
Sat Aug 21st Regent Seven Seas Cruises has achieved the largest booking day in the company’s 29-year history with the launch of its 2023-2024 Voyage Collection when sales opened at 8:30am on Aug. 18th. Reservations surpassed Regent’s previous largest booking day – which was set on Oct. 21st 2020, with the launch of its 2022-2023 Voyage Collection – by 15 percent.
Regent said that travel trends identified from the booking day include a desire for “longer, more exclusive experiences in bucket-list destinations, as illustrated by a significant rise in bookings of the $11,000-a-night Regent Suite and more unfamiliar and exotic regions being reserved.”
Sun Aug 22nd Royal Caribbean International’s new Wonder of the Seas has departed on sea trials from the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard at St Nazaire, France and where she is under construction. The 230,000-ton Oasis-class ship will now spend a few days at sea, testing systems and performance with teams from the shipyard, vendors, class society and other stakeholders aboard. Originally set to debut this year, the Wonder will now enter the cruise market in 2022 and become the biggest cruise ship in the world, and the fifth Oasis-class ship in service after the Oasis, Allure, Harmony & Symphony of the Seas. The new ship can carry up to 6,800 passengers, has a crew of 2,400 and measures 1,188 feet in length.
Docking the Oriana at Reykjavik in Aug 201
Carnival Cruise Line returned to the West Coast on Saturday, as the Carnival Panorama resumed service in California. Based in Long Beach, the 2019-built vessel departed on a seven-night cruise to the Mexican Riviera. The sailing marks the return of the brand to the region after a 17-month operational pause.
Tampa, Florida: Our good friend Tom Cassidy reports: “Earlier this week the Port of Tampa Authority announced that cruising will begin again. RCI will resume sailing from the port in Oct with the Serenade of the Seas. Celebrity and Carnival will follow in Nov and NCL in Dec.
Mon Aug 23rd Re-start: As half of the world’s cruise fleet returns to revenue sailings in August, 58 cruise lines are currently in service globally.
Fred. Olsen has announced that it has become the first cruise line to complete an international voyage since the resumption of cruising, as their Borealis returned to the UK from Iceland this morning. The 68,000-ton Borealis set sail for the rugged landscapes of Iceland on Aug 14th with some 800 guests onboard. It was the first international voyage to set sail from British waters since all UK cruise operators paused their operations in March 2020. The cruise called into Reykjavík, Ísafjörður, Eyjafjörður and Seyðisfjörður, and guests were able to leave the ship and explore ashore in organised shore excursions. The Borealis is the former Rotterdam of 1998.
AIDA has sold their Aidacara to Russian buyers, who reportedly will operate the ship as Astoria Grande. The 38,500-ton ship dates from 1996.
Norway is marking the official opening of the Hurtigruten Museum. The opening ceremony takes place on Aug 28th. The Museum highlights the famed Norwegian Coastal Express of passenger ships and includes the preserved coastal vessel Finnmarken.
Out of the old shoebox:
Below: A Sat afternoon in Sep 1973 at New York – the Sea Venture outbound for Bermuda
Thank you to all our readers, correspondents, those “agents” in faraway places!
CRUISING, CRUISE SHIPS & THECORONA VIRUS – AUGUST 15, 2021
WEEKLY NEWS & UPDATES
from Bill Miller
August 2021
Mon Aug 9th Baltic Cruising: In case you’re thinking of a Baltic cruise in future, Finland has been voted as the “happiest” country on the planet. And in the top five, there’s also Iceland, Denmark & the Netherlands.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has announced today that a Florida judge ruled in its favor granting a preliminary injunction which paves the way for the company’s three brands to require documentation confirming a guest’s vaccination status prior to boarding for cruises departing from Florida.
China Merchants Viking Cruises won’t be cruising in August and has delayed its start up until further notice. The company had previously gotten the green light to sail a series of 8-day cruises from Shenzhen to Hainan Province with the former Viking Sun, now the Zhao Shang Yi Dun and sailing under the Chinese flag. The company cited the evolving pandemic situation in China as the reason for the delay and said it was “the right decision to postpone all voyages.” Another locally-flagged operator, Astro Ocean Cruises with their Piano Land (ex-Oriana) , was expected to start up in August as well. That program is also said to be delayed.
American Queen Steamboat Company announced that the American Queen welcomes her first revenue guests in 18 months today, becoming the fourth vessel to return to service for the U.S. flagged cruise line.
Tue Aug 10th Norwegian Cruise Line and luxury sister brands Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises will be allowed to require passengers to show proof of vaccination in order to sail, following a preliminary injunction granted by a judge on Sunday. Since cruise lines announced they’d be resuming sailings from the U.S., Norwegian Cruise Line has been the only brand to commit to a 100% vaccination rate for both crew and passengers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made that more difficult to achieve when he issued an executive order in early May that prohibits Florida businesses from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination in order to enter the premises.
Cunard: The final touches are being made to the 92,000-ton Queen Elizabeth as the cruise line prepares to return to sailing on Friday, August 13th after a 17 month break.
MSC Cruises: Maiden voyage! Passengers boarded at Barcelona, Marseille and Genoa on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively, as part of the ship’s inaugural seven-night western Mediterranean itinerary. The 1,112-ft long MSC Seashore (below) will next call Messina in Sicily and Valletta in Malta, then head back to Barcelona, Marseille and Genoa. Following her summer season in the western Mediterranean, the 5,900-passenger MSC Seashore will complete an 18-night trans-Atlantic crossing to PortMiami for seven-night Caribbean cruises this winter.
Viking Ocean: Viking’s entire ocean fleet is expected to be in service by August as the Viking Jupiter, Viking Star and others are added to the active lineup. Since restarting service in May, Viking has been offering cruises in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Bermuda and the Mediterranean. Below: Three of Viking’s 940-passenger ships laid-up at Belfast.
Cash Burn! Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings are still burning through cash as some ships emerge from lay up back into operations. Cash burn numbers may be up in the third quarter with added costs to reactivate ships, needed maintenance, potential drydocks, procurement, getting crew back and more. Only one out of the three big cruise companies provided estimates on third quarter cash burn, indicating it would be up close to 45 percent. Below: Carnival’s P&O Cruises division.
Wed Aug 11th Disappointment! A young Italian couple planned a special honeymoon – taking a Mediterranean cruise, but especially standing on their shipboard terrace & watching the iconic sights of beautiful Venice. But cruise ships have been banned from the historic port and instead their MSC cruise ship berthed several miles away, at nearby Monfalcone. So, instead their honeymoon view was a shipyard, containers & a power plant.
Thu Aug 12th Malta: With at least three cruise ships now running cruises from Valletta, special charter flights are being offered from Newark NJ. Maltese nostalgia: The cruise ship Island Breeze (the former Transvaal Castle/S A Vaal/Festivale) is shown below.
Thu Aug 12th Celebrity: Friends from Florida wrote today: “Just returned from our Cruise on Celebrity Summit. In and out of St. Maarten with stops in Barbados and Grenada. Next stops were Curaçao, and then Aruba. Great weeklong getaway. All passengers had to be vaccinated and proof of negative COVID tests coming and upon disembarking from the ship. Only 300 passengers on board. They redid the ship and it’s a really nice upgrade. We were in the Retreat section and in a suite.”
Somnio: A ultra-luxurious residential yacht! Tillberg Design of Sweden has been appointed lead architect for master planning and interior concepts for Somnio, which features 39 onboard apartments with amenities. The name Somnio derives from Latin, meaning “to dream”..
Shipyards are facing an almost overwhelming demand for slots as many cruise ships need refits & refurbishing before returning to service in the months ahead.
Norwegian Cruise Lines: The innovative Norwegian Prima was recently floated out at a Fincantieri shipyard in Italy.
The 142,500-ton Norwegian Prima is a very interesting looking mega-ship. She is the first of 6 Leonardo Class liners for NCL – and with options for 2 more. The 965-ft long ship can carry 3,215 passengers and is designed for both North American & European cruising.
Sat Aug 14th Carnival: Twenty-six crew members and one passenger have tested positive for Covid 19 aboard a Carnival cruise ship that departed this week from Galveston, Texas. The Carnival Vista was carrying 2,895 passengers and 1,441 crew members, the Belize Tourism Board announced on Wednesday ahead of the cruiseship’s arrival. All of the 27 people who contracted Covid 19 were vaccinated but had breakthrough cases that were either “asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms.
Below: From my old shoe box – Carnival Cruise Lines’ first ship, the Mardi Gras, in 1972; she was the former Empress of Canada
Finest thanks to friends, readers, reporters & those faraway “maritime secret agents”
LIVES OF THE LINERS: CRUISING & CRUISE SHIPS – AUGUST 9, 2021
Above: Cruising in Alaska’s Glacier Bay on the Fairsea of Sitmar Cruises (Jul 1976)
From Bill Miller
Update: August 2021
Sun Aug 1st Royal Caribbean International’sAdventure of the Seas had 6 positive cases of Covid on their recent roundtrip cruise from Nassau. In the same cruise area, the Crystal Serenity reported 2 cases.
Portugal: The Portuguese government has announced a staged plan to lift restrictions, with all current limits being removed by Oct 2021.
Greece: Andreas Potamianos, one of Greece’s most prominent shipowners, passed away on Friday at the age of 88. His family owned the Epirotiki Lines, a popular Greek isles & Eastern Mediterranean cruise line, and later Royal Olympic Cruises (from a merger with the Sun Line). Epirotiki itself is said to have run the very first Greek isles cruise from Piraeus back in 1954. Among the Company’s earliest ships was the “cuising yacht” Argonaut (below), a ship also well known for her charter cruises to the Smithsonian Museum.
Tue Aug 3rdThe cruise industry’s accelerated restart is continuing in August as 190 cruise ships representing 65 different brands will operate with guests aboard, The 190 ships represent over 275,000 berths at full occupancy. The ships are an average size of approximately 1,500 guests each. It was a positive end to the month of July, with Norwegian Cruise Line relaunching operation, Carnival’s new Mardi Gras sailing, and the Allure of the Seas (below) completing a test cruise for Royal Caribbean International, while Dream Cruises and Genting relaunched service in Hong Kong.
MSC Cruises: The MSC Meraviglia (below right) has become the latest MSC cruise ship to welcome guests onboard again after the pandemic when she sailed last night out of PortMiami, Florida. MSC Cruises said that this is a key milestone as part of the line’s global plan to have more than half of its fleet back at sea by the end of this summer, following the line’s initial restart in the Mediterranean in August 2020 and over the past several months the return at sea of more of its ships across the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, the UK, the Red Sea and now in the Caribbean out of the U.S.
Lindblad: After resuming ship operations in June, by end-July Lindblad Expeditions had eight of nine vessels in service. Bookings for 2022 are 36% ahead of the bookings for 2021 a year prior.
Princess: The Majestic Princess returned to Seattle last weekend, concluding its sailing to Alaska and marking the first successful United States voyage for Princess Cruises following the extended pause in operations.
Farewell Sydney
Carnival: The $1 ½ billion Mardi Gras arrived in San Juan on her first visit today. The Company announced: “As part of Carnival Cruise Line’s highly anticipated return to guest operations, the line’s newest and most innovative ship Mardi Gras [below] arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, today, marking the ship’s first port of call on its maiden voyage. The Mardi Gras is also the first cruise ship to stop in San Juan in 16 months.”
Thu Aug 5th More from Carnival saying that bookings for future cruises soared in March, April & May – jumping by 45%. Carnival also revealed that nearly 50% of its canceled cruise passengers opted for credit rather than a refund.
Royal Caribbean revealed that all of its Jul & Aug cruises were fully booked – if at reduced Covid capacities, of course.
Fri Aug 6th Carnival, Royal Caribbean & Norwegian Cruise – the three largest cruise operators – were losing a combined $900 million per month during the pandemic. Analysts suggest that it will probably take until 2023 for the three major players to start substantially reducing their debt.
Fri Aug 6th Yet More from Carnival Cruise Line: Yesterday, Carnival changed its face covering and testing policies. From Aug 7th, all guests will be required to wear face masks indoors. This includes elevators, shops, casinos, restaurant halls and queuing areas. A spokesperson added, “In any (indoor) area where many people are gathered and when you’re not eating or drinking, we are going to require you to wear a face mask, and this is for all guests, not just those who are unvaccinated.”
Additionally, from Aug 14th, all cruises will require all guests to test negative for coronavirus within three days before the sailing.
Norwegian Cruise reported: “Last week we reached a historic milestone in our Great Cruise Comeback with the successful commencement of our re-launch with the first ship in our fleet, the Norwegian Jade, sailing the Greek Isles. Tomorrow (Sat Aug 7th) will mark our first cruise in the United States in over 500 days as the Norwegian Encore sets sail from Seattle to Alaska. The company expects to have approximately 40% of its fleet capacity operating by the end of the third quarter 2021 and approximately 75% by year-end 2021 with the full fleet expected to be back in operation by April 1, 2022.
Royal Caribbean: What occupancy does Royal Caribbean Group need on its ships to be at a break even point for cashflow? The answer: Somewhere between 35 and 50 percent, depending on the ship.
Out of the old shoebox:
Below: A Sat morning in Aug 1969 at New York – the Michelangelo (left) departs with the Nieuw Amsterdam soon to follow
Thank you to all our readers, correspondents, those “agents” in faraway places!
LIVES OF THE LINERS:CRUISING & CRUISE SHIPS – JULY 16, 2021
From Bill Miller
July 17th 2021
Mon Jul 12th Norwegian Cruise Lines plans to resume cruises from New York in October.
Tue Jul 13th Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) filed a lawsuit today against the surgeon general for the State of Florida. The lawsuit challenges the state’s action of fining businesses that require proof of COVID-19 vaccinations ahead of Norwegian’s previously announced August 15th restart from Florida, where the line has promised 100 percent vaccinated sailings.
Royal Caribbean plans “test cruises” from Cape Liberty at Bayonne in August.
Wed Jul 14th Crystal has scrubbed its program of summer & fall 10-night cruises from Antigua and instead reassigned the Crystal Symphony to 7-day Bermuda cruising from Boston and then from New York.
Cunard has axed its long winter world cruises and the Queen Mary 2 will now make winter voyages from New York – crossings as well as cruises – before resuming her original schedule in April.
Fri Jul 16th Fred Olsen: Teething problems! A technical issue has rendered Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines’ Borealis unable to operate its five-night ‘Scenic Orkney & Faroes’ cruise set to depart from Liverpool on July 17th. The 68,000-ton Borealis is the HAL Rotterdam of 1998.
Canada is lifting its cruise ship ban effective Nov 1st.
Viking Ocean: Our good friend and world class cruise expert Anne Kalosh tells us: “Fincantieri’s Ancona yard today floated out Viking Mars, the eighth ship in a series for Viking Cruises and due for early 2022 delivery. The Viking Mars will be named by godmother Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the eighth countess of Carnarvon, and spend its maiden season sailing in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe before embarking on voyages in Asia and Australia. Since 2013, Viking has offered travelers a variety of ways to experience life at Highclere Castle, home of the earl and countess of Carnarvon, and the filming location for Downton Abbey. For more than a year, Lady Carnarvon has welcomed viewers to Highclere Castle on Viking TV.”
Regent: The hugely knowledgeableAnne also reports: “Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ 2024 world cruise sold out in 2 1/2 hours on July 14th, at fares ranging from $73,499 to $199,999 per person. This was the third year in a row for record-breaking world cruise sales at Regent. The line’s previous world cruise opening day record was set when the 2023 world cruise went on sale in September 2020.”
Carnival has resumed cruising from Galveston.
Out of the old shoebox:
Above: New York on a sunny August day in 1990 – the Eugenio Costa & QE2 are berthed while the Crystal Harmony approaches on her maiden call; Below: A Tue morning arrival at Pier 90, New York for the Queen Elizabeth. She had just arrived from a 5-day crossing from Southampton and Cherbourg. The stern of the United States can be seen on the right.
Thank you to all our readers, correspondents, those “agents” in faraway places!
