Free Balcony Upgrades With Celebrity

Head to the geysers in Iceland, learn how to dance like a Russian or just soak up the sun in the Med, and do it all in the ultimate luxury of a private balcony with a new offer from Celebrity Cruises. Book a holiday on Celebrity Eclipse in 2012 by October 31 and receive a FREE upgrade to a veranda stateroom.

A typical 14-night Mediterranean cruise in September costs from just £1,699 per person and qualifies for the free upgrade offer (based on two people sharing). Departing from Southampton, the voyage calls as Malaga, Nice (Villefranche), Rome (Civitavecchia), Florence (Livorno), Genoa, Gibraltar and Lisbon before returning to Southampton and includes meals and entertainment onboard and all relevant cruise taxes/fees. The offer is available on 22 sailings on Celebrity Eclipse from May to October 2012.

In addition, Celebrity Cruises is also offering guests $100 onboard credit per stateroom on any cruise over six nights in 2012 (except Alaska and Galapagos).

For more information, visit www.celebritycruises.co.uk or the UK's leading cruise specialists of The Cruise Line Ltd.

Louis Cruises in 2011 From Under £42 per night

Louis Cruises’ full 2011 brochure, featuring cruises costing less than £42 per person per night, has gone on-sale.

A three-night Greek Islands cruise out of Piraeus (Athens) on the Aquamarine or Orient Queen starts from £179 in 2011, while a 12-night cruise out of Genoa or Marseille on the Louis Majesty leads in at £499 per person – just £41.58 per person, per night.

“Such outstanding value for a full-board cruise offers agents tremendous sales opportunities for 2011,” says UK General Manager Peter Adamou. “And now that Louis Cruises are available on Amadeus, it’s easy for agents to select our cruise-only offering, then bolt on flights and hotels, using the same GDS, to create a complete package.”

Louis Cruises has just been made available on the browser-based Amadeus Cruise desktop sales solution for travel professionals, and the Cruise Application Programming Interface (API) for online sales.

The new brochure, titled ‘Sea of Memories’, showcases the five Louis Cruises ships available to the UK market: Louis Majesty, Louis Cristal, Coral, Aquamarine and Orient Queen.

All ships sail in what Louis Cruises describe as ‘our home waters’, i.e. the Mediterranean, and the line prides itself on offering itineraries that offer the maximum opportunity for shore visits.

“Our intimate ships – the largest is the Majesty with a capacity of 1,790 – enable us to visit smaller, as well as large ports, with quicker disembarkation times and easy access to the sights,” adds Adamou.

The new brochure features 16 different itineraries, from the three-night ‘Aegean Legends’ cruise around the Greek islands on Aquamarine or Orient Queen to the Majesty’s 12-night ‘Eastern Mediterranean Highlights’ itinerary.

Sample shore excursions are listed for each ship, and the Greek line’s hospitality, or ‘filoxenia’, is also highlighted.

All prices include full board, on-board entertainment, port taxes and charges. Travel to/from embarkation points, shore excursions, drinks and gratuities are not included.

For more info, call 0800 018 3883 or visit http://www.louiscruises.com/.

MSC Lirica to be based in Abu Dhabi

By guest blogger Steve Newman

Abu Dhabi's ambition to become an international cruise hub has received a significant boost following the signing of a landmark co-operation agreement between Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and MSC Cruises that will see the company deploy one of its top vessels to the UAE capital on a home-port basis from October 2011. Abu Dhabi's Mina Zayed Port will serve as the primary embarkation and disembarkation point for MSC Lirica.

Surrounding Lirica's 19 regional forays will be repositioning cruises from and to Genoa in Italy. On October 14, 2011, the vessel will depart Genoa for a 17-day/16-night maiden voyage to Abu Dhabi, where she will begin her maiden regional season.

A southland course will take Lirica through the Mediterranean, calling at Naples and Port Said (Egypt), before going through the Suez Canal and reaching Aqaba (Jordan). The vessel stops in Salalah and Muscat in Oman, then Dubai, before reaching her home port in Abu Dhabi. The luxury ship then leaves the UAE for Genoa on March 9, 2012.

With regional tours departing Abu Dhabi every Sunday from October 28, 2011, Lirica will travel round the Arabian Gulf peninsula to Muscat, before turning round en route for the UAE's eastern emirate of Fujairah on the Indian Ocean. It will continue heading north to Bahrain, then sail southwards to Dubai, before completing its journey in Abu Dhabi.

For further information log on to http://www.msccruises.co.uk/ or visit specialist agents The Cruise Line Ltd.

MSC add Middle East Cruises

By guest blogger Steve Newman

The elegant MSC Lirica (above) will be based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for the first time for her busy 2011-2012 winter season. The itinerary of the MSC Cruises vessel includes a full schedule of nineteen 8-day/7-night voyages from Abu Dhabi, with departures every Sunday from October 30, 2011, to March 4, 2012, and from Dubai, with departures every Friday.

The 59,000-ton Lirica, which has capacity for a total of 2,069 guests in 780 cabins, will call at the port of Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman, Al Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, the island Kingdom of Bahrain and include two unforgettable nights in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the UAE.

On October 14, 2011, the ship will depart from Genoa for a 17-day maiden cruise to Abu Dhabi, to start her first ever season in the region. Her southbound course will take her to Naples and Port Said, through the Suez Canal to Aqaba in Jordan, then Salalah and Muscat in Oman and finally to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Arabia will say farewell to Lirica five months later when she starts her northbound return cruise with scheduled stops in Al Fujairah, Muscat, Salalah, Safaga, Aqaba, Port Sokhna (Egypt), Port Said and finally Naples and Genoa.

For more information, got to www.MSCcruises.co.uk

Have you checked out what's happening at The Cruise Show held in Birmingham in October and London in March?

Cruise the Med for less than £40 a day!

Mediterranean specialist Louis Cruises has cut the cost of four of its late-season cruises on chic flagship Louis Majesty.

For sailings from Marseille, cruises now start at just £319 per person – for a nine-day/eight night ‘Iberian Coasts’ itinerary departing November 30.

That’s a full-scale Med cruise for less than £40 per person per night and includes full board on the ship, on-board entertainment, all port taxes and charges. All passengers have to do is get themselves to Marseille.

The ship calls at Barcelona, Alicante, Malaga, Almeria and Genoa as well as Gibraltar and the North African cities of Tangier and Casablanca.

Other, similarly discounted Louis Majesty cruises out of Marseille are:

· 31 October, nine-day ‘Tunis, Malta & Italy’ itinerary: now from £379, or just over £47 per person per night

· 20 November, 11 day ‘Moorish Coasts’ itinerary: now from £389, that’s less than £40 per person per night

· 8 December, 13 day ‘Canary Islands, Morocco & Spain’: now from £449, also less than £40 per person per night

And once on board, cruisers can save 50 per cent when it comes to drinks, paying just £12.50 per day for an all-inclusive drinks package, with unlimited glasses of beer, wine, cocktails and spirits in the ships’ bars and at meals.

All prices are per person for twin share of a Standard Inside Stateroom: other cabin types are available. Travel to/from Marseille and shore excursions are not included in the price. Marseille is served by both low cost airlines and high-speed TGV trains.

For more information, call 0800 018 3883 or look up www.louiscruises.com.

Louis Cruises let the train take the strain

With a dozen different cruise itineraries sailing from Marseille this year Louis Cruises reports that more of their passengers are choosing the train to reach their embarkation point.

“A London to Marseille journey by Eurostar and TGV can take less than seven hours, making rail a genuine alternative to flying – and a great deal more civilised,” says the cruise line’s Peter Adamou.

Louis Cruises are always sold on a ‘cruise only’ basis allowing travellers to tailor-make their own journey to Marseille, Genoa and Athens – the embarkation points for the line’s variety of Mediterranean cruises.

For example, a seven-day/six-night ‘Mediterranean Highlights’ cruise on the Louis Majesty sails from Marseille on 29 August, 29 September and 10 October (with the option to depart a day earlier in each case from Genoa). The ship visits the islands of Menorca, Malta and Sicily as well as Tunisia during the cruise.

Prices for this cruise start at just £319 per person based on two sharing a Standard Inside Stateroom. This includes full board accommodation, on-board entertainment and all port taxes and charges but not drinks or shore excursions.

Other sailings from Marseille include an eight-day ‘Spanish Odyssey & Tangier’ itinerary on the Louis Majesty (from £349 per person) and an 11-day ‘Adriatic Coast, Italy and Ionian’ cruise on the Orient Queen from £519 per person.

NB: Eurostar.com is currently advertising return travel to Marseille from £119 return.