Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Hello everyone and just a few lines to thank you for all your support during the year. Steve has to go in to “Dry dock for refurbishment” over the holiday period and will be back in service on January 2nd.

However, there are loads of goodies already lined up, among which are a stunning safari/wildlife river cruise in East Africa from AMA Waterways, “Strictly Dancing” with P&O and new cruises in Antarctica and The Galapagos.

In the meantime, there are FREE copies of World of Cruising magazine on offer through the The Cruise Line’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/TheCruiseLine. All you have to do is ‘like’ the Facebook page and then send your postal address to info@cruiseline.co.uk and they’ll send one out in the post to you. Hurry whilst stocks last!

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all.

Reef and Rain Forest Cruises

By guest blogger Steve Newman

Reef and Rainforest is proud to present an unparalleled range of first-rate wildlife cruises on carefully selected small ships and expedition vessels, mostly to destinations in which they have years of experience. The emphasis is on wildlife and natural history, both above and below water. None of the ships has more than 150 passengers, and many a good deal fewer, so that pristine natural locations won't be swamped. On most cruises, biologists, conservationists and other specialists act as your guides, better to reveal the hidden mysteries of the natural world.

Destinations include North and Central America, Peru, Brazil, Galapagos Islands, Antarctica, Arctic, India, Africa and Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Seychelles, Papua New Guinea.

Highlights include:

Antarctic Fly Cruise - Antarctica XXI the first air cruise to Antarctica. Jumping over Cape Horn and the mythical waters of the Drake Passage, Antarctica XXI invites you to a unique experience that will take you to one of the most remote places on earth, the coldest, highest, windiest, driest, and most inhospitable continent - Antarctica. In less than 2 hours of flying from Punta Arenas to King George Island, the largest Island of the South Shetland Archipielago, you will be at the gates of the white continent. From King George Island we will navigate for six days and five nights along the Antarctic Peninsula, visiting the most wonderful places and enjoying the best wildlife sites of Antarctica.

Exploring Alaska’s Coastal Wilderness -
Cruise length: 8 days
Highlights: Spend a full day in Glacier Bay National Park; kayak and zodiac among icebergs in Tracy Arm Fjord; visit favoured summer feeding areas of humpback whales; and explore coastlines with some of the highest densities of nesting bald eagles

Amazon cruise (Above): Iquitos to Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve
Cruise length: 4, 5 or 8 days
Highlights: Explore small inlets, winding river systems, local villages and the wildilfe rich Pacaya Samiria National Reserve. The wildlife of the Reserve includes 13 species of primates and 200 species of birds

7-night Naturalist Cruises in the Galapagos
Cruise length: 8 days
Highlights: Explore one of the world's great natural wonders where geographical isolation has led to the evolution of may unique species, including marine iguanas, giant toroises and Darwin finches.

For more information loook at Reef and Rain Forest Cruises

The Adventure Cruise Collection

By guest blogger Steve Newman

Adventure cruising is the fastest growing section of the market, with more and more people of all ages wanting to 'get up close' to nature.

The Cruise Line have just launched their new Adventure Cruise Collection brochure, and I strongly advise you to get a copy if this is your style of cruising.

From watching bears fishing for salmon in Alaskan rivers to swimming with turtles in the Caribbean, getting up close to polar bears in the Arctic or lying on the snow to snap away at Emperor Penguins, this is a must for any adventure cruiser. Destinations include the Galapagos, Hawaii, New Zealand, Central America and a whole lot more. Find out more by logging on to the http://www.cruiseline.co.uk/ or call them on 0800 008 6677.

Celebrity New Casual Evening Dining service

By guest blogger Steve Newman

Celebrity Cruises is revamping its evening offerings in its “lido,” or primary casual dining venues. Moving away from a sit-down experience and towards an “international marketplace” approach, the offerings will blend classic and contemporary cuisine.

“Since the launch of our Solstice Class in 2008, our guests have shared a great deal of positive feedback about the flavours and variety offered in our marketplace-style Oceanview Café venues, so we are taking that concept to the rest of the fleet,” said Jacques Van Staden, Vice President, Culinary Operations (above).

The new evening casual dining service will present a flavourful array of authentic cuisine, including:

• A made-to-order curry station featuring Indian staples such as raitha, papadums and paratha
• A made-to-order pasta station enhanced with assorted breads and a salad bar
• Two fresh, made-to-order sushi stations
• Two made-to-order stir-fry stations featuring Asian-inspired ingredients and preparation
• A Mediterranean-inspired lineup of antipasti, olives, cheeses and assorted cold meats
• A carving station, with grilled meats such as pork chops, New York strip steak, chicken breast, and grilled fish
• Multiple fresh vegetables, a “loaded” baked potato station, and a variety of sauces such as béarnaise and gravies
• A made-to-order pizza station open until 12:30am, featuring fresh garlic bread and antipasti items
• Two dessert stations

Celebrity Cruises’ will no longer offer tableside service in a traditional “sit-down” style during its evening casual dining service. The evening lido dining service will begin at 6pm each evening and will be available onboard Celebrity Century, Constellation, Infinity, Millennium and Summit by the end of October. The changes will not affect Celebrity Xpedition, the 92-guest megayacht sailing year-round in the Galapagos Islands.

More information about all of Celebrity Cruises casual dining offerings is available at http://www.celebritycruises.com/ or visit them at at The Cruise Show at the NEC Birmingham this weekend. For great deals, be sure to check out the Celebrity section of specialist agent The Cruise Line Ltd.

Galapagos Hopper

By guest blogger Steve Newman

If you are thinking of going island hopping, I guess the Galapagos are are pretty good place to do it. Far too much has been written about these amazing islands to repeat it here but what is not so well known is that certain islands are barred from being visited by the larger cruise ships.

This is where vessels such as International Expeditions' Evolution (above right) come in to play. The 32-guest ship is one of the few vessels allowed to visit Genovesa Island on her ten-day Galapagos tour. Visiting this island is like popping into a private nature reserve as it has more bird species than any other in the the archipelago.

The point is that on this cruise you'll find yourself just inches away from giant tortoises, penguins, iguanas and many other wild animals. You can even kayak, snorkel and swim with sea lions or take a panga ride to search for endangered turtles and white-tipped reef sharks.

The company's policy of having small numbers on its cruises is rewarded with your onboard naturalists and experts being able to import so much more information to you.

Their Amazon river journey, for example, only has 28 guests and the Papua New Guinea cruise is restricted to 16, and even then you break into smaller groups for a deeper exploration of the rain forests.

International Expeditions also has a strong tradition of conservation, bringing help to both the environments and local eco-systems they visit, as well as the people who live there. There are also extensions to these cruises and, if you want to go even further afield, Antarctica and East Greenland are amongst the other destinations on offer.

New World of Cruising

The new edition of World of Cruising is now up and running and available for order, for anyone who is not already a subscriber.

The Summer issue is packed with great destination features and ship reviews, plus some superb historical perspectives on the evolution of cruising. We start with our in-depth look at the region of Chilean Patagonia with Nomads of the Seas (as we've previewed here on Time Spent At Sea), and then journey out take in The Nile, the Gulf of Arabia, the Brahmaputra River in India and on to the Galapagos.

We highlight the world's largest ship, Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, and one of the smallest, the unique British-flagged Patricia of Trinity House. We also have another of our special Cruise Cuisine features, focusing on the large-scale but high-quality offerings of Cunard's Queen Mary 2.

Staying topical, we have an in-depth look at the subject of 'Green' Cruising and what makes a ship eco-friendly, while we obviously also have our usual array of regular features, like The Admiral, Aft View, Cruise Fashion and the Passenger Perspective view.

The essential World of Spas section visits the top spas of the Mediterranean, as well as offering the latest News and Beauty File treatments.

It all adds up to the very best reading anywhere in the wide World of Cruising, so make sure you're on board this summer!

PS: To subscribe click here!

Celebrity Push Boat Out For Pre-Packaged Drinks

Celebrity Cruises are busy patting themselves on the back with their latest initiative under the rather cumbersome 'Designed for You' marketing platform, but they may well have something.

Several operators (Royal Caribbean for soft drinks, Holland America with their Signature Cocktails Card) have already dabbled in the pre-packaged drinks option, but no-one seems to have done it with such a key eye as Celebrity, who released a big press announcement about it earlier today.

If you can filter out the self-congratulatory tone, it read:

MIAMI, May 3, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --Discerning cruisers have long applauded Celebrity Cruises for its award-winning ships' ability to deliver outstanding service, world-class cuisine and enriching activities in a stylish atmosphere. Now, inspired by its "Designed for you" brand platform and guests' positive response to being able to pre-book aspects of their cruise vacation such as shore excursions and specialty dining reservations, Celebrity has created a way for guests to purchase a variety of beverage packages before their cruise.

"We took our guests' favorite beverages and bundled them into packages that are simple to order from home," said Jacques Van Staden, Vice President, Culinary Operations. "By the time guests board the ship, they can relax knowing that their favorite drinks are arranged for; they can then focus on enjoying themselves in the spa, exploring destinations through shore excursions, or simply lounging by the pool."

What it all means in real terms is as follows. Celebrity has created 4 beverage packages - two 'classic' options and two 'premium' options.

The "Classic Non-Alcoholic Package" features soft drinks, bottled and fresh-squeezed juices, premium coffee and bottled water, and is available at $14.95/person, per day.

The "Premium Non-Alcoholic Package" includes everything in the classic non-alcoholic package but adds speciality non-alcoholic coffee drinks, name-brand bottled water, canned energy drinks and flavoured bottled water, smoothies and frozen non-alcoholic drinks, at $18.40/person, per day.

Celebrity's "Classic Package" features everything in the classic non-alcoholic package, plus beers with a value of up to $5 per serving and spirits, cocktails and wines by the glass with a value of up to $8 per serving. It costs $44.85/person, per day.

The "Premium Package" features all the beverages in the non-alcoholic package plus all beers, spirits, cocktails and wines by the glass with a value of up to $12 per serving, and costs $56.35/person, per day. All prices include a standard 15% service charge.

My only question would be: Would people really spend $57/day under normal circumstances (making sure they have at least 5 drinks a day)? Alternatively, would it encourage more people to drink WAY too much?

Of more interest, perhaps are Celebrity's wine packages, which can also be pre-booked. These include the "Sommelier's Package," the choice of a 3, 5 or 7-bottle lineup of premium wines; a wider variety in a "Captain's Package"; or a "Build Your Own" package designed for those who want to maximize their taste in wine while enjoying a discount (at $114, $148.50 and $225 per package).

The "Build Your Own" package allows connoisseurs to select three upper-range bottles of wine that each cost at least $75 and enjoy a 15% discount. Bottles of wine in any of Celebrity's wine packages can be uncorked in one onboard venue, then recorked and stored until the guest is ready to reopen them.

Celebrity's beverage packages, which are sold on a per-person basis, can be purchased up to 4 days before sailing, via the line's website, www.celebritycruises.com/beveragepackages.

Guests also can access the ordering system via a link in Celebrity's electronic pre-cruise documents, which also provide links to facilitate pre-cruise booking of other offerings such as shore excursions, speciality dining reservations and main dining room preferences. However, guests can also purchase the beverage packages onboard after sailing.

When a guest pre-purchases a beverage package, it will flag the check-in system to add corresponding graphic icons per package to the guest's SeaPass card. A guest will simply need to present his or her SeaPass card in bars, restaurants or by the pool, to enjoy the pre-purchased package.

The packages will become available between May 14 and 21, as ships have different launch dates for the new packages. Celebrity Xpedition, the 92-passenger vessel sailing year-round in the Galapagos Islands, already offers complimentary alcoholic beverages and soft drinks as part of the all-inclusive fare. The wine packages are not available on Celebrity's Solstice-class ships.

We're on Countdown Central here at Chez Veness, ready for our big epic adventure of the year - off to Chile and a week's cruise with Nomads of the Seas followed by a post-cruise stay in the capital Santiago.

It marks the start of our loose 'theme' with World of Cruising magazine for 2010, the whole subject of adventure cruising and the best ways to do it in different parts of the world.

We have already highlighted the new Adventure Cruise Collection just published by our sister company The Cruise Line Ltd, but our subjects for the magazine promise to go into a lot more depth in each case.

We will open the Spring edition with the great Pacific North-West, exploring the little-known region between Seattle and Vancouver (including the charming San Juan islands), and then go on to present Chilean Patagonia in all its splendour. After that, we go on to sample river-cruising in Indo-China; the classic Norwegian Coastal Voyage of Hurtigruten; the Galapagos with Haugan Cruises; Alaska in the company of American Safari Cruises; and discover how to enjoy a true African safari with your cruise.

But, for now, we are suitably excited about the prospects of a flight from Miami to Santiago and then Santiago to Puerto Montt (both with LAN Airways, about whom we hear good things) to meet up with Nomads and their unique operation.

It is certainly one of the most unusual and enticing trips I will have tried as editor of the magazine, and one which has been a long-standing ambition since I first saw the BBC TV documentary series Flight of the Condor back in the 1970s.

The whole region of sub-equatorial South America has long been a major fascination for me and this will be the ideal opportunity to discover if the fantasy lives up to the reality. We should get to see a lot of the Chilean Andean landscape and its wildlife (the whole week is subtitled as a Wildlife Cruise), and I will have the camera very firmly primed for lots of pictures - many of which you will see in our Summer edition.

Following that up with a few days in Santiago and a chance to visit the neighbouring wine country should be equally captivating. It is a city and region about which I know little (apart from what the Lonely Planet guidebook has told me so far!), but it promises to add an extra dimension to our trip.

So you'll have to excuse me if I seem a little distracted this week. But it should be worth waiting for...!