Mum’s The Word on a Fred Olsen Cruise!

Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines always likes to celebrate an important occasion - and to make things extra special for guests, whatever the season. And, with Mother’s Day fast approaching, the ships are all planning ways to pamper mothers on board on Sunday April 3.

The specific Mother’s Day offering will vary from ship to ship, but includes giant cakes in the restaurants, emblazoned with ‘Happy Mother’s Day’, special lunch menus, celebratory cocktails in the bars and champagne packages, all designed to make mums feel appreciated.

Balmoral (above), harking back to an old tradition, will be offering Simnel Cake (most often associated with Easter, but it actually has long associations with Mothering Sunday), as well as special prayers in the day's church service.

Boudicca’s Mother’s Day activity includes a delightful enhanced tea, with musical accompaniment from the Rosario Trio, while, on Braemar, the mixologists have created a wonderful cocktail, Mum’s Fizz, a delicious blend of sparkling wine, vodka, cranberry juice and mint, garnished with soft fruit – a snip at £3.95. There is also a Mother’s Day celebration package – a half bottle of Moet & Chandon Champagne, and strawberries (with or without cream) for £21.25.

The Fred Olsen fleet will be in these exotic locations to celebrate Mother’s Day:

Balmoral – cruising between Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Salalah (Oman).

Boudicca – cruising between Santa Cruz de la Palma (Canary Islands) and Lisbon (Portugal).

Braemar – in port, Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic).

Black Watch – in port, Mykonos (Greece).

Find out more about Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines at www.fredolsencruises.com or contact the specialist cruise agents of The Cruise Line Ltd.

Present Your Mother with a Bouquet of Flowers

The special flower presented to mothers is carnation in the popular world, carnation is a species of flower with slender green stems and colorful beautiful flowers, whose petals compact and difficult to wither, as well as spindly leaves that not easy to curl, carnation flowers are graceful and rich, with elegant and chic poses.

Red carnation symbolizes passion, justice, goodliness and never give up, dedicated to mother and wish her mother good health and longevity;

Pink carnation symbolizes beauty, youth and hot love, dedicated to mother and wish her forever young and beautiful;

White carnation stands for pure love of children to mother, dedicated to mother to express real love and sincere gratitude to mother;

Yellow carnation symbolizes thanksgiving, dedicated to mother and thanks for her hard working.

　　
In China the special flower accustomed to dedicate to mother is hemerocallis flower or day lily, also known as Wang-You-Cao in Chinese. Hemerocallis flower is a species of perennial herb and belong the lily family. Hemerocallis flower has fleshy rhizome and long leaves, blossom orange red or orange-yellow flowers on the top of its slender branches, very beautiful, and very suitable for enjoyed watching, the buds of hemerocallis flower called Jin-zhen (in Chinese), so it also called daylily buds.

In the Mother's Day, children may present a bunch of day lily (Wang-You-Cao) to mother, and bless mother away from trouble and sorrow, wish her enjoyed a pleasurable life and have a good health and many happy returns.

On this special day, let us present a bunquet of flowers and our best blessing to all mothers in the world！All take action now, give mothers a happy holiday and do our obligations as children.

* Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China

Wish All Mothers Happy in the Coming Mother's Day

As a holiday thanks for the mothers, the Mother's Day was first appeared in ancient Greece, the date is on annual January 8, while in the United States, Canada and some other countries, it is on the second Sunday in May each year, while in some other countries, the date of Mother's Day is also different. On such a special day Mothers will received gifts usually.

Generally, people considered carnations as a special flower that suited for devoted to mothers, and in China, the mother's flower is Hemerocallis, which also known as Wang-You-Cao.

The Mother's Day is popular firstly in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions, and then been accepted in the mainland later. Expensive jewelry, carnations flowers that represents motherly love, love desserts made specially, exquisite handmade greeting cards and so on, all have become popular mother's day gifts that used to presents love to mothers…

As of 80s, 20th century, Mother's Day in Mainland China is gradually accepted by the people widely, and since 1988, there are some cities such as Guangzhou in southern China and some other cities started to organize celebration activities for Mother's Day, one of important parts of which is to judged the "good mother". At the end of the 20th century, this holiday was spread increasingly in many areas in mainland China. Today, on the second Sunday in May each year, together with people in other countries in the world, the Chinese people are accustomed to express love and thanks to mothers…

Of course, Mother's Day in China has more Chinese flavor, Chinese people used their special way to express their deep love and thanks to mothers. On the Mother's Day annually, people will give away fresh flowers, sweet cakes and hand-prepared meals and so on to mothers, children used to dutiful from their childhood will try to prepared dinners for mother, as well as washing face, make up and painting pictures for mother, and try best to give their mothers a happy and joyful holiday…

Aside from expressing love to mothers on this day, people will also do charitable donations and volunteer services, via which and other type of actions to express love and thanks to more mothers in the society…

On this day of Mother's Day, Chinese mothers will held cooking competitions, fashion shows as well as other type of activities such as mothers tourism, "excellent mothers" selection and so on in different areas, thus to celebrate their own festival.

Respect for mother, the Mother's Day to promote mother's love, has become a conventional festival in China.

* * Original address of this China gift post: China Gift and Fine Arts & Crafts in China