First Steel Cut for Celebrity Eclipse

The first steel was cut today at Meyer Werft in Papenburg for Celebrity Eclipse.

Celebrity Eclipse will be the third in the 122,000-ton Solstice class and is scheduled for delivery in June 2010. The first, Celebrity Solstice, will be floated out in August, and delivered in October.

The complete article appeared in the July 11, 2008, edition of Cruise News Daily.

From the good idea, considering dept:

Oceania has decided to drop the 3-day call at Yangon, Myanmar, on Insignia's 16-night cruise from Dubai to Singapore. Much of Myanmar has been devastated by Cyclone Nargis last month.

The itinerary has been adjusted by adding a day here and there so the ship will still depart Dubai on December 4 and arrive Singapore on December 20. On the bright side, the revision now makes a 3-day excursion to the Taj Mahal possible. The down side is the excursion costs $1899.


View Larger Map

From the Dominos Eat Your Heart Out Department

Another world record for Costa Cruises. This one has nothing to do with maritime matters, however. This one got a little attention for a company in a market where they aren't quite as well known as in many other parts of the world, but more important, the object of the world record went to feed Sydney's homeless.

It took 826 freshly-cooked pizzas, laid out on tables stretching more than 725 feet down the length of Norton Street in Leichhardt, known as Sydney’s "Little Italy," to break the record for the world's longest line of pizzas. It took 25 chefs, more than 1100 pounds of flour, 66 gallons of tomato sauce and 661 pounds of mozzarella cheese to accomplish the task.

And just how did they arrive at the number of pizzas to line up? Costa Classica which is now based in Asia, a prime cruise market for Australians, is 725 feet long, or 826 pizzas in length, apparently an Italian unit of measurement.

As soon as the world record was verified, the pizzas were collected by OzHarvest, for delivery to local charities to feed the homeless and disadvantaged. Costa also made a cash donation of A$10 for every meter (221) of pizza to another local charity fund.

Prince Albert Named in Monaco

With a snip of a ribbon yesterday (June 3, 2008) in Monaco, HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco named Silversea's new expedition ship Prince Albert II.

The ship will enter service on June 12 with an expedition from London to the Arctic Circle.

Sooner Rather Than Later

In this CND article we looked at the reason why a cruise ship is almost never delivered late anymore, and why so many actually enter service before the original inaugural date the cruise line sets. These "early" deliveries have created problems for cruise lines in that many people who book the inaugural don't just want to be one of the first to sail on the new ship, they want to be on the first sailing no matter when it is. It seems that never really occurred to the cruise lines. In the CND article we looked at why that detail escaped their attention.

Some cruise lines are now understanding that some of their customers want the experience of being on the inaugural cruise and they will change their date willingly to do it. Recently, when they decided to put their new ships into service early, both Princess and Celebrity have employed a solution that comes with a risk to them. For passengers on the inaugural sailing, they have made duplicate reservations on the new inaugural date giving them both same stateroom and their original fare. They then have allowed them a couple of weeks to decide which they want. Of course the risk for the line is that it moves them closer to the sailing dates knowing that they are holding one reservation that will certainly be canceled, and the closer they come to sailing date, the more risk there is to the line that it will be harder to sell the unused space.

CND heard from executives at both lines about how popular the decision has been with customers.

The complete article was published in the June 2, 2008, edition of Cruise News Daily.